You can bounce around the place, maybe live in a much nicer place than you could afford to buy, more easily move cities, etc. In my twenties this was a no brainer tradeoff to me, plus a lot of people were in negative equity due to the financial crash.

But you can also be forced to move prematurely. That nice place isn't your nice place, it's some other person's nice place, and maybe someday they want their brother or aunt to use it instead of you.

Depending on your relative financial capability, maybe there won't be anywhere within your means to move to in the same area. Maybe you'll treat this as a grand adventure every time it happens, but as you get older maybe you'll want to actually live near your friends, family, favourite restaurants, cafes, parks, Padel courts, etc.

At some point in your life you may not be earning money for a while (illness, career break, whatever) and certainly when you get older your finances may become more precarious – this is where owning tends to have more power than renting.

I'm not sorry I didn't buy a house or apartment in my twenties, but when I eventually bought in my thirties it was a relief not to have to care any more whether some landlord would decide to "alter the deal" at any point.

Hell, that's lower than inflation.

It may be no better than flipping coins.

Edit: incidentally, only mentioning SA as academics there developed the theory around it, to the best of my knowledge.

This article looks like a decent overview: https://medium.com/better-programming/understanding-the-offs...