If you have a family, there are benefits to setting down roots and buying a house. When you rent, you never know what the future holds. The owner might want to sell the property at some point and not renew your lease. This becomes a very disruptive life event for children. Homeowners of course do relocate for other reasons, but it tends to be on their own terms and not someone else's.
"This becomes a very disruptive life event for children."
Between the ages of 6 and 12, maybe. Below that age they don't really notice or care, above that age the coverage area for middle and high schools is so immense that if you move out of the coverage area it was intentionally. There are eleven thousand household units in my kids high school. Seriously claiming I wouldn't be able to rent a single one?
The worst case scenario would be kids around 10 and you live in an elementary district that has precisely one apartment building or perhaps only one (perhaps illegal?) private house rental.
The long term effects of financial devastation to the family are probably worse than having to go to a different school "Well, you can't go to college because we don't have the money anymore to help because we stayed in our upside down house back when you were in 3rd grade; but on the bright side we didn't have to move to the apartment complex on the other side of the elementary school district"
The argument is identical to if you rent an apartment while going to university, in theory you might have to drop out of that university and transfer to another if you need to move and no one will rent to you. Very few people indeed report this tragedy..
This changes quite quickly if the homeowner is living in a home worth less than their mortgage (underwater - can't move) or if they can no longer afford to pay their mortgage (have to move / declare bankruptcy). Having to shift to another rental property is a relatively small jump by comparison unless you have to shift school districts due to lack of inventory. How much risk would you take on to ensure your landlord can't kick you out?
