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I think we disagree here then. The article you linked assumes no land value tax so I don't think it's relevant. My claim that land value tax would decrease pro

I think we disagree here then. The article you linked assumes no land value tax so I don't think it's relevant. My claim that land value tax would decrease property prices does admittedly depend on the tax rate. Do you dispute the fact that there is some tax rate where house prices would decrease? For example, going above 100% tax rates would actually force people off land so to me this seems obvious because clearly nobody would want to hold property if it cost more to hold than they could afford... So obviously there is some tax rate lower than 100% where property prices would start to decrease even accounting for other growth factors. Heck, you could even ignore it being a land value tax. This would happen with a property tax as well. Does that make sense? Keep in mind that the number that you quote there in the article would obviously change depending on the price of housing. People move out of cities or countries all the time due to cost of living. EDIT: this seems pretty straightforward to me. It's a net present value calculation with an annual payment. Obviously there is some annual payment where net present value will decrease...

btilly 2y ago
My claim isn't about housing prices. It is about the cost of housing. True, a land value tax transfers value from property owners to the government. But paying that tax represents a cost of housing. Either directly - you're paying tax on your property - or indirectly in the form of rent. In theory this is net neutral on costs. In practice, it is likely to be an increase immediately because housing prices tend to be "sticky". So it takes time for land value to drop because of the tax.
- adverbly 2y ago
  Ahh that makes sense then. Yep agreed! I got confused because I usually hear people refer to housing prices as property purchase prices, and housing costs to the continuous component. I would have phrased this: > For housing to stop increasing in price, a lot of it has to be built. As "For housing costs to stop increasing, a lot of it has to be built." It's difficult and ambiguous either way though... Costs being plural and price being singular is maybe what threw me off as well? Thanks for clarifying!

btilly 2y ago

My claim isn't about housing prices. It is about the cost of housing. True, a land value tax transfers value from property owners to the government. But paying that tax represents a cost of housing. Either directly - you're paying tax on your property - or indirectly in the form of rent. In theory this is net neutral on costs. In practice, it is likely to be an increase immediately because housing prices tend to be "sticky". So it takes time for land value to drop because of the tax.

adverbly 2y ago
Ahh that makes sense then. Yep agreed! I got confused because I usually hear people refer to housing prices as property purchase prices, and housing costs to the continuous component. I would have phrased this: > For housing to stop increasing in price, a lot of it has to be built. As "For housing costs to stop increasing, a lot of it has to be built." It's difficult and ambiguous either way though... Costs being plural and price being singular is maybe what threw me off as well? Thanks for clarifying!