With all due respect, I’d say that the data show that buying beats renting in almost all circumstances.

Arguing that it is less expensive to rent than to buy usually means you’re willing to rent a smaller place and/or one in a worse neighborhood than you’d be willing to buy in, or that you think you’re savvier about real estate than the landlords you’d be renting from.

The former is quite possible, but I’d argue that the latter is highly implausible in almost all cases.