-The max quality or size of rental properties is not that high, you may not be able to rent a nice freestanding house in some places because culturally speaking, people with more than $X usually buy.
-Landlord-tenant law may be very favourable to the landlord and not to the tenant. That motivates people to buy rather than rent and deal with shitty landlords.
In addition to that, people like being able to invest their time and money into improving their home to just the way they like it.
Having a long term place that is "home" is very important and comforting to many people. There is a reason that residences have all kinds of special legal protections and treatment that commercial real estate doesn't neccesarily have.
I think this is a very important point. In most places outside of the big cities (basically NY, SF, and Chicago), there is very little housing stock available for rent, aside from in low-income neighborhoods and near schools. Furthermore, what you do find is mostly people who are simple looking to sell but can't and are renting in the meantime--you had better bet that they will sell it out from under you at the first opportunity they get, and moving is not cheap.
Even if you are able to find a place to rent that is stable, now you have to deal with a landlord and (possibly) other tenants. You can't do what you want to the place, when you want to. I think this weighs on people.
I completely agree that too many people that shouldn't end up buying a place, and that buying a place is a lot of work. But it's about the only choice in most of the country.
-The max quality or size of rental properties is not that high, you may not be able to rent a nice freestanding house in some places because culturally speaking, people with more than $X usually buy.
-Landlord-tenant law may be very favourable to the landlord and not to the tenant. That motivates people to buy rather than rent and deal with shitty landlords.
In addition to that, people like being able to invest their time and money into improving their home to just the way they like it.
Having a long term place that is "home" is very important and comforting to many people. There is a reason that residences have all kinds of special legal protections and treatment that commercial real estate doesn't neccesarily have.