Land Owners

[Chiropteran]

Land owners are the elite. They have all the advantages and no risks. For virtually everything you buy or rent today, a non-trivial portion of that cost is going to land owners.

Get a $10 burger & drink for lunch? Maybe $2 actually pays for the ingredients. Another $2 goes to pay the minimum wage workers who prepare and serve your meal, or maybe $4 if you are eating at a tipping establishment. A couple dollars is profit for the owner. The rest? All goes into the lease the restaurant pays.

Then look at the numbers a bit more closely. You will realize that most of that $2-$4 that goes to pay the workers ends up being spent by those works to pay their rent, wherever they live. Most of the owner's profit goes to pay for his nice house or condo.

This is true for virtually everything, even high technology. Intel might not be making money based directly on the value of it's facilities land, but to attract good employees it has to build in a certain area and pay the premiums associated. To keep those employees, it has to pay them at a level that allows them to live more than comfortably given the local cost of living, which is directly determined by the land owners and what they are willing to sell or rent land for.

Imagine a world without this leeching. When you pay for a meal, you just have to pay the actual cost of the meal, not the cost of it plus enough to pay for the ridiculously expensive land the restaurant is sitting on.

The solution? If you can't fix it, join them. Land itself has little real value. Look at the difference between New York City real estate vs something in the suburbs of Georgia. It only gains value when enough people choose to live and build in the same area. The problem is you either need an absurd amount of money to bootstrap a city (super rich developers), in which case you make a ton of money when you sell the land you bought for dollars an acre at 1000 times that. For a regular person, even though you can hypothetically buy a plot of land and build a cheap house in the middle of nowhere, it's still the middle of nowhere and there is no incentive for others to build around you.

There should be a kickstarter for towns. You can pledge $3,000, get a quarter acre to do whatever you want. $500, get a smaller plot but still plenty big to build a house and have a yard. A corporation could pledge $25,000 to build a massive office campus for all it's employees, far cheaper than paying for a city office lease. These are realistic prices, land is actually really cheap outside of major city areas. Invest X dollars in the town infrastructure, and you will get paid back through future taxes. Setup the kickstarter to require a minimum total pledge value and number of backers to guarantee the newly started town hits critical mass. Some portion of the money set aside to build initial road, utility, and sewer systems.

Create a separate kickstarter for efficient inexpensive building construction, thought this isn't as necessary.

I don't think this could really happen, probably some stupid red-tape regulations to make it impossible to start a town like this, but I think it would be awesome. There is no reason why a 1-bedroom condo should cost more than 40 acres of land, regardless of location. Not in today's modern internet connected society.

 

[Moonbeam]

We could hang little houses from the roofs of caves.

 

[CPA]

Land does have "real" value based solely on it's location to resources. Even for non-humans. A parcel of land close to a water source will have much more life than a desert plot.

Now, on to your Kickstarter idea. Regardless of the "real" value of land, the cost of the infrastructure to support that land, you even list them, will remain pretty constant...and expensive. No way you are able to build the septic, roadways and utilities on people pledging $3K for a quarter acre. Stretches of roads will cost in the millions of dollars. Septic runs into the tens of thousands per lot. Who picks up that tab?

As for the building construction, cost to build is expensive because wood is expensive, because concrete is expensive, because labor is expensive. C'mon, you know this.

You know, you can get an acre of prime West Texas prairie for a couple grand. You should start the Kickstarter in a location out there. Let's see how many people want to move to an arid, hot West Texas property.

 

[WHAMPOM]

Land owners are the elite. They have all the advantages and no risks. For virtually everything you buy or rent today, a non-trivial portion of that cost is going to land owners.

Get a $10 burger & drink for lunch? Maybe $2 actually pays for the ingredients. Another $2 goes to pay the minimum wage workers who prepare and serve your meal, or maybe $4 if you are eating at a tipping establishment. A couple dollars is profit for the owner. The rest? All goes into the lease the restaurant pays.

