I think it mostly comes down to the relative monthly costs of paying a mortgage + maintenance, compared to the cost of rent. That is totally dependant on your local market.
When I was first married, we bought a house right away. Build equity, we thought. Well, in reality, several things made this not the best decision.
1. Rent on a 2 bedroom apartment would have been maybe 1000$. Mortgage on a 3 bedroom house was 2000 with an 80% mortgage + a 20% HEL (This was in the mortgage heyday, now you'll be paying PMI instead most likely, but same concept).
2. We had maintenance costs, which added considerably to the monthly expense.
3. Utilities in a house were higher.
So overall, we would have been much better off renting the 2 bedroom apartment and saving 1500$ a month that we would have been spending on the house every month. And then buying the house once we actually needed the space.
Now we live somewhere else and have 2 kids, so we need the 3 bedroom house. Here, we can get a 2 bedroom apartment for 600$ a month. Renting a house is 1200-1400$ a month or more. So if we need the house, it could definitely make sense to buy- although again it depends on house prices. When we owned a house here, with 5% down, and a ~230K purchase price, the mortgage was 1600/month. About 400-500 of that was going to principle, plus again we had maintenance- so really, if you add some maintenance, and subtract the principle pay down, you are about breaking even with renting. So in my area, you need to buy a house that costs less than about 230K in order for owning to be cheaper.
Of course there are other reasons to own. We will be buying again, in the 200-250K range (so right around break even), and its mostly for lifestyle reasons, not financial. We want to do yard projects, and customize the house, and not have to worry about rent being raised, or leases being terminated. Just be aware of if you are bying for a financial reason or a lifestyle reason, and if it is lifestyle, don't try to justify it as financial.
