| Rising prices are bad for all but the most wealthy * It’s bad for people who don’t own a house, which disproportionately impacts the poor and the young. * It doesn’t really help homeowners either: their property taxes go up but the increased land value will just be spent on the increased cost of a new property if they move nearby. * So the only way to realise increased land value is to move outside the local market. This turnover reduces the community of a neighbourhood, and creates pockets of dull old homogeneous people with no shared history. * The only real way to benefit from rising prices is to invest in property, further concentrating wealth among the wealthy. * Treating one of society’s most important assets as an investment has a ton of negative side effects, like poor utilisation due to land banking, cheaply finished low quality buildings rather than ones that vest serve their occupants, evictions, further increased community turnover. * It’s a self perpetuating cycle, as the wealthy investors vote, lobby, and just straight up are politicians. |