Then look at the numbers a bit more closely. You will realize that most of that $2-$4 that goes to pay the workers ends up being spent by those works to pay their rent, wherever they live. Most of the owner's profit goes to pay for his nice house or condo.

This is true for virtually everything, even high technology. Intel might not be making money based directly on the value of it's facilities land, but to attract good employees it has to build in a certain area and pay the premiums associated. To keep those employees, it has to pay them at a level that allows them to live more than comfortably given the local cost of living, which is directly determined by the land owners and what they are willing to sell or rent land for.

Imagine a world without this leeching. When you pay for a meal, you just have to pay the actual cost of the meal, not the cost of it plus enough to pay for the ridiculously expensive land the restaurant is sitting on.

The solution? If you can't fix it, join them. Land itself has little real value. Look at the difference between New York City real estate vs something in the suburbs of Georgia. It only gains value when enough people choose to live and build in the same area. The problem is you either need an absurd amount of money to bootstrap a city (super rich developers), in which case you make a ton of money when you sell the land you bought for dollars an acre at 1000 times that. For a regular person, even though you can hypothetically buy a plot of land and build a cheap house in the middle of nowhere, it's still the middle of nowhere and there is no incentive for others to build around you.

There should be a kickstarter for towns. You can pledge $3,000, get a quarter acre to do whatever you want. $500, get a smaller plot but still plenty big to build a house and have a yard. A corporation could pledge $25,000 to build a massive office campus for all it's employees, far cheaper than paying for a city office lease. These are realistic prices, land is actually really cheap outside of major city areas. Invest X dollars in the town infrastructure, and you will get paid back through future taxes. Setup the kickstarter to require a minimum total pledge value and number of backers to guarantee the newly started town hits critical mass. Some portion of the money set aside to build initial road, utility, and sewer systems.

Create a separate kickstarter for efficient inexpensive building construction, thought this isn't as necessary.

I don't think this could really happen, probably some stupid red-tape regulations to make it impossible to start a town like this, but I think it would be awesome. There is no reason why a 1-bedroom condo should cost more than 40 acres of land, regardless of location. Not in today's modern internet connected society.

Sewers, water, roads. schools and parks with the manpower to take care of them all, where does the cost of these come in? A $million just for a water tower will break your bank pretty quick.
edit: forgot to add garbage pickup and mass transit.

 

[Chiropteran]

Sewers, water, roads. schools and parks with the manpower to take care of them all, where does the cost of these come in? A $million just for a water tower will break your bank pretty quick.
edit: forgot to add garbage pickup and mass transit.

Do you live in some town where those utilities are provided free of cost? I pay $80/month for water. I pay thousands in taxes for schools, parks, and roads.

Yes those things cost money, but I don't think the full cost normally comes from the developer, does it?

 

[Chiropteran]

Land does have "real" value based solely on it's location to resources. Even for non-humans. A parcel of land close to a water source will have much more life than a desert plot.

Isn't that essentially what I said?

Now, on to your Kickstarter idea. Regardless of the "real" value of land, the cost of the infrastructure to support that land, you even list them, will remain pretty constant...and expensive. No way you are able to build the septic, roadways and utilities on people pledging $3K for a quarter acre. Stretches of roads will cost in the millions of dollars. Septic runs into the tens of thousands per lot. Who picks up that tab?

Where I live, utilities are a for-profit business. Nobody pays for them for me, I have to make monthly payments for electricity, water, etc. Who picks up the tab? Well, for my house I pick up the tab. I assume every person living in this kickstarted town would pick up the tab, in much the same way as they do in every other town across the USA.

As for the building construction, cost to build is expensive because wood is expensive, because concrete is expensive, because labor is expensive. C'mon, you know this.

You know, you can get an acre of prime West Texas prairie for a couple grand. You should start the Kickstarter in a location out there. Let's see how many people want to move to an arid, hot West Texas property.

Why? There is cheap land in better locations.

As far as construction costs, sure. Buildings are not free. But the majority of cost in any city is the cost of the land. A $2 million dollar house in Alrington is smaller than a $300k house you could build in the suburbs.

