Comment by llamaimperative | Hacker News Reader

Comment by llamaimperative | Hacker News Reader

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llamaimperative

> 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).

I didn’t say it’s the full picture.

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.

thank you for sharing your opinion about why burlington's housing prices are high.

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)

So who knows!

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.

Excellent counterpoint!

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