I've seen houses which just grow shrubs over the whole lawn (sidesteps lawn maintenance, I suppose you may have to trim shrubs but its not that bad, really, compared to grass which grows almost overnight).

The other side of keeping up with maintenance - if you don't have time nor want to, hire away. It will eat a significant chunk of change to hire all the professionals your landlord was hiring, the difference being you are hiring yourself versus being dependent on the landlord.

For the DIYer, tools acquisition is definitely a PITA. Hardware stores have a decent selection mostly of what you need, but it would be nice if there were preset of tool maintenance you could order, maybe even save you money over long term buying it all piecemeal.

I'd imagine the real time suck would be for planning/research for it all, if you are used to spending your time coding, playing games, or otherwise amusing yourself, yes for the first couple years you will not have any time for these things as you are acquiring your skillset(s).

But that could be said for going back to school, etc. I think it's pretty valuable to be able to maintain your own dwelling apparatus, personally. It means you'll never be without reasonable shelter, so long as you have some access to raw materials, tools.

I don't check my plumbing or drainage. And a lawn is a difference between a house and an apartment, you're right about that, for me it's about 2 hours a month (which I pay someone else to do) rather than uh, 40-80. However I believed we were discussing ownership vs not ownership, rather than apartment vs house.

Checking your plumbing and drainage? What do you mean? What would you do weekly that involves this?

Lawn maintenance is maybe one or two hours a week at most, and that is mainly because we like to keep it pretty tidy. Then again, we would have needed to do similar maintenance (in the UK) for a rental if we wanted to keep the same standard for the garden.