This wouldn't get you something for nothing, but it would get you something for 1/5 or 1/10 the going cost compared to getting it in the middle of an existing city.

 

[CPA]

Isn't that essentially what I said?

No, you said land has no "real" value, it only has value when humans pay for it.

Where I live, utilities are a for-profit business. Nobody pays for them for me, I have to make monthly payments for electricity, water, etc. Who picks up the tab? Well, for my house I pick up the tab. I assume every person living in this kickstarted town would pick up the tab, in much the same way as they do in every other town across the USA.

Check to see if it was the developer, city or private company that put in that infrastructure (which is what you stated) that the private company is managing. Also, this doesn't include roads, which is most definitely by the developer/government.

Why? There is cheap land in better locations.

As far as construction costs, sure. Buildings are not free. But the majority of cost in any city is the cost of the land. A $2 million dollar house in Alrington is smaller than a $300k house you could build in the suburbs.

This wouldn't get you something for nothing, but it would get you something for 1/5 or 1/10 the going cost compared to getting it in the middle of an existing city.

Wait, you say there is cheap land in better locations, then you say that land in Arlington is 7 times the cost of the house. What better locations then? In any case, your example does not hold true everywhere. My $350K house just outside a major city was built on 1.5 acres with a land value of $35K.

But the point of this whole exercise is that you suggested a kickstarter of $3K for a quarter acre. Then you mention paying for the infrastructure with the pledges and that building structures would be cheap. That simply isn't going to happen. Maybe I didn't understand your original premise.

 

[realibrad]

Lol land owners. This argument has literally been going on from the founding of the USA by our founding fathers.

 

[First]

It's an interesting argument, the notion of kickstarter as a way to reduce lot prices, but it doesn't really jive with a few realities, least of which are the following:

1. Property taxes. Property taxes on residential and commercial property alike supply a great majority of the funding for the city, the county and schools. Vast reduction in land value means a vast reduction in these indispensable public services. There's no way to get around this unless the cost of everything else is reduced by the same magnitude and/or special taxes/levies are created elsewhere in state/federal budgets. Just inescapable.

2. Land values are always based on what people think it's worth. Weather plays a huge factor. Proximity to national resources attracts businesses which attracts jobs which therefore attracts people which therefore attracts more people because people tend to be interested in being more closely located to urban centers with conveniences like supermarkets, schools, clothing stores, entertainment, etc. Kickstarter will not change the basic and absolutely ingrained fundamentals of assessing land value in this way. That's a natural market force, a law of nature if you will.

3. Outside of the land value itself, whose value is based on many of the factors in #2, you underestimate:
a. cost of materials for building a home
b. cost of complying with local permits & regs, including but not limited to zoning, disclosures, closing docs like deeds and financing docs like mortgages (the latter of which necessitates brokers and attorneys, who have their own fees).

EDIT: I misread your original point; you're saying Kickstart can help build out more rural areas. OK, I get that. But the market forces above still apply. If the rural land doesn't have good weather, natural resources, public services (sewage, Internet, roads, etc.), etc. it's going to be very hard to get a Kickstarter campaign going without millions of dollars unless you're talking a piddly little home. There would have to be some incentive for people to donate; like rejuvenating a part of the country that locals want to see make a comeback for one reason or another.

 

[Fern]

Land owners are the elite. They have all the advantages and no risks. For virtually everything you buy or rent today, a non-trivial portion of that cost is going to land owners.

Get a $10 burger & drink for lunch? Maybe $2 actually pays for the ingredients. Another $2 goes to pay the minimum wage workers who prepare and serve your meal, or maybe $4 if you are eating at a tipping establishment. A couple dollars is profit for the owner. The rest? All goes into the lease the restaurant pays.

Your numbers are way off.

Average rent cost is about 8% of gross income. In your example $.80 would go for rent, not $4.

