Renting for me generally sounds like a bad deal. On the same period the stock grew even more (ex: S&P x4.5 from 2000). So, if you want to say that if you lived 30 years ago in Munich AND did not save anything you would have lived better, I will have to answer that it was just delaying the issue of not being able to save - the ones that were able to save (maybe not living in Munich, maybe other ways), might at some point come and buy something in Munich. Accumulating wealth too much into some hands was the issue decades ago and remains an issue today. Just that decades ago people might not have been aware...

The electronics industries of a couple decades ago were producing stuff that are incomparable to what we have today. Taking that into account, I would say today is "better".