In a lot of cities, new housing development is deliberately surpressed, which in turn causes rent to skyrocket. In other areas, where land is still cheap, its very often cheaper (in the long run, maybe 10-20 years) to just get a mortgage to buy or build a house because newer housing stock is still being put into the system to which helps regulate the max price landlords can get away with before people just start building their own homes or buying new one from developers.