The first 3 hits on this google search confirm 8%: https://www.google.com/search?q=res...fficial&client=firefox-a&channel=np&source=hp

Imagine a world without this leeching. When you pay for a meal, you just have to pay the actual cost of the meal, not the cost of it plus enough to pay for the ridiculously expensive land the restaurant is sitting on.

If the 8% bothers you that much just buy your lunch/dinner from a guy witha push cart.

The solution? If you can't fix it, join them. Land itself has little real value.

Land has tremendous value. People, and animals, have been killing over it for thousands of years. Still do.

Look at the difference between New York City real estate vs something in the suburbs of Georgia. It only gains value when enough people choose to live and build in the same area.

Demand, as in a nice seaside location or proximity to jobs, is only one metric. There are others.

There should be a kickstarter for towns. You can pledge $3,000, get a quarter acre to do whatever you want. $500, get a smaller plot but still plenty big to build a house and have a yard. A corporation could pledge $25,000 to build a massive office campus for all it's employees, far cheaper than paying for a city office lease. These are realistic prices, land is actually really cheap outside of major city areas. Invest X dollars in the town infrastructure, and you will get paid back through future taxes. Setup the kickstarter to require a minimum total pledge value and number of backers to guarantee the newly started town hits critical mass. Some portion of the money set aside to build initial road, utility, and sewer systems.

Create a separate kickstarter for efficient inexpensive building construction, thought this isn't as necessary.

I don't think this could really happen, probably some stupid red-tape regulations to make it impossible to start a town like this, but I think it would be awesome. There is no reason why a 1-bedroom condo should cost more than 40 acres of land, regardless of location. Not in today's modern internet connected society.

Your prices are completely unrealistic. "$25,000 to build a massive office campus for all it's employees", really?

Starting a town from scratch is very similar to developers who build a subdivision out in the boonies. This process is well known and far more expensive than you seem to realize.

In fact, as a CPA I did work for a company in Miami back in the 80's; the General Development Corporation. They bought huge tracts of land in unpopulated parts of FL and created/sold towns from scratch. It takes many many millions even if the land is super cheap. Heck, even if the land was free (and it was mighty close to free back then).

Fern

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Your numbers are way off.

Average rent cost is about 8% of gross income. In your example $.80 would go for rent, not $4.

The first 3 hits on this google search confirm 8%: https://www.google.com/search?q=res...fficial&client=firefox-a&channel=np&source=hp



If the 8% bothers you that much just buy your lunch/dinner from a guy witha push cart.



Land has tremendous value. People, and animals, have been killing over it for thousands of years. Still do.




Demand, as in a nice seaside location or proximity to jobs, is only one metric. There are others.



Your prices are completely unrealistic. "$25,000 to build a massive office campus for all it's employees", really?

Starting a town from scratch is very similar to developers who build a subdivision out in the boonies. This process is well known and far more expensive than you seem to realize.

In fact, as a CPA I did work for a company in Miami back in the 80's; the General Development Corporation. They bought huge tracts of land in unpopulated parts of FL and created/sold towns from scratch. It takes many many millions even if the land is super cheap. Heck, even if the land was free (and it was mighty close to free back then).

Fern

This, I can only think of one wireless store I managed that the rent was more than 10% of the gross sales keep in mind the recurring aspect of billing only accounted for about 10 month's of customer billing. You're rent number is huge.

 

[dmcowen674]

Land owners are the elite. They have all the advantages and no risks. For virtually everything you buy or rent today, a non-trivial portion of that cost is going to land owners.

Get a $10 burger & drink for lunch? Maybe $2 actually pays for the ingredients. Another $2 goes to pay the minimum wage workers who prepare and serve your meal, or maybe $4 if you are eating at a tipping establishment. A couple dollars is profit for the owner. The rest? All goes into the lease the restaurant pays.

No one on the U.S. owns land anymore. You are leasing it from the Government.

 

[WackyDan]

No one on the U.S. owns land anymore. You are leasing it from the Government.

Holy shit... I can't believe I agree with Dave.

Why?

