[Esophagus4]

Which was the way housing was for many years.

A house used to be viewed as a consumable good a hundred years ago, not an appreciating asset. (Before the New Deal commoditized mortgages)

[mothballed]

At least in USA, since pretty much the absolute beginning, anyone with any wealth tried to gobble up the absolute most amount of land they could. Both as a form of wealth and a productive input. This has been less so in the past century though as agriculture has become smaller part of the economy.

[kelipso]

That should be highly discouraged since land is a scarce resource. Property should be taxed exponentially with respect to how much you already own.

[bpt3]

Why?

Presumably you mean desirable land is scarce, which is true by definition, but land in the US is far from scarce.

[kelipso]

Put a few mile ring around any city center and yes the land there is scarce. You would not want one or a small number of individuals buying up all or a lot of that land because other people want to live there too. Therefore do exponential taxation based on land they already own. Why is this confusing to you?

[bpt3]

For one, you're solving a non-problem in the US and creating new problems.

Why do you think people are hoarding land today that could be used for housing developments and leaving it empty?

What is "too much" land that would subject it to your exponential taxation?

[kelipso]

There are a large number of properties in big cities sitting empty due to people hoarding land/houses. Too much is anything more than your primary residence. It should be taxed exponentially with both number of secondary residences and size normalized to urban development around the property.