In densely populated areas, the value of real estate has very little to do with what's built on the property, and everything to do with the land it is build on.

GPs point is that owning land is not creating value. It is, however, very profitable.

You either have a sufficiently large land value tax or let the government rent out land instead of selling it.

In both cases the land would become a liability that you constantly have to take care of instead of being an "investment".

Productive work like building on top of land should be rewarded, waiting for a train station to be built in your neighborhood is not productive work that should be rewarded.

Pretty much every economist thinks that the work <-> reward relationship should be as tight as possible. However, most of them don't think of anything other than cutting taxes and strangely enough they insist on being able to take advantage of negative externalities (CO2 or illegal waste disposal in general).

Hi fellow Georgist! What a great summary.

And yes it does not stop at LVT which encourages useful development and discourages speculation and keeping land/homes empty. It extends to anywhere where society/the public/the commons is not being adequately compensated by private interests for the benefits they take. Goes from natural resources to pollution and paying for the waste processing of the products you produce (no more saving 5c by using a plastic bottle which costs the public 10c to dispose of).

> However, most of them don't think...

That’s not the impression I get. They seem to have all kinds of broad beliefs.

People who build housing create value. People who manage properties create value. People who speculate on properties do not create value.

Why are people selling real estate assets to speculators for less than they are worth?

Because the real estate market is very illiquid. Each property is unique. It's not easy to figure out the right price. Trading isn't even bad, it's contributing to price discovery in the market and makes sure that the average sale price is close to the actual market price.

The problem isn't that speculators are evil people but rather that the "arbitrage" they are doing is fueled by regressive housing policies. Increasing the efficiency in the housing market exposes the fundamental housing problem. After all, it can't just be that speculators are snapping up properties, there must be buyers that are willing to buy properties from the speculators, otherwise the speculators lose money. Those buyers don't even need to think that the house is overpriced, the house could genuinely be a good deal for them.

Who says they are? Speculators are betting on what costs will be, but the people selling to them are (tautologically) doing it based on what it costs now. Some speculators win, some speculators lose, but I would say they’re necessarily performing arbitrage.

So people use unfair property rights in order to extract a rent from an essential human need, without doing labour or providing any service in return. Is that your argument?

> If you complain you're just jealous

Everytime.

> So people use unfair property rights in order to extract a rent from an essential human need, without doing labour or providing any service in return. Is that your argument?

That wasn't anyone's argument, I think you hallucinated all of that. The person I replied to said real estate has no value.

> > If you complain you're just jealous > Everytime.

I did not say this, you hallucinated that too.