I used to own a house. Now I rent. The ability to walk away from the obligations that house-owning involve is worth a lot of money to me. I probably lose financially, maybe, but meanwhile I get to have a much better standard of living.
The justifications/case for home ownership can often be over-hyped. Everything works out well in a rising market. When shit hits the fan, sure my landlord can raise my rent, but I can move to another city for a better job with a very minimal hit. The stock market has created higher long term gains than the real estate market and is a hell of a lot more liquid.
The fact that people say your house is an "asset" is abuse of the definition and IMHO drives people to buy more house than they need. Sure it's an asset, but you also live there. Your liquidity is greatly reduced and your options become very limited.
Rental properties are another story. If you know what you're doing and can afford it, then I don't see issues with using that as an investing strategy. Just maybe don't buy all of them in the same city, or the same type of property. Just like with stocks and side hustles, diversification is important.
However, I'm able to rent and live in a much nicer area than where I could afford to buy.
This is the same in the US, FWIW. Most landlords aren't going to care what you do, as long as you don't damage common areas and return it in mint conditoin.
I can paint the walls, put up pictures (Berlin has better rules than UK/Australia). Not that I do when I can.
I've only been evicted a couple of times, and even then I wanted to move anyway so it was convenient. It's usually me/us moving on and the landlord annoyed that they have to find a new tenant.
And don't forget the wonderful bonus of anything that goes wrong being someone else's problem. Roof leaking? Phone the landlord. Rising damp? Phone the landlord. Mold problems? Neighbours building a new fence? Frost damage to the pathway? Pipes frozen? Window cracked? All not my problem.