The largest avoidable source of pain and boredom in the life of a typical western citizen is their commute. - The sane response to this problem is to live as close to your place of employment as at all practical - valuing the time spent commuting at the same rate as your hourly earnings, the monthly penalty for living any significant distance at all from your job can get quite absurd for professionals just in financial terms, and the human cost is greater, because it is sucking up the time you actually can dispose of as you wish.

Home ownership increases the costs of moving residence dramatically compared to renting, and is thus not a good idea unless you have a job which you anticipate keeping for a far greater period of time than is typical in modern society. IE, do you have tenure or the effective equivalent? Then buying over renting makes sense. If you don't, all buying does is make it hurt a lot more to move when you get a new job.