Real estate is generally a "good" investment as it's considered a relatively safe way to get significant leverage. 5x leverage in the case of a 20% deposit, or even up to 20x leverage with countries that allow for 5% deposits (New Zealand).

In addition, the interest payments almost always end up being near the rent the owner would have paid, so mortgage payments are higher, but that increase is generally (and quickly becomes) principal while being able to counteract inflation of rent.

You also need to pay close attention to rent vs purchase ratios. A lot of cities are cheap to rent but expensive to buy (eg beijing 10 years ago).

It is very close to universal truth, aside some small areas with very warped market.

Even if you move out after 5 years, you still own the place and can rent it out and then it pays for itself, to skip the cost of selling it back to market

Articles like that still miss a bit of the nuance. Imagine having your house paid for, and you grow old and you have no rent to pay. Yes, you could have invested but likely you would have spent some of that money on something else, or your investments might have not worked out so well, or any other reason. Human reasons, to be specific. Owning property is like a lock.

It never fails, there's always someone who trots this thing out. We had bought our house, and then had to move and decided to rent. I was APPALLED that they wanted me to fill out an APPLICATION form, where they would decide my worth, and let me know if we would be allowed to live there. When buying a house, my cash was as good as anyone elses'. And then the management company would come inside my house to inspect that I wasn't running a meth lab or something. Thankfully that only lasted two years. I will never rent again. Majority owner-occupied neighborhoods have different characteristics as well.