Depends how much risk you are transferring onto the asset owner when renting. At a minimum they are taking risk on the useful life of the asset - they might als

Depends how much risk you are transferring onto the asset owner when renting. At a minimum they are taking risk on the useful life of the asset - they might also be taking risk on maintenance costs etc. An asset owner will want to be compensated for taking that risk (over and above expecting to break even on average ie in the form of a margin) whereas if you take the risk yourself as an owner then that doesn’t factor into your cash costs.