Just on the other side of the fence... We bought our first house, sold it and now building our forever home. We rented for 8 months off my parents when we were 18.
I love owning my own place because I can do what I want with it, if I wanna paint that wall I can, if something breaks I don't have to ask to have it fixed and then wait for it to happen, I don't have to run around like a blue arse fly and clean for rent inspections, I know no one is going to randomly up and sell my house on me or that I'm going to get booted out for whatever reason... I just love that its mine and I'm not "borrowing" a house from someone. Our mortgage repayments are actually $200 less a week than what we would pay to rent something the same. If you do want to buy do your research is my advice. There are smaller lenders that offer better interest rates than the big banks.
We have saved .7% by not going through one of the big banks. I know that doesn't seem huge on paper but it is in the big scheme of things!!