"If you want to buy a million dollar home using shares, you have to liquidate them and pay capital gains. " Just to note: you don't :) In fact, if you wanted t

"If you want to buy a million dollar home using shares, you have to liquidate them and pay capital gains. " Just to note: you don't :) In fact, if you wanted to pay all cash, and had enough shares, you'd generally take out a portfolio loan against the shares at some very low interest rate (probably not lower than current mortgage rates however) rather than sell the shares at all. Whether this is better/worse than a mortgage depends on various things.