just responding to the title for now: the divine comedy was the first autofiction. like straight up take 21st century autofiction about a fictionalized self. add crazy religious symbols/themes + some surrealism + florence political history
i live in a high COL area and rent is not high because of land costs. there are several empty lots that people want to build on but the discretionary review process for entitlements make it too easy to wreck the permit process (everybody knows this in the entire world; this is the YIMBY line which has truth to it). another factor is the cost per bedroom to build is very high, due to the cost of building in the market (labor, cost of goods, etc). so it's actually everything to do with the building/entitlements and nothing to do with land cost. at least where i live right now. proof: the college cancelled a massive housing project because it was gonna be too expensive per bedroom. this wasn't because of land costs but building costs.
aside, while i'm at it, let's take another swipe at free market and housing: the YIMBY line has truth about regulations preventing building, but if you look at build starts for like the 10 years after the 2008 crisis, you'll see a lack of buildings that happened during that time. they had record housing starts leading up to the crisis, and you know what also existed then? the same regulatory regime that we are now tearing down to help us build what we need. but after the crisis, the builders stopped building because they were fearful about the market. this suggests to me that "regulations prevent building, just let the free market take care of it," is too simplistic and ignores very real data. the market took care of it by not building.
So 1) yes construction costs are a huge, huge factor (especially right now), but 2) land is about $1.5MM/ac in Burlington VT. A few miles outside of it, land is about $150,000/ac.
Consider a 2 acre project:
$3MM in land costs inside Burlington
$300,000 in land costs right outside Burlington
What projects would could you do on the $300,000 lot that you can't possible do on the $3MM? Basically all of them!
Regarding the UVM project: they should sell that parking lot to bring the $1.5MM/ac costs closer to $300k/ac so people can build stuff instead of a place to store asphalt :)
No, those are real numbers spot-checked from Zillow. I was on my phone and, ya know, it's an Internet argument, so they're definitely ballparked, but they are from real actual land sales inside Burlington and then a few miles outside of Burlington.
I suppose the delta is surprising to you?
It's expensive because it's productive. The marginal productivity of living/working in Burlington means the market can sustain higher costs, ergo the costs go up.
This is more problematic than every other good because 1) they cannot add more land inside Burlington and 2) the land doesn’t actually have higher carrying costs by virtue of being more expensive (unlike roughly every other asset).
i look at zillow multiple times per day so i'm well aware of the local market, so no it's not surprising me. zillow doesn't give the full picture of what is happening locally. zillow list price for vacant land doesn't consider all the vacant lots held by people who aren't building for various reasons nor does it consider the surrounding suburbs etc. or the land uvm holds but doesn't develop (who they gonna sell to? they have more money than anybody). there are a lot more variables than just zillow!
> Zillow list price for vacant land doesn't consider all the vacant lots held by people who aren't building for various reasons nor does it consider the surrounding suburbs etc. or the land uvm holds but doesn't develop (who they gonna sell to? they have more money than anybody). there are a lot more variables than just zillow!
What? Yes it does. That's how prices work. If UVM sold all of their land, prices would go down, but they aren't selling all of their land, so the prices are higher.
I never said "all land is being used productively." I said "land prices are the primary source of cost in high COL areas." One contributor to high land prices are all the things you mention: people withholding their unused land from the market.
No, there are not more variables than just the sale price. The price of land is the price of land, and it factors in all the variables you mentioned.
of course land price contributes to housing cost but "land price" isn't the full picture. i wish it were that simple.
> That's how prices work. If UVM sold all of their land, prices would go down, but they aren't selling all of their land, so the prices are higher.
yes exactly how prices work in a textbook but a textbook is not a local market with all sort of dynamics. imagine the political process of UVM choosing to sell all their land, that is just absurd to be like "they can do that and the price problem is solved!" they probably got the land for very cheap and clearly want to develop but they can't because they can't afford construction costs, for a number of reasons (price of land being only one).
UVM’s internal politics are, in fact, accounted for in the price of land.
Yes, for that particular plot of land, which they already owned, the land price is not what prevented construction. That particular project’s failure is not a major driving force of the price of living in Burlington.
The fact that 2 acres costs $3MM is a major driving force.
Meh, I just shared the fact that for the same scale of project outside of Burlington, anyone can literally 10x their budget for construction costs based solely on land price differences.
Of course the counterpoint is: a single stalled project with extremely unique economics (built for students and on land that was already owned)
you continually show your lack of information about burlington's real estate situation with each comment. very entertaining to me. thank you for the entertainment as well.
i'm very far left ideologically and i think UBI in the current political economy is a bad idea because it's just gonna go to rent etc. all the capitalists will raise their prices.
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