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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >Homesteaders don't buy land for the resale value. I have no intention of 
> selling, so liquidity and resale value mean nothing to me. In fact, the 
> lower the value, the better...lower taxes, and no one will be looking to 
> take it away from me. On a homestead, only the weather changes.
> 

Lynn has summerized this quite realistically.

Back in the run up of land prices, some of us explained that land prices had 
two components - a realistic use component and a speculative component.  
Having title to or use of land which can grow potatoes means that the land is 
worth 
a continuous supply of potatoes.  Ditto pasture, woodlot, orchard and house 
site.  In terms of currency, those "values" change in that potatoes might 
become expensive or cheap.  But in terms of a direct use economy, that 
"value" 
never changes.  X amount of good potato ground will (given care and used 
sustainably) grow more or less Y amount of potatoes which have a fixed 
nutritional 
value.  This will be true if the economy collapses or 'thrives', if the price 
of 
potatoes goes up or down, if the price of and goes up or down.  None of that 
will make the slightest bit of difference.

The concern over land prices has a great deal of the Enron phenomenon in it.  
In a piece of real estate had a value of $100K before the real estate run up, 
then had a value of $300K at the peak, and now is approaching $100K again, 
did  title holder ever actually have $300K?   Not in any real sense.  The 
wealth 
is imaginary.

But, one might remonstrate, I COULD have sold it for $300K at one time!  But 
it didn't happen, did it?

James