I hear this all the time, and I respectfully disagree. For example, take a look at this house: 103 Lanyard Bnd, Peachtree City, GA 30269 is For Sale | Zillow

It's listed for $239,000. The Zestimate is $202,359 and the Rent Zestimate is $1,440. According to Zillow, if I have a credit score in the 720 - 739 range, I can get a 3.761% APR on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage. Let's assume I can buy the house for the Zestimate instead of the asking price.

$750 - Mortgage
$211 - Property Taxes (31.324 millage on 40% of Fair Market Value)
$168 - Maintenance (1% of value of home)
$71 - Insurance ($35 per $100,000 value)
$270 - Opportunity Cost ($40,472 down payment at 8% return)

$1,470 a month to buy the house. $1,440 a month to rent the house. It gets worse if we actually pay the asking price.

It's sometimes cheaper to rent the house. Renting provides greater flexibility both geographically and financially. It also has less downside risk. Housing returned 0.4% per year from 1890 to 2004. Buying a house is a large, concentrated, illiquid commitment of capital. It's not always the smart choice even if you can afford it.

I realize that the case for buying gets better if you can assume you're going to stay in the house for 30 years and take advantage of the fixed interest rate 10 or 20 years from now when inflation has devalued your mortgage payments, but that's a pretty big assumption for a lot of us.

Buying a house exposes one to a lot more risk than renting. In many cases, renting is better financially than buying.

That's absolutely the truth.