Re:If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pens...
by majormajor on Wednesday June 09, 2021 @06:38PM
(#27454222)
Is there a market in the US where density and population growth has made land cheaper? I can't think of one.
Development increases the value of land in the long run, that's nearly tautological; investors in land will benefit from this increase just like the developers themselves do. I think there's a high likelihood that the markets for "home with land" and "condo" diverge further in the future. Increased demand and density only increases the scarcity of single family homes with actual plots of land in popular areas.
There are a lot of vacant/under-utilized properties, especially ones zoned commercial, next to high-demand residential areas in my town. The owners seem to be just sitting on the property and waiting, vs actually fully making use of it currently.
I'd go a step further: why are we arguing about single-family homes when we have homeless people camped out around unused commercial and industrial properties? That's the property that's being wasted and could most-easily be re-utilized. If you have continual high demand it will be difficult to add supply fast enough once you run out of empty surrounding land (that's the biggest difference between the big coastal cities and the Phoenix/Dallas/Atlantas of the world) because it requires demolition and higher-density construction), but at the very least if you're in that situation, attack the empty areas harder!
(Whether or not there's ANY good sustainable long-term solution for perpetual demand growth is another question entirely...)
Development increases the value of land in the long run, that's nearly tautological; investors in land will benefit from this increase just like the developers themselves do. I think there's a high likelihood that the markets for "home with land" and "condo" diverge further in the future. Increased demand and density only increases the scarcity of single family homes with actual plots of land in popular areas.
There are a lot of vacant/under-utilized properties, especially ones zoned commercial, next to high-demand residential areas in my town. The owners seem to be just sitting on the property and waiting, vs actually fully making use of it currently.
I'd go a step further: why are we arguing about single-family homes when we have homeless people camped out around unused commercial and industrial properties? That's the property that's being wasted and could most-easily be re-utilized. If you have continual high demand it will be difficult to add supply fast enough once you run out of empty surrounding land (that's the biggest difference between the big coastal cities and the Phoenix/Dallas/Atlantas of the world) because it requires demolition and higher-density construction), but at the very least if you're in that situation, attack the empty areas harder!
(Whether or not there's ANY good sustainable long-term solution for perpetual demand growth is another question entirely...)