If you own a house, you are getting the equivalent of “free rent” by living in it. (Minus property taxes, maintenance, etc.) If you RM the house, you are now getting your equity plus that living rent-free.
Then you have to look at what happens when you end up in a home. Some states, IIRC, need you to count the value of the house and sell it before getting your fees covered by Medicare? So if you did not RM, there’s a possibility that the asset will disappear for a couple of years’ care, whereas if you have been getting a regular income out of it, and there’s not much equity left to sell, you get the same care, but the government pays more. There’s the image of the old timers sitting around the coffee shop doing nothing but comparing how much money they have, and doing nothing with it.
As for heirs - nowadays, a healthy capable person will likely live into their 80’s or more. That means your kids are almost retired before they get their inheritance, and unlike the generation that grew old in, say, the 1980’s but probably died of heart attacks, etc. in their 70’s - todays old folks will have spent a lot more of their assets before kicking off at 90. So junior is going to get a lot les anyway, and won’t know how much he gets until age 65 or 70. If he hasn’t done his own retirement preparation a hundred thousand, or even a few hundred thousand, isn’t going to help much.