Not always. And especially not always more than standard equities market rates of return.

In other words, depending on your home for retirement funds is high risk.

Buying the least expensive home you can tolerate will free up a lot of exess wealth that, if invested properly in a diversified global equities portfolio, will absolutely out perform the home purchase in most cases most of the time.

However, it is indeed possible to get lucky by having one's home value increase at a faster rate over time than 'the stock market.' But that's rolling the dice. And same for investment properties... the real benefit is that you get someone else to invest the money for you, OPM.... but again... much higher risk.