I have owned a few homes over the years and have also had many landlords. The house we rented in Lafayette, Ca in 2010 was in a nice hood. At the time it was 2 years past the financial crisis and homeownership was not something I wanted to do for a while. The land lady we rented from wanted to sell the house for 650k. That house is now 4.3 million on zillow. Granted it has since had a renovation and an addition, but still. We also rented a townhouse in Encinitas, Ca. The rent was 3k a month in 2017 and now a similar townhouse in the same complex is renting out for 6500. The problem with renting is that eventually you get priced out of the nicer hoods. The problem with not buying a house when a deal shows up in a decent hood is that eventually that hood will never be affordable to mere mortals again. Maybe these rules only apply to California.