But your mortgage and escrow don't include the costs of maintenance and repairs and improvements.

Generally, at any given point in time, renting is cheaper, especially if you want to live in more desirable areas. You can then put the money saved from renting vs owning into the stock market and earn generally higher returns than you would gain from the equity in your house + home appreciation, especially if you also reinvest any dividends

Where homeowners shines is that it is forced savings. With a home you're constantly making payments towards both interest and principal. The first ~5 years generally you will be losing money if you have to sell and move, but after that is when you start seeing positive returns, but it would still be less than if you just invested the savings from renting and invested those monies 5 years ago. But if someone is renting and not doing that, then owning is obviously have a better rate of return,especially if you bought with low interest rates. 

With current interest rates buying power is significantly reduced. For example, right now the average mortgage rate is 6.5% per the Fed Reserve. On a $400,000 home with 20% down ($80k - lol not likely for 99% of first time buyers) that is $2,023/mo with $408k in interest alone paid over the life of the loan, but doesnt include insurance, taxes, HOA dues. With 3% down ($12k), it's $2452/mo, with $494k paid in interest, and still not including taxes, insurance, etc.. In either scenario, unless your area has become super hot or supply has become incredibly constrained when you're looking to sell, you're paying a significant portion of your mortgage as interest.

With 3% rates, the same $400k house with 3% down becomes $1635/mo with $200k in interest, and 20% down is $1349/mo with $165k paid in interest. So interest rates matter a lot. 

You say your mortgage is $1600/mo, but when you bought, how much the home was worth when you bought, and what the interest rates were when you bought is likely incredibly different from what the market is facing today. Obviously homes can be much cheaper than $400k, but the lower you go the more likely it's a lemon (or a small space which is fine, but in my experience most people in DFW want to buy for more space). Also, homes themselves are depreciating assets as they don't tend to last forever

BUT if you are buying because you want a place to be able to call your own, to have those forced savings, and are willing to stay put in one spot for a while, buying can more sense. In other words, people shouldn't buy homes to live in because homes are good investments ( usually they're not unless you get lucky with your market going hot when you are ready to sell), but rather people should buy homes because they want a place that they can call their own and change as they wish, or to lock into a community/neighborhood that they love. Until then, invest the extra money you'd pay towards a mortgage towards the stock market or other better investments instead