That’s great if you need $500k cash. If you have a spare home, this probably doesn’t apply to you. Why take $500k of cash you don’t need now when you can take $700k or more in ten years?
If you're savvy enough financially that $500k is not interesting to you, just holding, paying taxes and insurance, and hoping for appreciation is a terrible investment strategy.
It is a pretty good strategy if it is just one of many of your assets, one where you can continue rolling into a higher value asset and never paying capital gains tax (1031 exchange).
For this to work you need at least some income — in fact this is the business model of many parking lots! Buy some land, make a bit of cash flow, and if it appreciates cash out and someone builds a condo.
