World population is still growing. Slower but still. Population generates a direct demand on real estate, so unless people start accepting lower living and working standards (why would they?) aggregate demand will continue to grow.

Now, supply cannot physically grow. Land on Earth is as scarce as bitcoins. In fact, due to rising sea levels, it's poised to shrink, if anything.

Basic laws of supply and demand answer your question in global aggregate.

That being said, you have to take your local conditions like demographics into account. For instance, a lot of countryside in the US is still empty and unlikely to appreciate in value due to these factors anytime soon.

I'm not saying whether land is undervalued right now, but I expect a long term trend to be upwards. It's like Bitcoin - we never know when we're in a real dip but we know where we're going in the long run.

I don't see this as an investment but rather as an opportunity to be more independent and more self sufficient. One can live off the land if done right in the right location... YMMV

I know Mark Moss argues for real estate being undervalued, but I don't recall exactly what his argument is: something about how it usually trends with global liquidity.

I agree with you. There's a lot of artificial scarcity in this market, which makes me uncomfortable. Governments will absolutely dump their land holdings onto the market if they get desperate for revenue. In America, the states also own lots of land, btw.

There are probably better arguments to be made about particular areas or properties being undervalued than the entire asset class.

In a world where bitcoin didn't exist, I'd say it's historically been one of the safest investments you can make, and would recommend it.

In a world where bitcoin exists i can't think of a single reason I'd buy land as an investment. It's just inferior in every single way.

Real estate has become an investment vehicle in the clown fiat world. This is because all scarce assets increase in fiat value because of money printing. Once Bitcoin demonetizes land, land will return to its utility value without any monetary premiums. However, until then, real estate will probably do better than the money supply printing rate but will struggle to keep up with Bitcoin's returns. The mental model to apply would be: Whatever the investment I am going to make, will it exceed the rate of returns of Bitcoin? For the past 4 years, Bitcoin has had around 55% rate of return CAGR. So you need to ask, "Will land or any other investment vehicle come close to that 55% return?" Yes, granted(unless supercycle, haha), there might be a slight dip in returns as the asset class matures, but over a 4-year CAGR, at least I don't foresee that coming down significantly from that 50% mark for the next 5 years. PS: Michael Saylor forsees has a 29% CAGR estimate for BTC for the next 21 years in his base case(conservative case, IMO).

Hard to say it's undervalued orerall, but the question is also "where?" In the Americas is mainly overvalued because there's still some population growth and lack of offer, but in places like Europe there's much more offer and less demand so prices are already very low. Then the next question is where the prices are going, then location is also important like a cheap house or small building near the mediteranian see can be a good business like some real estate in a city like Praha if you manage to buy cheap.

I live in Korea. Land and real estate are purely seen as investment vehicles. Nothing else. You don't live in the same place for more than a few years. Actually, calling it an investment in generous, most do it as speculation. Buying it with the hopes of flipping it for a higher price.

When I lived in Europe, people would buy land or real-estate with the goal of living there for the rest of their lives. That's how I see it too.

History tells you it’s not bad. AI will also help you determine what’s in your soil.

Unless you have insider knowledge of where some major public project is set up and preferential access to capital so you can frontrun those developments I honestly don't see how flipping makes much if any profit in nominal terms.

Another is if you were able to prospect land that has minable resources, if you're sitting land with some kind of commodity then sure you can mine it or lease it to a prospective miner

I think land as an investment can also make sense if it's your place of business, your farm, your guest house, your business premises, it must be a functional piece of land that is the basis of economic activity, otherwise it's just a utility for you to comfortably sleep, wash, poop and store stuff

I think residential land is way overvalued for what it provides, how are you taking x10 leverage on variable interest rate over 20+ years and still having 1-5% loss on repair cost, taxes, etc and generating no income to offset it and the CAGR doesn't either in real terms, its a shit deal

Imo, Land is an overvalued asset not undervalued. There's so much land everywhere but people by saturating specific land areas are inflating the prices of that land.

In my country, we can still get 1 hectare of agriculture land, to my knowledge, in $10k. Isn't it cheap considering we can easily live off the land and it would be worth much more in 10 or 20 years?

So, I mean, I don't oppose there are many better returns providing assets now, but land is something that's a requirement and the more the better.

An argument I hear is 'nobody can print more land'. However scarcity alone doesn't make it a good investment.

It depends what your objective.s are. I like land as every site is different. If you appreciate land for its unique qualities it offers multiple uses depending on the site. However in my opinion it is arguably overpriced as it has been used as a SoV to avoid fiat debasement. If a Bitcoin Standard ever takes hold land might drop in relative value. Only buy land if you want to use it...too many speculators sitting on land doing nothing with it.

If trends continue and our population continues to drop off a cliff you wouldn't think prices would drop long term...