Personally I would've preferred to rent, but my chinese parents disagreed. In fact they "threatened" to fund my house purchase many years back when I floated the idea of renting lol. It's a chinese thing, parents want to see their kids do well and house ownership is like a rite of passage in adulthood.
Renting frees me from a lot of the commitment associated with home ownership. But since the birth of my son I decided that stability is more important for my family.