[spaceribs]

> Speculation is less profitable than development, If you're getting speculation it's because the roi vs risk of development isn't justifiable.

Arguably, speculation should always be unprofitable and we should ideally regulate against it in every way, shape and form. I'd ask what purpose does holding onto a unproductive piece of land serve at all to society beyond an easy to grease financial vehicle?

[FredPret]

There's tons of good speculation. Speculators are not buying and selling land, or corn futures, or what have you.

They're trading risk.

Sell to a speculator and you turn an uncertain future into cash right now.

Buy from a speculator and you get to enter the market at the moment of your choice.

It unlocks specialization - house builders can focus on building houses, and corn farmers can focus on growing corn. As soon as they're done with a house / harvest, either a consumer or a speculator buys it and they can focus on producing the next house/crop. Without speculators, they'd have to not only do their value-add, they'd also have to predict the market and hope enough customers show up in future. With speculators, this is significantly mitigated.

[jjk166]

> As soon as they're done with a house / harvest, either a consumer or a speculator buys it and they can focus on producing the next house/crop. Without speculators, they'd have to not only do their value-add, they'd also have to predict the market and hope enough customers show up in future. With speculators, this is significantly mitigated.

Sounds like a great way to over or undershoot demand leading to market inefficiencies which the speculators have a perverse incentive to increase. It may be useful for a market like agriculture where production is variable and the produced goods are perishable - the loss from speculators may be less than the inefficiencies of noise. However, we've all seen how broken the real estate market has been despite the continued presence of land being one of the least variable things we encounter.

[swagasaurus-rex]

Buy from a speculator and you get to enter the market at a price of their choice.

Vacant land is land that somebody could have built a home or a restaurant or a storefront or an apartment complex on, except it's being hoarded by speculators, who often refuse to sell at a loss.

[potato3732842]

Ask yourself why and by what/who the incentives of living in society have been so thoroughly perverted that there is demand for "unproductive" (seriously, listen to yourself, this stuff is a liability) land for "finance bullshit magic" reasons? The perversions are what prevent "buy and do something to generate value" from outcompeting "buy and hold".