> buying land and sitting on it to exploit scarcity creates no wealth. Therefore if you buy lower and sell higher that money comes from wealth created elsewhere

> buying land and sitting on it to exploit scarcity creates no wealth. Therefore if you buy lower and sell higher that money comes from wealth created elsewhere, making you a leech. If you buy somewhere to live in, fine, but more than one place to speculate: you are leeching off of the labour of others. I disagree that this is leeching. For one thing, there's no guarantee the speculator's land is going to go up in value. It could just as easily flatline or decrease. For another thing someone has to own the land. Whether it's another person or a government. A speculator can't force anyone to sell their land. On the other side of the purchase, there was a previous landowner who wanted to sell. The speculator created a market in which that seller can sell their land. Are you suggesting it should be incumbent upon the seller to discern the motives of every buyer and only agree to sell to someone who's not speculating? How could they? Also, why would they artificially limit their pool of potential buyers? They don't gain anything from that. The buyer presumably created some value at some point in the past in order to have the wealth to buy the land in the first place. Owning it and maintaining it in a salable condition until someone needs it is a useful service.