Cold, but probably true. There are a lot of things people pay for that they have no control over when buying homes. It's kind of a risk assessment - 'I like this aspect, but how likely is it to change?'

Property developers in the city where I live are deliberately deceptive about this.

They buy a large plot of land near the coastline, build condos on the far land side of it, and sell the condos advertising "bay views". Once the first block is sold out, they build the next one in front of it closer to the coastline, and sell more "bay views".

It's crazy how they can get away with advertising the view even if construction on a building that will block the view has already started.

> Property developers in the city where I live are deliberately deceptive about this.

You mean, you need somebody else to tell you if you're sold "view" today, it does not include guarantee nobody will ever build anything on the land between you and the "view" ever, just because otherwise you'd feel bad? You can not figure this out just from knowing you only own property rights on the small piece of land and not on anything else, and did not buy any "view" rights? Maybe if you can not figure this out, buying expensive property is not the best way to go for you, at least without consulting somebody knowledgeable in these matters. You can not expect everybody behaves in your best interest, and they certainly do not owe that to you. If you don't own the rights and the land, there's zero guarantee the view will be there tomorrow.

I'm not sure why you are so upset by my comment.

Of course I can figure out the misleading advertising from property developers, it's common knowledge and has been going on for decades. If I become interested in buying a place one day, I'll look up planning permissions around the area and judge the risk of the neighbourhood changing.

But that doesn't mean that we should accept or approve misleading advertising.

It's not even a case of "who knows what might happen here in the future" - they keep advertising the views when they themselves are building in front of it, and the basement has already been poured.

That is absurd. Almost feels like they should be forced to have a warning annotation at the bottom like they do with raw or undercooked foods on menus.

"Buying a house does not make you The God-Emperor and other people still are free to do with their properties as they like, including building on it in a way that upsets you". Yeah, probably should have that warning.

And yet you get penalized or outright refused to build up in order to get your view back...

> You can argue that the entire market was over-valuing the property, but... that just seems kind of cold.

Cold or not, it happens all the time. It surely happened in 2000s in Silicon Valley, then prices took a big dip in 2007/2008. Now they're back, but if you're assuming somehow this time it's "real", I've got some bad news - it's never real, and entire market is completely capable of overvaluing your property and then regretting it and dropping your property value by 50% or so.