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Interesting concept, I'm not entirely sure what I think of it. Land ownership interests me a lot more than homeownership, and undeveloped land has its own value
by finder83 7y ago
Interesting concept, I'm not entirely sure what I think of it. Land ownership interests me a lot more than homeownership, and undeveloped land has its own value in a community. That's partly why we bought our house on two acres in a small community. A house surrounded by forests or a lake or even just farmland is more desirable to me than more dense housing, so I don't entirely understand Henry George's point. I would much rather live on land that I could do things with, such as farm, or hunt, or build things, and be "out in the country".
What happens after the 99-year ground lease is up? Are the house and land then sold together on the open market?
- toomuchtodo 7y agoA trust enables a public good (in this case, the land) to be protected from adverse forces (anyone whose interest is something other than those living on the land continuing to live on it). You could extend the ground lease forever, 99 years is simply a "good enough" number for now.
- finder83 7y agoWhat are those adverse forces? Someone who's unwilling to develop their land for housing? At least monetarily, space around a house tends to increase the value of the house.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoDevelopers, real estate investors, anyone with a profit motive who may seek to take advantage of the power asymmetry between themselves and someone who might not have the opportunity to live on a piece of land without a land trust.
- finder83 7y agoThat makes more sense, thanks
- toomuchtodo 7y agoHappy to help.
- ikeboy 7y agoWhy is it good for the government to buy up property and rent it at below market prices? That's just a handout and is inefficient, discouraging denser housing. Edit: they're specifically requiring someone to build a house there. It seems like if someone wanted to build multifamily housing, even if that would be a better use of the land, they would be turned down. That's a perverse incentive.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoCall it what you want, that's what they're optimizing for. Some people can't afford market prices, and this is the hack around that market failure. You call it a handout, I call it compassionate government.
- ikeboy 7y agoA far better "hack" would be LVT+get rid of zoning and other restrictions on building. That would actually reduce market prices instead of requiring a subsidy. >Compassionate government Nope, a government driving up market prices by restricting new construction is not compassionate just because they tried to help a handful of families buy below market.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoThis is in Houston. They already have some of the most lax zoning in the country. You're free to your opinion this is "inefficient" and causes "perverse incentives". In the meantime, people get homes they otherwise wouldn't. Some of us consider that a win.
- ikeboy 7y agoThe article is about land trusts in general, not just the one in the headline. Regardless, the correct solution is to implement LVT. Without that, almost by definition market prices will be higher than they should be. The market failure is the government permitting people to buy and sell land. A small trust buying up some land and taking it off the market doesn't fix the underlying failure.
- _bxg1 7y ago> I would much rather live on land that I could do things with, such as farm, or hunt, or build things That's nice, but many people would just like to have a roof over their head that will stay over their head.
- dcolkitt 7y agoWhile it's nice to be around idyllic nature, it comes at the cost of being further away from other humans. There's a reason economic productivity rises by roughly 10% every time a city doubles in size. More people, means more innovations. Higher density leads to a more rapid spread of new ideas and best practices. Workers, entrepreneurs and investors can rapidly reconfigure to seize opportunities. Less density means you're more likely to fall into stagnation, as the one local employer in commute distance slowly circles the drains. City life comes with significantly better living standards. What you lose in yard space you make up with much higher salaries, better healthcare and education, and more varied cultural options. To a large extent country living is only idyllic because of the technological exports made by high productivity city-dwellers. I agree that there's a deep human need to connect with nature. But the solution isn't to try to give every man is his own personal Nottingham forest on his property. It's to build high-quality parks and nature reserves, and good transit so people can easily access these amenities.
- _bxg1 7y agoNot to mention community. If you're lived in a city all your life and have roots, it's hard to just pick up and move. Not that it can't be done, but this often gets left out of the "why don't people just move if they can't afford to live there?" conversation.
- finder83 7y agoI can see your point and agree this is probably true for the large majority of people. And most people don't want to live close to nature; it seems the large majority like being near cities and people, I'm just not one of them. :-D I'm not entirely sure that the dichotomy of high productivity city-dwellers/lower productivity country dwellers is true any longer though. I'm a dev manager/programmer working remotely, many of my neighbors are also in IT or construction and either work remotely or commute, and many programmers in our company also live in "fly-over" states in rural areas. Most also own chickens, have small farms, or raise competition animals. But I still understand and see your point, and I see the value in this for suburban areas. I suppose my mind went to areas more rural than the article is talking about.
- DeathArrow 7y ago
- ikeboy 7y ago>A house surrounded by forests or a lake or even just farmland is more desirable to me than more dense housing, so I don't entirely understand Henry George's point. The point is that whoever values the land most should get it. If you're willing to pay more taxes on the land than someone who wants to build housing, then you can keep it. If not, the land should go to whoever can make the most productive use of it.
- turtle-san 7y agoNot sure you are advocating or just explaining the idea, but I have to say something. This is how we lose natural land to sprawl. A large chunk is bought by a developer, clear cut, split into many small chunks, and sold to private individuals. This splitting of the land into many new owners makes conservation of an area in the future to be much harder. LVT makes sense for urban areas, but should stop where the city line is. From there out I could see LVT leeding to increasing deforestation, sprawl, and destruction of the natural environment. In certain areas I would even argue doing the opposite of LVT and be giving people tax incentives to leave land undeveloped and natural, better yet join parcels of adjoining land together in conservation projects while still allowing people to live on it, just where they cannot develop most of it, maybe even allow public access in the form of hiking trails using the "Freedom to Roam" principle.
- hkmurakami 7y agoIn Singapore the government repossess the land and the improvements. As you might imagine, property values decay as we approach lease expiration Freehold properties trade ata significant premium to leasehold.
- DeathArrow 7y ago>Interesting concept, I'm not entirely sure what I think of it. Land ownership interests me a lot more than homeownership Before accumulating wealth, most people are interested in having a shelter. Let's say someone has 50 years to live, from a point on. To have a shelter, it will cost him a = 50 * 12 * rent if he rents, b = x * 12 * rate if he buys a house and pays the mortgage, c = y * 12 * rate + 50 * 12 * land_rent if he buys just the house and lend the land. So picking the smallest from a, b and c might be better for that particular individual.