Typically, unless you get lucky and buy a home in a speculative market and are able to sell when it is high, vs low.
Over the entire province I live in, the average is a 4% increase in value a year, but that is heavily driven by the urban area. If you assume that rent will increase about the same AND take any operational expenses from owning and put in the market, which has a typical return over any 10yr period excess of 5%, you come out cash ahead renting over 25 yrs.
I haven't done the detailed calculations recently (in the last 6yrs / since I bought) but I did often as my father pressured me to buy because I was "wasting money renting". The truth is that the flexibilty of renting PLUS the extra cash from not having the operational costs, allowed me to move across the world chasing amazing opportunities (both monetary and experience) in my 20s allowing me to have the cash in the bank to buy a home when we were ready to settle.
We ONLY bought because we wanted a place to mould to our wants. Something that we could move walls, add to the property, etc. My partner is an architect and I have lots of construction experience from jobs growing up.
Buying home is less of a financial decision and more of a lifestyle decision.
Unless you put cash into it, it is likely a depreciating asset, an asset that is relatively illiquid compared to stocks, bonds, cash, bitcoin, etc. with its own set of market pressures that are typically out of your control.
This is as it should be.
When it comes to having the extra cash, I am not sure that on average, it would be extra at all, meaning that the majority of people will expand their lifestyle and consume it, not invest it to generate income now or in the future. If we look at the lifestyle of a student who can live off little and still get drunk, that habit doesn't seem to change as the same student earns in a career - they still get drunk on the excess, though it might not be cheap beer and condoms :)