Doesn't have the fancy d3 visualization, but here's a better analysis over the long run (30 years). It even stacks the deck against owning at the start by assuming 100% financing. There's a few missing components (mortgage insurance etc.) but even if you add those numbers into this rather detailed analysis, the conclusion doesn't change. It's actually a good enough analysis that you can just added or subtract a few other scenarios from it yourself and until you're describing some very bizarre circumstances, the basic conclusion holds. All the calculations and reasoning are provided here. Buying is unambiguously a better use of your money over the long term. It's not even close.
Lots of people here describe renting as having an upside because you can remain location mobile, but that's true of owning as well. The only option at that point isn't to sell your home and then buy one somewhere else, you can also rent out your current home, and buy a second one. You can continue doing that ad nauseum, except now you've convinced other people to pay for your mortgage instead of you. In the end you'll own a few properties and all the people who rented from you will own nothing.
Something mentioned in my link but not explicitly in the OP, rent goes up, mortgage payments stay the same or can go down. Over 30 years, your housing burden goes down significantly providing you with increased monthly liquidity.
At the end of the day, you own the property at the end and for all years >30 you effectively live for "free" (minus taxes).
I urge everybody reading the OP to take a few spare hours and run the numbers themselves and see if the easy conclusion here holds out for them.
That only works if a few things are true, primarily that you can rent your properties for more than their carrying costs. If you bought and then the bottom drops out--which, potentially, causes you to need to move for work so you have to sell low--then this isn't as feasible. Second, you also take on the risk of being a landlord, so you're now responsible for the maintenance and upkeep on two or more properties and you get the cost of vacancies.
True that your housing costs will eventually drop to near-zero (upkeep and property taxes always exist), but renting out your place won't always help you with that. Besides, more and more people are winding up in blasted Homeowners' Associations with deed restrictions that prevent renting entirely or more than a certain, small, percentage of rentals.
Ultimately, as you said, the decision is an individual one, but the conclusion is usually far from easy.
(Even more bonus fun: Try accidentally being the landlord of someone who decides to cook meth in one of your rentals. Does your investment risk profile consider this? Remember that rentals are, fundamentally, investments, unlike your primary residence which is, first and foremost, your shelter.)
I know a multiple property owners. Here's some of the few more common cases as to why people don't strike it rich immediately when renting out properties.
1. abandonment, they just leave without paying
2. they incessantly ask for features
3. they hoard
4. they ruin beyond the security deposit and then dont pay (pets etc)
5. they consistently pay late
6. long time unoccupied eats away at profit due to special assessments, condo fees, hoa fees, whatever costs there are in the community
7. natural disasters (california/florida yikes)
8. simple non-payment. try renting in a renter protected area like dc (here's a hint, dont).
It's not the road to riches that you hear whispered occasionally. The people who actually seem to make a profit from it are tied to housing in some way - either realtors or contractors/property managers and this is because they get the non-public deals and fix houses themselves. But even they dont make that much income from until much later and you can be sure they had to work long for it.
Rent will almost always go up. If I rented my house the moment I bought it, I would be running a nice deficit and have nowhere to live. Today I can rent it out and the market rate will make me enough money I can then go rent a 2 bed room apartment and still have a surplus. This is because my mortgage costs either stay the same or drop...in dollars priced at the year I borrowed the money originally. While the rental rate increases have matched or exceeded inflation every year since then.
If I bought a home in my neighborhood and rented it out tomorrow, I'd take a hit on it for maybe 4 or 5 years, about $100-200/mo. But trends show I'd match my outlays after that and within 10 years have made all my losses back plus a monthly profit plus whatever property appreciation the market has decided to give me.
TBH, being a landlord is a huge PIA for the reasons you hint at, which is why lots of people don't do it, but financially it can make easy sense if you can stomach a few years of losses till rents rise enough to exceed your outlay. Ideally you'd rent at market rates, when your mortgage and other expenses were far below market rate. That's the situation I'm in now, my monthly expenses are about 50-60% of the market rate rental price for a house like the one I live in. My wife and I have already decided that when we move, we're just going to rent this property out and use it to make money. Even with the overhead of a property management company, we'll come out in the black every month. If we stay here, we're on track to pay off the entire mortgage in 2-3 years anyway and then we'll be living for close to free (minus HOA and property taxes). We could both live comfortably on part time jobs at Target at that point.
One of the problems I see in many of the Rent vs Buy comparisons is that people who favor renting seem to think landlords are a charity of some kind who magically make all the extra costs of owning a property disappear. But nobody is in the landlord business to lose money like this, as much as the market will bear, your goal as a landlord is to pass along as many possible costs to your renter as you can and not just rely on property value appreciation to dig you out of your financial hole in 20 years this includes, but is not limited to: HOA fees, utilities, taxes, appliances, repairs and maintenance, common area service, everything.
http://assayviaessay.blogspot.com/2014/04/rent-or-buy.html
Lots of people here describe renting as having an upside because you can remain location mobile, but that's true of owning as well. The only option at that point isn't to sell your home and then buy one somewhere else, you can also rent out your current home, and buy a second one. You can continue doing that ad nauseum, except now you've convinced other people to pay for your mortgage instead of you. In the end you'll own a few properties and all the people who rented from you will own nothing.
Something mentioned in my link but not explicitly in the OP, rent goes up, mortgage payments stay the same or can go down. Over 30 years, your housing burden goes down significantly providing you with increased monthly liquidity.
At the end of the day, you own the property at the end and for all years >30 you effectively live for "free" (minus taxes).
I urge everybody reading the OP to take a few spare hours and run the numbers themselves and see if the easy conclusion here holds out for them.