I find your thoughts silly. Buying own place is must, at some point of time in Life, for various reasons. So there are only two options- Apartment, and own House (or land, constructing a House on it).
If you think, repair cost is an issue, you are missing the monthly maintenance cost of apartments. Some gated societies, charge not only monthly maintenance, but also annually charges for all the fancy stuffs. So all that cost will be certainly much more than the repair work you will incur on your own House.
Calamity concern too is illogical, it affects all options. btw, what happens when and if, an apartment goes down due to a calamity? Who own the Land, how does everyone reconstruct the apartment again? Imagine the complications.
There are only two legit concerns I see with having own House:-
(1) Security/Robbery:- Being in isolated place, if you leave the House to go on some trip, who will guard it? This can be alleviated to some extent if the House is built in a well populated area.
(2) Societal mixing, for parents/wife/Kids:- Living in own House, may be bring isolation, lack of community. On the other hand, if one lives in Gated Communities, it must be easier to find like minded people. So at least on weekends and holidays, there may be some people around to talk to and spend time with. That will work great for parents and kids specially. They need a well connected familiar gatherings.
That’s all. Personally, I still aspire to buy own House with enough open space. Or better, I dream of buying large land, and construct House on that. The best thing I like about having own House is, that one can have own Garden area. So if I can afford, sometime in future, I still dream to buy land, large enough in area that I can build House only on half of the land, and keep half of it vacant and used for parking, gardening etc Probably 3000-4000 sqr feet would be great. But that is just a dream😄
