I just ran the NPC for one of my son’s colleges, and put in various amounts of equity on real estate for a non-primary home. The change to our financial aid package was consistent with the college treating that equity as cash – ie, neither more nor less favorable than other assets. However, full disclosure, this is one of the Ivies and is known for giving very good need-based aid, so I am in no way saying that this is consistent across the board.
If anyone else wants to run their students’ colleges NPCs to see if this is consistent or not, it would be interesting to tally the results.