Right, but the opportunity cost of the down payment is what gets you. You're forgetting that if you rent, you have a large chunk of cash that you could invest in higher yielding assets.

This isn't controversial. This is what anyone with finance expertise will tell you.

Yeah but real estate is something even people with seriously subpar IQ understand well, like gold. Its a conservative investment in most places, but risk of losing it is next to 0 realistically, which is something folks like a lot. Those that invested 20 years ago in many cases saw massive returns, in very safe manner. Not even going into airbnb and similar.

Also, if your down payments on mortgage are equal to rental fees, you won't save much renting, you just have better flexibility with moving, something great for single folks but families want opposite. In our case, for example we pay less mortgage than we would be paying in rental for same place (can check easily since symmetrical apartment next door is rented).

I don't want risky investments with potentially better returns for me, real estate is good enough.

Finance people are welcome to go live in shoeboxes and invest in higher yielding assets, clears them out of the housing market for the rest of us who value a house to live in over higher yields.