- Property taxes - fail to pay and they can foreclose on you
- Eminent Domain - They can take it from you for the common good... Or even for commercial gain.
- They regulate what you can and can not do with your land. Some areas regulate whether you can even cut down a tree or not.

Of course, the farther out in the boonies you are the less regulation and risk you have.

 

[drebo]

Yes those things cost money, but I don't think the full cost normally comes from the developer, does it?

Roads, water, sewer, even the mailbox, is all the responsibility of the developer. Most cities require that you build that infrastructure if you want to build a subdivision.

 

[Chiropteran]

No, you said land has no "real" value, it only has value when humans pay for it.

No I did not. Please don't put words in my mouth, or lie to my face, it's rather rude.

This is what I said: "Land itself has little real value."

Little doesn't mean the same as "no".

Wait, you say there is cheap land in better locations, then you say that land in Arlington is 7 times the cost of the house. What better locations then?

I was responding to your trollish comment about buying desert land in Texas. If you can't figure out what locations might be better than desert, you are beyond help.

In any case, your example does not hold true everywhere. My $350K house just outside a major city was built on 1.5 acres with a land value of $35K.

"outside a major city" Pretty much the entire point of my post, showing how land outside of major cities is much much cheaper than the land inside the city.

But the point of this whole exercise is that you suggested a kickstarter of $3K for a quarter acre. Then you mention paying for the infrastructure with the pledges and that building structures would be cheap. That simply isn't going to happen. Maybe I didn't understand your original premise.

The original premise is that for most people going about life as normal, a huge part of their daily expenses is really just money that is going to pay the original land owners of where they live, where they eat, where they buy stuff from, etc.

The kickstarter town thing would simple remove that cost. Yes, you would still have to pay for utilities and roads and it wouldn't be paradise on earth, but the fact that you would be owning the land you live on and paying a small fraction for it compared to the cost in a city is the benefit part.

Maybe you were confused when I said "Invest X dollars in the town infrastructure, and you will get paid back through future taxes". That is unrelated to the direct land-buying part of the kickstarter. I figure there might be some people interested in that sort of investment, it would be basically like buying a bond from the town that has to be paid back. The infrastructure wouldn't be bought from the money used to buy the land.

 

[Chiropteran]

In fact, as a CPA I did work for a company in Miami back in the 80's; the General Development Corporation. They bought huge tracts of land in unpopulated parts of FL and created/sold towns from scratch. It takes many many millions even if the land is super cheap. Heck, even if the land was free (and it was mighty close to free back then).

Fern

Takes many millions, okay. And how much profit did they make?

Developers make bank. They wouldn't be spending millions if they didn't know it was going to be returned to them 10 fold in profits as they resell the land.

Exaggeration aside, the exact amount of profit is hardly even relevant. The fact is, they do profit. If some group got together and did this sort of thing as kickstarter type deal, that profit need would be eliminated, money would be saved, and everyone involved would be getting a better deal than any developer could offer.

 

[Chiropteran]

Holy shit... I can't believe I agree with Dave.

Why?

- Property taxes - fail to pay and they can foreclose on you
- Eminent Domain - They can take it from you for the common good... Or even for commercial gain.
- They regulate what you can and can not do with your land. Some areas regulate whether you can even cut down a tree or not.

Of course, the farther out in the boonies you are the less regulation and risk you have.

Yeah, this is all true. Eminent Domain is such BS. A restaurant down the street was taken out by ED, apparently the county "needed" the land for critical revitalization of the subway station or something. Then the economy went downhill and the revitalization went on hold. The restaurant was gone and nothing new put in it's place for the last 10 years, it's such a waste. Finally looking like they will develop the lot in the next few years, but it's terrible that the land was just snatched away and left to waste for so long.

However, the idea I am proposing involves basically creating a new independent town. There is still potential for Eminent Domain issues from the state or federal level, but the town's charter and local laws would be written from scratch and could be purposely drawn up with very little regulation giving the land owners the most rights possible.

