The analysis of the situation in Europe shows that in the long run, competition with differing standards is detrimental to all the parties involved, since the interoperability and straight-through processing are impeded, thus giving rise to high and avoidable costs. Here, central banks regard themselves as mediators promoting and accelerating the process of standardisation.
Buying implies you will own the house at the end of the mortgage period, hence it is a form of compulsory savings in a single asset. In a purely financial sense, this decision would depend on expected rental costs versus mortgage costs, plus expected capital gains in the house versus other forms of investing/saving.