It depends on the market conditions. If you can put $1m in BTC and rent a place for a year, and the BTC price double in that time and your rent is less than $1m over that period, then renting was a good decision, because the BTC investment turned out better than the potential real estate investment.

Interest rates are important too.

One thing people often miss is when you own, the mortgage payments are not your housing cost, because they consist of principal and interest payments and only the latter component is your cost. Principal repayments add to your equity; you're just moving money from one pocket to another.
E.g. if your monthly mortgage payments are $1000, $700 of which is principal and $300 of which is interest, you're only paying $300 to live. You're unlikely to find a place to rent for that little. The remaining $700, however, is a commitment to move money from one pocket to another, and you have to have it or you'll get in trouble.

Low interest rate environments favor owning your home, but they also lead to property price bubbles, because when it makes more sense to own, more people do it and prices go up. An arbitrage opportunity arises and gets arbed out. So if you bought a year ago, your house may be worth less now that the interest rates are higher.

But then again, when interest rates are high and you're tempted to rent, the higher mortgage costs are passed onto tenants. So it may be a good time to buy, especially if you don't have to commit to the current high rates for long.

All in all, owning is good and it tends to be a safe investment with less volatility than many other investments. If you can afford it, it puts you ahead of many who can't, even if otherwise the conditions favor it. This creates a market inefficiency which you can exploit.