Home ownership - does it make sense in our case?

Looking for some brainstorming.

We are a family of 4 that recently moved to Geneva.

We are exploring the hypothetical scenario of purchasing an apartment/house VS renting forever.

Scenario 1) we remain at rent forever but this is like 50K per year for us right now.

If we rent our property abroad right now, we could use this rental income to cover the remaining loan payment of this property. In 5y from now, we will have paid off the remaining loan of the property that we own abroad, we can use the rental income to cover around 50% of our Swiss rent (we are tenants in Switzerland).

Scenario 2) we sell the property abroad now and we pay off the loan. We use this money for a downpayment for a Swiss loan in other to get let’s say a 1M property in Switzerland.

I can’t decide if scenario 1 is more beneficial. Some would say “opportunity cost” in case of investment of the money acquired by selling the property abroad but we would never sell this property except if we would need money for a downpayment.

Any suggestion/opinion is welcome

EDIT: more info for clarity in scenario 1

EDIT 2: running some simple estimations

Scenario 1) Rental Costs Over 20 Years

• CHF 50K/year now, dropping to CHF 25K/year after 5 years.
• Total rent in 20 years: 5×50K+15×25K=625K.

Scenario 2) Ownership Costs for a CHF 1.5M property

-20% down payment: CHF 300K. -Mortgage for 1.2M with 1.5% interest: CHF 18K/year. -Maintenance and taxes: Approx. CHF 10K/year. -Total cost in 20 years: (18K+10K)×20=560K plus the initial CHF 300K = 860K.

But of course I understand that owning would mean building equity and benefit from appreciation.