THANK YOU for all the replies! I'm 34 and have always lived in apartments. I'm sick and tired of annoying, loud neighbors.
But primarily, at every lease renewal, they raise the rates by at least $150. I'm paying $1250 for a two-bedroom right now. There is a MAJOR economic and job boom where I live because of the oil field and all the apartments in the city have waiting lists up to a year, so everyone is pretty much trapped into paying into inflated and extorted rental rates. You can't even find a vacant hotel within 100 square miles.

Plus, when shit hits the fan and the dollar = a package of Sweet 'N Low, the banks can't foreclose on all of us at once. I'd at least have a relatively secure home base with a water well, not to mention a garden and bunker *ahem*.. um, I mean storage shed.