 

[PokerGuy]

It's always so cute when naive school or college kids have these grandiose visions of a way to do away with the evil profit motive in some aspect of society. It never happens and never will.

So much fail, OP, at some point you'll get into the real world and realize things aren't as simple as you think.

 

[Chiropteran]

It's always so cute when naive school or college kids have these grandiose visions of a way to do away with the evil profit motive in some aspect of society. It never happens and never will.

Amazing. How many fallacies can you fit into one post without even having a tiny shred of a real argument?

Strawman, claiming that I am trying to get rid of "evil profit motive", when I never said such a thing.

Ad hominem, claiming I'm some naive kid. You don't really have a clue who I am, but nice try.

And then you have False Cause, claiming that because it hasn't happened yet, obviously that means it never will happen. Because, of course, things never ever happen, unless they have already happened in the past.

Your ignorance feeds my ignore list, thanks.

 

[Fern]

Takes many millions, okay. And how much profit did they make?

Developers make bank. They wouldn't be spending millions if they didn't know it was going to be returned to them 10 fold in profits as they resell the land.

Exaggeration aside, the exact amount of profit is hardly even relevant. The fact is, they do profit. If some group got together and did this sort of thing as kickstarter type deal, that profit need would be eliminated, money would be saved, and everyone involved would be getting a better deal than any developer could offer.

Profit is not relevant here; cost is. Plenty of developers don't make bank; they go broke after spending millions.

The point is that development is very expensive. You need some seriously heavy, and expensive, equipment to clear roads back to the property and clear the land itself. And if it's not flat land you're dealing with you'll likely need to move a lot of earth. Dump trucks are needed too.

As far as water and sewer you can go with individual wells and septic, neither of which are cheap and may not even be possible (depending the perc rating and if good ground water is available). OTOH, you'll need to pay for civil engineers to lay out the lines etc for the water and sewer systems.

Then you're back to paying the heavy equipment with the big yellow 'toys' (Caterpillars etc) to do the ditching work and haul away the dirt etc. Then you gotta pay for the pipe to be laid.

(IDK who pays for electrical service etc.)

You're going to have the roads that were cut be surfaced with gravel or asphalt so the workers, building supply companies and resident can back in there to do their work.

The list goes on... And we haven't even mentioned inspections, lawyers, environmental costs (are you changing the ground water flow etc.)

I think the days where you can set off into the forest with a portable saw mills, fell some trees and build your house/cabin are long gone in most places in the USA. If they find you they'll condemn the property if it doesn't have permits and meet specs.

------------------

One other thing - I'm not sure that there's as much inexpensive buildable land in rural areas as many think.

Fern

 

[mpo]

Land owners are the elite. They have all the advantages and no risks. For virtually everything you buy or rent today, a non-trivial portion of that cost is going to land owners.

Get a $10 burger & drink for lunch? Maybe $2 actually pays for the ingredients. Another $2 goes to pay the minimum wage workers who prepare and serve your meal, or maybe $4 if you are eating at a tipping establishment. A couple dollars is profit for the owner. The rest? All goes into the lease the restaurant pays.

Then look at the numbers a bit more closely. You will realize that most of that $2-$4 that goes to pay the workers ends up being spent by those works to pay their rent, wherever they live. Most of the owner's profit goes to pay for his nice house or condo.

This is true for virtually everything, even high technology. Intel might not be making money based directly on the value of it's facilities land, but to attract good employees it has to build in a certain area and pay the premiums associated. To keep those employees, it has to pay them at a level that allows them to live more than comfortably given the local cost of living, which is directly determined by the land owners and what they are willing to sell or rent land for.

Imagine a world without this leeching. When you pay for a meal, you just have to pay the actual cost of the meal, not the cost of it plus enough to pay for the ridiculously expensive land the restaurant is sitting on.

