Are you serious? You think land is infinite? WTF?
Ok then, replace land with "arable land" or "land positioned close to work" or "land with infrastructure"
declining property prices?
- Thread starter momo
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Are you serious? You think land is infinite? WTF?
Ok then, replace land with "arable land" or "land positioned close to work" or "land with infrastructure"
You have to admit. We're a big country. If the US isn't running out of land with 10, 15 times as many people and roughly the same landmass...... It's not infinite but I hardly think we're hitting the limits.
Arable land isn't relevant for residential property. I don't plan to grow anything in my backyard. Look at Las Vegas.
Land positioned close to work is certainly not finite. You can create more places of work. They don't have to be in the CBD. In fact I think the govt should encourage development of secondary CBDs. Qld is building all those new commercial centres around Inala, Beenleigh, etc. Great idea, I think. Sydney should do the same with Blacktown, Parramatta, Hornsby, Miranda, etc.
Land with infrastructure isn't finite either because you can build more infrastructure. Most of the Hills district didn't exist a decade ago. Now there are shops, schools, etc. Australia in general has been under-investing in public transport. Perhaps people would be willing to pay a special tax to pay for more trains? I would. In London, they have express trains that take people from outer suburbs into the city with few stops in between. Residents never go into the city otherwise. If we had more of those in Australia the really outer suburbs would open up.
Alex
No more taxes. mk
Oh I don't know. I'm willing to pay some extra taxes if they give me, say, an express train from my suburb into the city and shave 20 minutes off my commute. Say Cityrail provides an extra express train and charges double my usual $30-odd weekly ticket. I'd ride it.
Alex
Now, that added nothing to the conversation. HG, if you're here to practice your arguments, you have to be able to give us logical reasoning delivered calmly. Why do you think land is finite?
Alex
If you are prepared to pay more tax in the way of a special tax, I can only assume you think you are getting value for money from the current taxes you pay.
I don't think so?
Put it this way, if they were able to specifically tell me exactly what a special tax will go into (such as an express train) and they actually deliver, THEN I'll be happy to pay it. As it is, I agree, I have no idea what they do with my tax dollars.
Alex
i'd happily pay 0.5% higher tax to get rid of those stupid tolls on the motorways .... and worse ... the ones that take only and e-ticket.
i would only travel on them once or twice a year (at the most) but the nusiance factor is so great that i wouldn't care paying a touch more to get rid of the tolls - and i bet the locals would love to get rid of them.
Yes, but the USA is seeing price declines with 10-15 times our population density, so we must be somehow different.
The USA has much better soils and water supply than us. How many people do you think Australia could support without being a net food importer? 30M? 40M? I have heard sustainable numbers are 10M. Look at the damage we've done in only 200 years.
Land is the 2d surface of the earth.
The earth is a sphere, where area can be determined by 4*PI*r^2
The radius of the earth is not infinite
Therefore land is finite.
I can't believe I had to argue that. I say again: WTF?!
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Ah! The great tax debate.
No one, anywhere, who is self sufficient believes taxes are well spent, and there is probably justification for this.But then again, most battlers resent middle class welfare too. I got a $200 cheque from the state gov because I spent near $3,000 on a water efficient front loader washing machine. Farmers country wide ask and receive gov subsidies (blackmail?) to improve their management practices including capping free flowing artesian bores. (Apologies to TC
who, I accept, does the right thing because it is the right thing!)The problem is that your beloved Democracy is a flawed concept. Imagine two wolves and a sheep having a democratic vote on lunch. LOL It fails when 51% realise they can systematically rob the 49%. But I'm no anarchist and wish to make the best of what we have, and therefore agree with Alex that spending taxes on infrastructure is better than wasting it on multicultural talk-fests and a million other "small" wastes. Million here, million there, pretty soon you're talking real money. It seems fair that he is willing to pay more for a better service which benefits the nation. (Note to self: Stop agreeing with Alex!)
Ok, Somersoft, land is infinite - you win.
Land: They're building a lot more of it!
My point was that since (well positioned) land is not a producible commodity, a "scarcity mindset" is an appropriate one to adopt for it.
My question is: How do you reconcile holding an "abundance mindset" while also believing that prices will continue to go up? Wouldn't higher prices lead to greater supply? Why aren't people creating more well placed land in response to the price signal?
How do you keep these 2 beliefs in your head at the same time. My head really hurts now....
Land: They're building a lot more of it!
My point was that since (well positioned) land is not a producible commodity, a "scarcity mindset" is an appropriate one to adopt for it.
My question is: How do you reconcile holding an "abundance mindset" while also believing that prices will continue to go up? Wouldn't higher prices lead to greater supply? Why aren't people creating more well placed land in response to the price signal?
How do you keep these 2 beliefs in your head at the same time. My head really hurts now....
And I'm against farm subsidies anyhow. In any form. Not that Aussie farmers get much. And just the ones that are buggered anyway.
