Is the argument here that there is never inconvenience or downside to home ownership? That sounds rather naïve and one-sided. The flip side of all this is that as an owner, any sort of problem is YOUR problem. And there are a lot of potential problems with a building.
Absolutely, owning a home is more work. However, IME it is less inconvenient, because we are able to better control the timing of that work. For example, when our roof leaked one night, we were able to get it fixed the very next day. When we needed electrical work done, we scheduled it for when we would be gone, so as not to disrupt our lives.
There's a valid point that we had to pay for these out of pocket, instead of a landlord paying. In return for these random financial hits, we get a predictable mortgage and an increased property value, which sure beats the yearly rent increases [1].
[1] CA's horrible Prop 13 limits our property tax increase to 2% a year.
