{"id":2051,"date":"2007-10-15T14:50:26","date_gmt":"2007-10-15T21:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=2051"},"modified":"2007-10-15T14:46:30","modified_gmt":"2007-10-15T21:46:30","slug":"want-to-make-a-real-difference-in-real-estate-prices-and-in-everything-else-stop-pushing-innocent-people-around-by-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2051\/want-to-make-a-real-difference-in-real-estate-prices-and-in-everything-else-stop-pushing-innocent-people-around-by-force\/","title":{"rendered":"Want to make a real<\/I> difference — in real estate prices and in everything else? Stop pushing innocent people around by force"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why is housing so much more expensive in Los Angeles than it is in Dallas? Higher demand? No so much. The reason is that building new housing in Dallas is easy, while building anything at all in California is a nightmare of absurd regulations. Virgina Postrel<\/a> explores a study that shows the marginal cost, in land prices, of pushing innocent people around by force with land-use restrictions. (HT Dan Melson<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Some of the higher price of L.A. real estate does reflect the intrinsic pleasure of living there, as I’m reminded every time I walk out my door into the perfect weather. Some of the price reflects the productivity advantages of being near others doing similar work (try selling a screenplay from Arlington, Texas). All of these benefits—and the negatives of traffic and smog—are reflected in the price of land.<\/p>\n

But what exactly is that price? Consider two ways of computing the price of a quarter acre of land. You can compare the value of a house on a quarter acre with that of a similar house on a half acre. Or you can take the price of a house on a quarter acre and subtract the cost of the house itself—the price of construction. Either way, you get the value of an empty quarter acre. The two numbers should be roughly the same. But they aren’t. The second one is always bigger, because it includes not just the property but the right to build. Expanding your quarter-acre lot to a half acre doesn’t give you per- mission to add a second house.<\/p>\n

In a 2003 article, Glaeser and Gyourko calculated the two different land values for 26 cities (using data from 1999). They found wide disparities. In Los Angeles, an extra quarter acre cost about $28,000—the pure price of land. But the cost of empty land isn’t the whole story, or even most of it. A quarter- acre lot minus the cost of the house came out to about $331,000—nearly 12 times as much as the extra quarter acre. The difference between the first and second prices, around $303,000, was what L.A. home buyers Read more<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why is housing so much more expensive in Los Angeles than it is in Dallas? Higher demand? No so much. The reason is that building new housing in Dallas is easy, while building anything at all in California is a nightmare of absurd regulations. Virgina Postrel explores a study that shows the marginal cost, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,24,6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2051","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-blogging","7":"category-egoism-in-action","8":"category-marketing","9":"category-real-estate","11":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7174,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/7174\/the-national-association-of-realtors-in-perfecting-the-idea-of-rotarian-socialism-not-only-sanctified-the-criminal-violation-of-the-property-rights-of-innocent-people-it-also-robbed-us-of-the-highe\/","url_meta":{"origin":2051,"position":0},"title":"The National Association of Realtors, in perfecting the idea of Rotarian Socialism, not only sanctified the criminal violation of the property rights of innocent people, it also robbed us of the highest and best uses we might have achieved with our real property…","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 10, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Kicking this back up to the top because it fits so well with the recent posts from Al Lorenz and Doug Quance. --GSS \u00a0I've understood since I was 18 or so how real estate develops organically, in a truly free market, so I have known all my adult life how\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Mother"","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18710,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/18710\/2023-housing-bubble-or-2024-real-estate-boom\/","url_meta":{"origin":2051,"position":1},"title":"2023 Housing Bubble or 2024 Real Estate Boom?","author":"Brian Brady","date":"May 15, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Zillow \"creates\" digital home valuations and The Fed \"creates\" digital currency so it's not like we are dealing with credible institutions BUT: The Dallas Fed is worried that housing is overvalued. Our evidence points to abnormal U.S. housing market behavior for the first time since the boom of the early\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18221,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/18221\/overnight-news-the-office-building-of-the-future-is-suburban-low-rise-gated-guarded-video-monitored-and-patrolled\/","url_meta":{"origin":2051,"position":2},"title":"Overnight News: The office building of the future is suburban, low-rise, gated, guarded, video-monitored and\u00a0patrolled.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 11, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"If you pursue the comments on Pedro Robinson's article, linked below, you'll see me prophesying on every rooted thing. If you read me here, you know my take: The Ants who can work from home are fleeing everything Grasshopper as fast as they can. Gun sales are slowing, so that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Group Therapy"","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ya think it's easy?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/BHBNewTopImage-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6860,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/6860\/swanepoels-top-10-real-estate-trends-matter-to-me-and-to-real-estate-quite-a-bit-less-than-my-own-list-of-burning-issues\/","url_meta":{"origin":2051,"position":3},"title":"Swanepoel’s Top 10 Real Estate Trends matter to me — and to real estate — quite a bit less than my own list of burning issues","author":"Greg Swann","date":"February 10, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Stefan Swanepoel sent me a copy of his Top 10 Real Estate Trends Report, which was gracious of him, considering that neither me nor any of the Bloodhounds nor BloodhoundBlog itself are mentioned anywhere in the book -- at least as far as I could detect on a cursory examination.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Mother"","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7018,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/7018\/obamas-housing-rescue-plan-wont-rescue-housing-but-it-will-delay-the-eventual-recovery-of-the-real-estate-market\/","url_meta":{"origin":2051,"position":4},"title":"Obama’s housing rescue plan won’t rescue housing, but it will delay the eventual recovery of the real estate market","author":"Greg Swann","date":"February 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link). \u00a0Obama's housing rescue plan won't rescue housing, but it will delay the eventual recovery of the real estate market President Barrack Obama came to Mesa Wednesday to announce his new housing initiative. The location made for good\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Mother"","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1788,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1788\/thomas-sowell-housing-woes-caused-by-land-use-restrictions-and-federal-micro-management-of-lenders\/","url_meta":{"origin":2051,"position":5},"title":"Thomas Sowell: Housing woes caused by land-use restrictions and federal micro-management of lenders","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 11, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Hoover Institute Economist Thomas Sowell:Amid all the hand-wringing and finger-pointing as housing markets collapse, mortgage foreclosures skyrocket, and financial markets panic, there is very little attention being paid to the fundamental economic and political decisions that led to this mess. The growth in risky \"sub-prime\" mortgage loans by people buying\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Investment"","block_context":{"text":"Investment","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/investment\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}