Property like land makes sense as investment when its for a long duration. i.e. for 10 years or more. Land is a limited quantity resource and as scarcity grows, value is going to increase. So, as long term investment it makes sense in most cases.
For short term, it might not make sense and might even be risky due to short term fluctuations and other costs particularly if you took a loan to cover part of the cost.
If things vary from case to case and hence the evaluation must be done case to case.
A colleague purchased a flat for 30 Lac and sold it for 45 Lac 3 years later. While it may seem like he got a profit of 50% He actually incurred a loss of 3 lac on the whole deal because he has taken a partial home loan and including the effective loan amount he paid, his final cost was 48 lac, but he got only 45 Lac.
On the other hand, In my case, we had purchased a couple of plots in my home town for a total of 4.5 Lac back in 1998. 15 years later, the value of these plots was 3.2 Crore. Show me any investment scheme where 4.5 Lac grows 70 times to 3.2 Crore in 15 years.
