INFO: What is the mortgage like compared to renting?

I was in a similar situation with an ex, but it was me who owned the property. He paid 50% of what it would've cost for us to rent a place together (my mortgage payments were about the same as rent would've cost), plus 50% of the bills that you would get when renting (basically water and electricity). I paid 100% the bills that came in from home ownership. It ended up being a great agreement - he didn't pay anymore than he would've if we had rented a place together, but we didn't have the downsides of living in someone else's property and had the freedom to make improvements to the property.