Get a loan when interest rates are low and/or refinance when they go lower. Your alternatives are buying a house with cash or renting. I’m assuming cash is off the table, so let’s compare renting with paying off a mortgage, which can often have similar monthly payments. When you rent, you have fewer responsibilities, but you also have less control over your space and lose every penny of your monthly payment. When you own, you have more financial obligations eg repairs or upgrades, but you have more control over your space, and a portion of your monthly payment goes toward your principal, which becomes equity. That equity is yours if/when you decide to sell. If you want to pay off your mortgage more quickly than the amortization schedule and pay less interest, that is also your prerogative.

But paying rent is no different than paying interest on a home loan as far as your pocketbook is concerned, except you get to keep some of your home loan payment every month

The 30 year mortgage revolutionized hime ownership in the US. Before it existed, home ownership was totally out of reach for a much larger percentage of society than it is today