The solution? If you can't fix it, join them. Land itself has little real value. Look at the difference between New York City real estate vs something in the suburbs of Georgia. It only gains value when enough people choose to live and build in the same area. The problem is you either need an absurd amount of money to bootstrap a city (super rich developers), in which case you make a ton of money when you sell the land you bought for dollars an acre at 1000 times that. For a regular person, even though you can hypothetically buy a plot of land and build a cheap house in the middle of nowhere, it's still the middle of nowhere and there is no incentive for others to build around you.

There should be a kickstarter for towns. You can pledge $3,000, get a quarter acre to do whatever you want. $500, get a smaller plot but still plenty big to build a house and have a yard. A corporation could pledge $25,000 to build a massive office campus for all it's employees, far cheaper than paying for a city office lease. These are realistic prices, land is actually really cheap outside of major city areas. Invest X dollars in the town infrastructure, and you will get paid back through future taxes. Setup the kickstarter to require a minimum total pledge value and number of backers to guarantee the newly started town hits critical mass. Some portion of the money set aside to build initial road, utility, and sewer systems.

Create a separate kickstarter for efficient inexpensive building construction, thought this isn't as necessary.

I don't think this could really happen, probably some stupid red-tape regulations to make it impossible to start a town like this, but I think it would be awesome. There is no reason why a 1-bedroom condo should cost more than 40 acres of land, regardless of location. Not in today's modern internet connected society.

Welcome to classical political geography, as practiced in the early 19th century. Read up on Ricardo's law of rent and von Thunen's 'Isolated State'. Flash forward to the 1960s, you can read about Alonso's bid-rent theory.

You will find that transportation costs, natural resources, and the need for humans to interact will determine housing costs. In very simple (and simplistic) terms, you can internalize housing costs, or you can internalize the cost of transportation. The two generally have an inverse relationship.

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch....

 

[Pr0d1gy]

No one on the U.S. owns land anymore. You are leasing it from the Government.

I came into this thread to say this and laugh at the people who think they own land.

 

[Chiropteran]

You will find that transportation costs, natural resources, and the need for humans to interact will determine housing costs. In very simple (and simplistic) terms, you can internalize housing costs, or you can internalize the cost of transportation. The two generally have an inverse relationship.

That is the basis of the whole idea.

Land in the outskirts = very cheap, but inconvenient to live there or build there because it's so damn far away from everyone and everything useful.

Land in the middle of a city = very expensive, but convenient for working & recreation & shopping needs.

The interesting part is how the transition occurs. At one point, the valuable city land in Arlington Virginia, as an example, was cheap land on the outskirts of Washington DC and worth a fraction of what it currently is. Some people bought the land first, over time more people build in the area, things built up, prices gradually increased, and now approximately 100 years later the land is extremely valuable and expensive.

Now, if you were alive 100 years ago and bought a lot of land here, you would be in great shape financially, but you would probably be dead due to age. The whole idea of doing something like this as a kickstarter is to speed up the process. Essentially allowing you to buy cheap country land and turning it into city land in a few years, instead of hundreds of years, and gaining a huge potential value increase. Also, as an open kickstarter, anyone could get in on it at the ground floor, and the more people involved the better it is for everyone- the greater the population the more natural benefits of living there occur.

[a bunch of irrelevant crap]

Who cares? All you are doing is pointing out that you can't build a house for free. Everyone knows this. The whole idea is based on getting *land* extremely cheap. You save hundreds of thousands of dollars on the land. Yes, you will still have to pay for your utilities, your home, taxes pay for roads etc, but those costs aren't going to be any higher than they would be anywhere else. In fact, I suspect costs would be somewhat lower, because of the efficiency gained by constructing a whole area all at once with modern technology, prior to full habitation.

 

[boomerang]

Who owns the land where this kickstarting will take place prior to the kickstarting occuring?

 

[piasabird]

Land owners have to pay mortgage, Taxes, Business License, Sales Tax, Property tax and insurance to get the loan. Some countries have a more socialist point of view on property and homes and they build apartments instead of singe family homes with yards.

I have my doubts about how all the profit works when I go to Hardees and purchase a monster burger for $8. Maybe Robots could do the same job for less.

I am a landowner too. It is called a house.