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A lot of people will tell you that buying a home is a good investment, but "that couldn't be further from the truth," says Peter Mallouk, a certified financial planner and president of wealth management firm Creative Planning.

"In reality, it's usually a terrible investment," he says. That's because, at the end of the day, owning a home takes money out of your pocket: "You're paying property taxes, you're paying maintenance, you're paying insurance. There are all of these other things that happen with your home that you've got to pay for." ...

Over time, your home might increase in value, Mallouk says, but it probably won't appreciate enough to offset all of the costs. Instead, if you took what you'd save from not buying a house and invested it in something that's likely to grow in value, such as stocks and bonds, chances are you'd end up with more money in the long term.

Say you live in Brooklyn, New York, and pay $2,500 a month to rent. If you buy your own place, you might pay $5,000 a month between your mortgage, taxes and other maintenance costs, Mallouk gives as an example. (Other financial experts estimate that, thanks to home ownership costs, buying could cost you about 40% more than renting.)

"If you take the difference and you save it, that extra $2,500 you're saving in a diversified portfolio is almost certainly, over a long period of time, going to grow to be worth more than what your home equity would have been worth if you had just put the money into a home," he says.