Then add Heinein’s twist – that the owner gets to set the value of his land – on condition that anybody who wants can buy it t 3 times the owner’s valuation.
- got me thinking about the whole valuation thing.
MW reminds us often enough that it´s absolutely within the grasp of professionals to do reasonably good valuations. That´s fine. But let´s slip into utopia-mode, and devise a system where this can be done in a transparent way. Where rental value of land can be derived as a direct result of market transactions (preferrably purchases), instead of a system of assessing the whole of market transactions/rents*, that can be "hidden":
- We want a system where the full value of the land can be collected, and the full value of improvements, as judged by willing sellers and buyers, to belong to those who own them.
- We, or I anyway, wouldn´t want a system where any landowner is obliged to sell anything, as opposed to some of the self-valuation schemes that people have proposed.
- Bids: can a correct price for both rental value of land, and capital value of improvements, be achieved in a system where both the improvements and the rental value of the land is bid for separately? How would such a system look like without a tendency to overbid one or the other? Or underbid for improvement values if land values is what wins out.
*Obviously, for rental value on land to move on properties not "on the market", other market transactions would still have to affect those land values.
