When you are born, you own your own body, later you will own your own labor, and eventually if things go well, you will own your own land in which you will possess personal property, a dwelling, and the belief that your home is your castle. While in theory you can live just fine without you owning your own home, there is something quite powerful and secure about being on your own property, free and clear.
The obvious disadvantage of not owning your own home, is that you are at the mercy of your respective landlord, and while people may very well vote with their feet, how if your feet won't take you too far, or further to this point, how if the landlords that you wish to bargain with, aren't interested in bargaining with you. While there may be plenty of laws on the books that will protect you, the wheels of justice move excruciatingly slow and always favor the rich and powerful.
When you don't own your own home, you are by definition, under the mercy and care of some other entity that in all probability does not have your best interests in mind. It often doesn't matter how much money that you make, the clothes that you wear, your educational achievements, if at the end of your day, it is at the discretion of the powers-to-be as to where and how you are able to lay your head down to sleep. Further to this point, when you are a renter, when you are a tenant, your personal freedom is further compromised by virtue that you are not the owner, therefore upon such and such notice or such and such law, the dwelling that you reside at, that contains your personal property, can be entered into for such and such purposes under some sort of due notice. When things are going well for you, this may not be much of a bother or a burden, but in times of chaos and injustice, you will find that your personal position is far less than ideal and rather burdensome to be in.
Land ownership is power and it is control, and lack of these things places you in the uncomfortable position of the graces of good government, something that historically has been in rather short supply.
Additionally, when all hell is breaking loose, owning your own land at least gives you a foundation in which to make a stand on, whereas without it, you are fighting a war without a structure to help protect and to defend you.
It is often said that you really don't appreciate things till those very things are wrested away from you. Wars, many, many wars are fought over land, its value, its location, its minerals, its water, its people, and history is replete with the victors taking the land and the vanquished relinquishing control of said lands. When you lose land you are all the poorer for that lost, and when you gain land you are all the richer for that gain.
Land ownership, in the hands of the many, are the ultimate defense against the few and corrupt who would wish to take it away. When many people are together that have similar interests, similar principles, similar assets, and similar desires, they are a powerful force that can turn back those that wish to take their land and their freedom from them. Big government and big corporations have but one abiding objective, to see that they increase in power and influence over you, and that therefore you, the individual, do nothing to stand in their way, and without land your stand will be one on which you will defend yourself on those proverbial shifting sands.