Seems in macOS Big Sur v11.0.1 the behavior of the /usr/libexec/java_home -v ... command has changed: it is sensitive to the previously set value of JAVA_HOME environment variable.
Exact behavior is not clear, I couldn’t find any documentation on this, but in my experiments it reported the version already set in JAVA_HOME, regardless of the -v switch:
% JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_45.jdk/Contents/Home /usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.8.0_162
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_45.jdk/Contents/Home
Additionally, I noticed that it reports nothing, if JAVA_HOME is set, but doesn’t point to a valid java home (also for -V):
% JAVA_HOME=dummy /usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.7.0_45
% JAVA_HOME=dummy /usr/libexec/java_home -V
%
Solution is to ensure JAVA_HOME is not set before executing /usr/libexec/java_home:
% unset JAVA_HOME ; /usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.8.0_162
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_162.jdk/Contents/Home