See ya's.
See ya's.
How do you keep these 2 beliefs in your head at the same time. My head really hurts now....
How do you keep these two beliefs in your head.
1. Australia has an abundance of empty dwellings.
2. Investors need to build more new houses.
Not all of them are available to rent.
Not all of them are where people actually want to live. I think there is a lack of cheap housing close to the city. I'm willing to have a smaller place so I can ride my bike to work. I'd never live in an outer suburb without public transportation that is only livable if you drove everywhere. That seems to be where new building is concentrated.
Whereas I'd rather we demolish larger inner city houses and add higher density terraces (but that's only my preference) maybe people want their big houses, if the builders are building that....
My belief is that you shouldn't get any taxpayer money unless you actually add to the supply. I never said that we desperately need to build more houses.
So now the truth is coming out. We are NOT talking about NEEDS here, we are talking about WANTS. And if you WANT to live where everyone else does, there will be competition.
And here I was thinking that you had a higher motive!
My question is: How do you reconcile holding an "abundance mindset" while also believing that prices will continue to go up? Wouldn't higher prices lead to greater supply? Why aren't people creating more well placed land in response to the price signal?
How do you keep these 2 beliefs in your head at the same time. My head really hurts now....
You'd think people would produce more accessable land, wouldn't you. In practice, government policies in Oz has restricted the supply by underinvesting in transport. While there ARE ways to create more land in which people want to live: build more train lines, say.
That's in theory. In practice, governments aren't willing to spend the money to do it. So we have artificially restricted land supply.
You haven't answered my post about your arable land, land close to work and land with infrastructure, though. Instead you gave us a geometry lesson. Which really has nothing to do with property investment, since we don't use much of the physical land.
As for how we can survive without food imports, we probably can't. Then again, we couldn't survive the way we do without exports, either. If you're saying property will fall if the world system of trade comes to an end, I agree with you. However, since it's unlikely to and we still have ships to move stuff in and out of the country, your argument is meaningless.
Alex
Indeed. That means the US was overvalued during the bubble, and it's deflating. That's what happens in a cyclical economy. Short term, we're going to see some pain. Sydney, for example, was overvalued in 2003 especially at the lower ends (I still think it's overvalued at the higher ends). You're only looking at the short term, though. I have a 30 year horizon.
The two have nothing to do with each other. The US probably does have better soil and water (I read Jarad Diamond too - wanna talk about rhino shock troops in Africa?). That's why they've been able to support 250 million people. The second point doesn't follow the first. Given that we DO have world trade, why do we have to live in sustainable numbers? Or are you turning this from a discussion on property into whether humans should damage the environment or not? If so, change threads. How do we live the way we do? Mainly by importing cheap products from other countries, and export our products. That is the reality.
Stick to the topic, HG. We're discussing whether land is finite or not in terms of how it affects property values. My view is that there is plenty of physical land, but not all of it is suitable for living (thus solving your paradox of land being both scarce and plentiful at the same time: PHYSICAL land is plentiful. LIVEABLE land with drainage, streets, shops and transport is not. If your physical limitation is the land area of the earth, we have a LOT of room to grow. In practice, we need tons of infrastructure, and that depends on govt spending. Governments are rarely that far-sighted that they build infrastructure in anticipation of growth, because of economic reality: do you want to pay taxes so that they can build trains for future generations?
Alex
I said that I am willing to pay more, and live in a smaller place as a fair compromise for living close to work and facilities.
I believe that our society's dependence on fossil fuels is bad, and hence I ride to work and refuse to live where I NEED a car. What's wrong with that? I'm willing to pay for the privilege. My extra rent is probably far less than running a car, anyway.
However, the amount of land where you can ride to work is FINITE. That's my whole argument!
For those forumites who are reading this far (it gets more interesting: I'm just getting warmed up - wait until I start quoting the classics), HG is one example of the type of people you're going to meet on your investing road. Intelligent, well-read, able to quote some very clever stats and ideas (I don't know how to calculate the earth's land surface area.......) but doesn't really know what property investing involves.
There will be lots of these people in your future. Colleagues, bosses, teachers, family friends, etc. All I can say is, read and think through it enough that you can honestly say you can see the flaw in their arguments. If you don't, read some more.
Personally, I believe I'm making logical arguments to refute HG's. PM me if you don't think so. Me, I'm confident in my beliefs about property investing (LONG TERM it works) because I've read enough on both sides, and have, hopefully, thought through it.
Alex
There will be lots of these people in your future. Colleagues, bosses, teachers, family friends, etc. All I can say is, read and think through it enough that you can honestly say you can see the flaw in their arguments. If you don't, read some more.
Personally, I believe I'm making logical arguments to refute HG's. PM me if you don't think so. Me, I'm confident in my beliefs about property investing (LONG TERM it works) because I've read enough on both sides, and have, hopefully, thought through it.
Alex
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