The supply of land is fixed. If we're talking about the US then most of what you pay for when you buy is the land.
The current setup hasn't exactly been great at generating new housing. Juicing speculation increases nimbyism just as much as it increases developer interest.
That is not true in most of the US. Yes the supply of land is fixed. But there is plenty of air. Who is going to make the investment to build up? Individuals buying land and building SFHs is not going to help as much as building multi unit housing.
There is also plenty of affordable land in the US in flyover country.
Huh? Save for a small number of cities most of the nation is sprawling suburbia. 70% of Americans live in single family homes.
Most of what you pay for here is the land. And this is becoming ever more important because of agglomeration effects in the modern world.
> Build up
Ok you're switching gears a bit here but I'll entertain anyway. If you want to build up the right solution is a Land Value Tax. Landlords of course hate this idea.
> Most of what you pay for here is the land. And this is becoming ever more important because of agglomeration effects in the modern world
This is also not true. With an investment property you can depreciate the value of the building. But not land. It would reduce the tax incentives greatly if that were true.
I’ve owned five properties in my life and the house “improvements” is always more valuable.
Out of those five, two were new builds I had built from the ground up as primary residence. You can see the value of the unimproved land and compare it to the values of the houses built on top of it.
The other three were investment properties where I could only depreciate “the improvements” - the amount attributed to the house
In “sprawling suburbia”, builders can buy land cheaply and build hundreds of homes.
> Ok you're switching gears a bit here but I'll entertain anyway. If you want to build up the right solution is a Land Value Tax. Landlords of course hate this idea.
You realize any increase in cost is passed on to the tenants. How does that help affordable housing?
That statista link is maybe the wrong one? I don't see anything in there stating that the majority of Americans live in apartments.
> You realize any increase in cost is passed on to the tenants. How does that help affordable housing?
This is 100% totally wrong. The concept you're reaching for is called tax incidence. In the case of Land Value Tax it's fully the burden of the landowner.
