>put a solid deposit down on undeveloped land on the outskirts of an are that will grow over the next decade This is not without substantial risk. Land that i

>put a solid deposit down on undeveloped land on the outskirts of an are that will grow over the next decade This is not without substantial risk. Land that is developable in a certain way today may not be be tomorrow. If the area is in fact getting wealthier you're basically racing to develop faster than it gentrifies. You have to thread the needle of buying when cheap and developing before "the wrong kind of people" show up and make that impossible except at the highest end (unaffordable to the private individual) in order to make bank selling to said demographics.