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This is what most people get wrong about home ownership. Mortgage and rent are two different, unrelated things.

Rent is part of the value of a property. If you live in it, you're essentially paying its opportunity cost. That in itself has nothing to do if you borrowed money against it or not.

The only way to not pay rent is to make someone else pay for you (eg live with someone else that doesn't charge you)

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Yes, they're different things. However you need a place to live so unless you already own a paid off house, you can choose between paying a rent or paying a mortgage.

It's the bigger part of your "housing costs" in both cases.

Yeah I know. The point is the comparison is not really mortgage vs rent. From a purely financial perspective you're paying mortgage + owning costs + rent opportunity cost + liquidity risk.

If you can pay a mortgage most likely you can pay a rent, and it's going to be way cheaper if you factor everything in. And in both cases you can be evicted if you don't pay anyway.

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