But you get to keep the money you'd spend on buying the house/apartment which you can then invest into other assets. Also, who repairs what is down to agreement

But you get to keep the money you'd spend on buying the house/apartment which you can then invest into other assets. Also, who repairs what is down to agreement. I've always been renting (it's not that uncommon here, in Europe, though it is less common here, in Hungary) and the agreement was always that all repairs that are due to proper usage is to be paid for by the landlord but any damage is to be paid for by the renter (me). Now the little repairs that were due during these years (in 3 different downtown apartments) always went like this: I tell the landlord that something needs to be fixed, they tell me to call someone (or sometimes they send someone they know) and I pay for it, get the invoice which we then deduct from the rent next month. No extra profit made on the repairs. You can say that it is priced in the rent, but then that's the rent (which will be subject to competition). Yes, obviously they are looking to make some meaningful return on their investment. Whether that's higher than the mortgage's interest rate depends a lot on when they actually bought the property. But in an equilibrium the two should be pretty close because if they start to diverge too much people will either stop renting or they will stop buying apartments (and do the other).