How many mortgages would now be in default if land had no selling value? 

   A major factor in both residential home and commercial real estate pricing is land cost. Suppose we did not have to buy the lot? We are hearing daily that home prices are falling. When was the last time you priced drywall, lumber, bricks, concrete blocks, hardware, roof materials, and the labor required to construct all this into a building? Did Lowe's or Home Depot practically give you all these materials, now that home prices are falling? Are builders now working for minimum wages?

No, home prices are not declining. Land prices are declining. I did not hear any complaints during 1999-2003 when land prices were increasing at 10 percent a year. That was the time to be alarmed - that was when the job economy began to have trouble. But people hang on, hoping to get through the year. We can hang on only so far - then when land costs so far exceed labor and capital's ability to pay they stop paying. We're in that stage now.

Folks, we never complain about low costs, but now that real estate buyers see falling land prices they complain while waiting for it to hit bottom. No sense buying today at $10,000 if the price may fall to $9,000 next month. This is what is happening to the real estate market today. As the cycle reaches bottom and land prices begin inching upward, buyers will again buy land, homes, commercial and industrial property, hoping to beat a higher price later.

Now look at the real estate market in another way. Suppose we operated our land system in a fair and just way. Suppose we ran our tax system so that no site rent (the annual price of land) was left over after taxation to be used to capitalize into sale price. If all the rent of land was taxed there could not be any sale price. The land would be free, just like God's air, rain, snow, sunshine and broadcast spectrum. The real estate market would not need to wait for land prices to turn around and go back up.

Here are some lessons our society has learned: In the 1860s we learned that black humans should not be kept as slave laborers - and we did something about it. In the 1920s we learned that females were entitled to vote and hold public office - and we did something about it. In the 1960s we learned that black citizens still did not have equal rights promised to them a century earlier - we did something about it.

It is time we learned that land should be free of cost, and we should do something about it now. Poor economic conditions and unemployment, outsourcing jobs for lower production costs, are all results of treating land as a commodity. When people can't find a job it is because a speculator is holding land off the market or waiting for an ideal price.

When land is free, there will be no unemployment. Young workers, even college grads just starting out, cannot afford $50,000 to $100,000 lots upon which to build their house or business. People who want to farm can't afford $5,000-an-acre land. Wouldn't financing real estate be easier if the only cost was the materials and labor?

Let's reform our system of land taxation and ownership for profit, and begin treating land as a human right.

Shaw, of Mount Zion, is a former West Virginia Tax Department

real estate appraiser.

How many mortgages would now be in default if land had no selling value? 

   A major factor in both residential home and commercial real estate pricing is land cost. Suppose we did not have to buy the lot? We are hearing daily that home prices are falling. When was the last time you priced drywall, lumber, bricks, concrete blocks, hardware, roof materials, and the labor required to construct all this into a building? Did Lowe's or Home Depot practically give you all these materials, now that home prices are falling? Are builders now working for minimum wages?

No, home prices are not declining. Land prices are declining. I did not hear any complaints during 1999-2003 when land prices were increasing at 10 percent a year. That was the time to be alarmed - that was when the job economy began to have trouble. But people hang on, hoping to get through the year. We can hang on only so far - then when land costs so far exceed labor and capital's ability to pay they stop paying. We're in that stage now.

Folks, we never complain about low costs, but now that real estate buyers see falling land prices they complain while waiting for it to hit bottom. No sense buying today at $10,000 if the price may fall to $9,000 next month. This is what is happening to the real estate market today. As the cycle reaches bottom and land prices begin inching upward, buyers will again buy land, homes, commercial and industrial property, hoping to beat a higher price later.

Now look at the real estate market in another way. Suppose we operated our land system in a fair and just way. Suppose we ran our tax system so that no site rent (the annual price of land) was left over after taxation to be used to capitalize into sale price. If all the rent of land was taxed there could not be any sale price. The land would be free, just like God's air, rain, snow, sunshine and broadcast spectrum. The real estate market would not need to wait for land prices to turn around and go back up.

Here are some lessons our society has learned: In the 1860s we learned that black humans should not be kept as slave laborers - and we did something about it. In the 1920s we learned that females were entitled to vote and hold public office - and we did something about it. In the 1960s we learned that black citizens still did not have equal rights promised to them a century earlier - we did something about it.

It is time we learned that land should be free of cost, and we should do something about it now. Poor economic conditions and unemployment, outsourcing jobs for lower production costs, are all results of treating land as a commodity. When people can't find a job it is because a speculator is holding land off the market or waiting for an ideal price.

When land is free, there will be no unemployment. Young workers, even college grads just starting out, cannot afford $50,000 to $100,000 lots upon which to build their house or business. People who want to farm can't afford $5,000-an-acre land. Wouldn't financing real estate be easier if the only cost was the materials and labor?

Let's reform our system of land taxation and ownership for profit, and begin treating land as a human right.

Shaw, of Mount Zion, is a former West Virginia Tax Department

real estate appraiser.