Is raw land ever a good investment?

[gus2505]

From what I've heard, land prices have skyrocketed over the last 30 years (with the exception of ithe last few years of course)

Unlike a rental unit, raw land is usually low maintenance

A couple of downsides: taxes and lack of liquidity

However, prices do seem to keep up with inflation

[craigr]

Maybe timber could be OK. Or maybe if you owned a bunch of land in Miami Dade county near the beach 50 years ago. But it's all a crap shoot. You could have easily bought raw land in Detroit 50 years ago, too.  ;D

[MediumTex]

Maybe timber could be OK. Or maybe if you owned a bunch of land in Miami Dade county near the beach 50 years ago. But it's all a crap shoot. You could have easily bought raw land in Detroit 50 years ago, too.  ;D

It's also very hard to predict which land will go up in value.

If you had told me 200 years ago that some of the most valuable real estate in the world would be sitting right on top of major fault lines, I would have said that's absurd; people surely aren't that stupid to build enormous cities on top of formations that basically guarantee that the cities will one day be destroyed.

In fact, San Francisco was already been destroyed once in 1906, and the people just rebuilt the city without considering that another site might be a better place for a city.

[gus2505]

Maybe timber could be OK. Or maybe if you owned a bunch of land in Miami Dade county near the beach 50 years ago. But it's all a crap shoot. You could have easily bought raw land in Detroit 50 years ago, too.  ;D

True I guess it depends what region the land is in.  Where I am at, it has appreciated quite a bit over the last 20-30 years (at least until the crash).  I guess it's like asking if/when the real estate market will rebound.  Like Harry Browne used to say, nobody can predict the future   With that being said, it does seem logical that land prices would increase with inflation (like gold), but I could be wrong.

[TripleB]

If you had told me 200 years ago that some of the most valuable real estate in the world would be sitting right on top of major fault lines, I would have said that's absurd; people surely aren't that stupid to build enormous cities on top of formations that basically guarantee that the cities will one day be destroyed.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

[moda0306]

The land on those fault line happens to be some of the only Mediterranean climate in the U.S. and is Ocean-front property.  I guess if paradise shakes now and then people don't mind.