To be honest, I probably wouldn't do the conversion today, but 10 years ago it made more sense, when the price gap with a CJ2 was around $3 million. Now that early CJ2's are much closer in price to a converted 501, the CJ2 is more doable.
At the time, I had an original 525 , that couldn't make it to the west coast from the midwest without 2 gas stops. Winds in the winter, and poor hot and high in the summer, where at least 1 stop had to be in the Rockies somewhere. So even with 2 people you couldn't fill the tanks. The Eagle II conversion, with the FJ44's, and additional fuel capacity to 4500 lbs., didn't have this problem. Actually made $400k trading "down".
As for losing money when selling, I only have 1000 hrs on the engines, and the TBO is 4000. It would be foolish to trade it for something else, and losing money on the sale will likely be something my estate can worry about.
I think the day of viewing any light jet as an appreciating asset is over anyway.