On Thu, 9 Oct 2008 19:39:15 -0500, krw wrote:

In article ,
says...
On Tue, 7 Oct 2008 21:55:55 -0500, krw wrote:

In article ,
says...
On Mon, 6 Oct 2008 18:02:40 -0500, krw wrote:

In article ,
says...

snip

I'll say it again, when a property is selling at three times its
replacement construction cost even considering the acquisition and
development of the land the dwelling sits on and there is no long term
projected shortage, you know something is not quite right.

They only thing they're not making any more of is the land.

True, but except for certain classes of land there is an abundent
supply for the foreseeable future.

...but not where the people are (and want to be).

And where (please answer with statistical relevance) might that be?

SoCal. Westchester Co. NY. Phoenix AZ. Look at the census maps.
If that's too boring, look at land prices.


So are you suggesting that if I took a normal curve of the population
of the country and isolated the middle quatrile, that portion at the
top of the curve that represented the highest population based on
geographic location, those three areas would represent that quatrile
as compared to say, small town America?

I guess I'm missing your point.

I've been to each of those areas, two of them multiple times, have no
desire to live in any of them. I had under my control a
manufacturing/sales facility in one of them (Biesemeyer in Mesa) and
the guys we sent out to run the facility could not wait to leave and
have done so. That doesn't mean if I did live there I wouldn't like
the experience, I've lived in twenty or so different places and liked
them all. My choice would be to live in an area that has a high
quality of life, but that doesn't cost me so much for the roof over my
head that I can't enjoy the quality of life.

A point could be made, and maybe that is the point you are trying to
make, is that it is a free country and if you choose for whatever
reason to live in an area that has had real estate values driven up
significantly, then great. It doesn't mean that there are not
infinite other choices that are reasonable and where the quality of
life is considered better by many. It also doesn't mean that the gov
should provide you with a class of mortgage loans that is more or less
social experimentation so satisfy your choice.

Frank

It
doesn't take long for 1) land prices to catch up to the selling
prices, or 2) the selling prices fall to the land prices. Long
term, the rest of the components of a house are in abundant supply -
everywhere.