Hacker News Reader

Comment by SCM-Enthusiast | Hacker News Reader

but the land it's built on is an appreciating asset.

Purchasing a single piece of land with the expectation that it will increase in value, is similar in many ways as to do so with single stocks.

Land and stock tend to go up in value. But land also sometimes go to 0, just like stocks.

With the booming American car industry in the 50's and 60's, who would have thought that houses in Detroit could go from having a premium price in 1970 to be sold for $1 40 years later?

Who's to say SF isn't going to be next?

Short of it being on a superfund site most residential land will never have a value of 0. It's called REAL estate for a reason. Partial ownership in a company can evaporate, but 405 park west, manhattan nyc will always be there, at least for the next million years.

Some actually sell for $1 ($0 may be technically more difficult), some may sell for less than 10% of what it was once considered worth, which is close enough to 0 for the difference to not matter much.

A single peice of land may or may not appreciate. but a diversified portfoilio of land will always appreciate if the last 10,000 years has anything to say about it.

The rockefellers and other "Old Money Family's" have the three rules to building multi-generational wealth. Land, Art and Gold.

Even for detroit, land prices have only increased since the 80's[0] and over long time horizons, i'm sure will be back in line with other "Single peice land bets".

[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ATNHPIUS19804Q

> A single peice of land may or may not appreciate. but a diversified portfoilio of land will always appreciate if the last 10,000 years has anything to say about it.

I believe there are large parts of Europe that would take centuries if not a millennium to reach the peak value it had during the Roman Empire (measured vs gold).

In general I agree, though. A portfolio is fine.

Most people tend to have most of their "savings" in a single property though.

As an example, what do you think this $2500 property cost when it was new? (Edit: make that 1965, since it's quite old.)

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3226-Columbus-St-Detroit-...

a person buying a condo in Vancouver generally isn't purchasing land, and if they are, then yes, the land might appreciate even as the thing built on it degrades over time due to a bunch of natural processes (e.g. wood decays)

someone buying a condo is absolutely buying land. That land just is split up across x number of condos. The appreciation that you get on the Condo, is the fact that the land is usually in a very ideal location. That's when the economics of "Going up" even makes sense.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com