renting the equivalent place would probably be extremely expensive too.

Right, like I said, mortgage is not cheaper, certainly not half as cheap. The market I'm in is a metropolis, it contains every range of the market, it just depends how much gun violence you prefer.

Parents and brother went in on a house together so he could live near work. Rents out the main floor for $3750 a month (3 bedroom) and that covers the mortgage so he can afford to pay the utilities and lives in the basement.

Well in my very recent experience it is extremely, painfully, unavoidably true. That's why I said it. We just bought a house, 150k less than we qualified for, and our monthly payment is 33% higher than we were paying in rent. Rent is far from cheap, there's just no such thing as an inexpensive house unless you want one in a terrible neighborhood or an hour drive outside the city. In the first case, not only is it a bad idea just to live in these neighborhoods, the chances of making money on the resale are next to nil. The burbs option of course offers more for your money, but that comes with more maintenance, yardwork, housework, gas money, transit stress, etc. We worked with very knowledgeable, trustworthy realtor and mortgage brokers and there's simply no math in the current market that gets mortgage payments lower than the rent we were paying without buying a literal, active crack house.

And to claim there's no extra fees involved with buying and owning a home compared to renting is either utter delusion or repugnant gaslighting.