Thats a pretty good definition of speculation not investment.
Its investment if you can oil the wheels as a landlord such that you can rent money from a bank cheaper than renting the land from the landlord. That of course is a mathematical impossibility at this time in most areas.
It is possible to speculate in real estate, but most homeowners don't. Speculation is typical high-risk and short term. Most residential real estate transactions are neither.
In investing, it is a big mistake to extrapolate the recent past into universal guidelines.
For example, leading up to the real estate market crash, a lot of people made the mistake of thinking that because home prices had gone up for a decade, they would always go up.
But, it's just as big a mistake today to think that because home values have gone down from 10 years ago, home prices will never go up again.
Its investment if you can oil the wheels as a landlord such that you can rent money from a bank cheaper than renting the land from the landlord. That of course is a mathematical impossibility at this time in most areas.