Rent vs. Own

I've been reading some minimalist blogs and here's the thing. Lots of them travel a lot for business, so they've actually given up their apartments or houses and live out of a suitcase... Is that even possible?? I could see how you could save a lot of money on rent... and probably even more on a house... What is the difference anyhow, between renting and owning?? We all think that owning is the way to go, because your equity goes up, but my financial planner actually told me that historically, over time, property only goes up 2% per year. So if interest rates are more than that... you're actually losing money! Plus... you put a lot of maintenance into a home... So... what is it... better to rent or own? Since lots of people nowadays buy condos because they are well within their price range... let's take a look at them first...

Own:
Mortgage - $1600/month
Condo Fees - $350/month
Prop Taxes - $2000/year
Maintenance - $1000/year (everything from furnace, vent, fireplace cleaning to rainyday fund for a new furnace)
Prop Ins - $350/year
Heating - $120/month
Electricity/phone/cable/internet - you'd probably need to pay in a rental anyways, so let's leave them out of the equation for now...
So that is a grand total of: $2239 per month... I had to do the math twice because that seemed ridiculous.
That is the cost of owning a condo... Owning a house would be slightly less, around $1900/month because there aren't the condo fees.

Rent:
No mortgage or condo fees
No Prop Taxes or maintenance
No Heating as usually it's hot water heat and included.
Contents Insurance - sure... maybe $250/year
So out of all that what could you rent for under $1900 or $2200 a month?? And what could you do with the leftover money? Invest it at 8%/year?? Or even 6%... Huh... Sure, you get part of your mortgage back when you sell the house, but really, when you look at it, you're paying an awful lot of interest in those first 10 years of a 25 year mortgage, which you'll never get back.

Now... if you don't own or rent... but live out of a suitcase and travel for business... what could you do with all that money? Quite a bit I think!