I am a 22 year old Finance Student and we are currently learning about investments, corporate bonds, securities market, treasury bills, etc.
The way the economy is right now, high inflation rate and low interest rates. Your purchasing power would end up decreasing overtime in the long run. So in essence you would be making more money numerically but that money will be worth less. You will be able to buy less things with it than if you were to spend it right now.
It makes more sense to buy something right now and wait for prices to go up. You could make a good deal of money if you were to invest it in land or buildings. Instead of buying just 1 house. You could take advantage of the super low interest rates that the banks in the US have right now, courtesy of the $800 billion bailout (money that was just printed on the spot, kind of the like the duplication cheat that people had on neopets not so long ago).
Our Real Estate Finance professor worked for Donald Trump not too long ago and he told us that the best strategy to buy land right now is to buy not one land with $1,000,000 but pay 10% down payment on a whole bunch of properties and let the bank loan out the rest of the money (90%). That way you can rent out the properties and pay back the bank a fixed amount per month (for which the rent after leasing the property out will be more than enough). Thats because US banks are currently so desperate to stimulate the economy that they are offering 4% - 5% fixed mortgage rates for upto 30 years.
At the end of 10 years you will have control over all properties and you would have paid just 10% down payment on each from your pocket. The rest of the costs would be covered by 10 years worth of rent =D The hard part is finding a bank that would give you a 90% loan. 75% is much more likely.
It is tricks like these that make it impossible for poor people to climb up the social ladder and for rich people to stay on top with no effort.
All the fiscal and monetary policies are in favor of the super rich.
You could alternatively invest it in stocks or with an investment bank. With the future of the European Union in question stocks is very risky.
You could also invest it in US treasury bills which used to be considered as one of the most safest investments in the world, once upon a time. Before the States went bankrupt.
Right now they are just printing more and more money to get by and cannot afford to even pay the amount of interest that they have collected as debt from other countries in 'real terms'.
What I am really trying to say is, the world economy is screwed for the next 30 years at least.
Rich will get richer and poor will get poorer.