The incentives change when you become a homeowner. You reap the benefit of any improvements you do to the property; you also know for sure when you're going to leave it, and you have the freedom to do whatever you want to do to it. Before, when you were renting, any improvements you did were throwaway time and money, benefitting the landlord and future tenants more than yourself.

Many homeowners respond to these incentives by doing more improvements.

This is also why many governments (both local and federal) subsidize homeownership. It incentivizes residents to improve their properties rather than let them rot, which has positive externalities for many of the surrounding properties.

> you also know for sure when you're going to leave it

Well, about that...

There is a thing called a Compulsory Purchase Order in the UK, with equivalent in the US for example.

Guess which freehold home owner with two thumbs can expect a CPO sometime in the next 10 years?