Subscribers would have heard me preach many times that advances in technology feed directly into land prices.
This is something completely missed in the mainstream — it’s never mentioned.
The large economic institutions are still taking bets on when house prices will tank based on shifts in the cash rate.
They simply cannot see the bigger picture that the technological boom will sink into the price of land — leading us to peak in 2026.
The connection between technology and the land cycle formed the base of Henry George’s 1879 magnum opus, Progress and Poverty — An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth.
George wanted to know why, as economies progress, does poverty increase?
Why doesn’t the opposite happen?
Why doesn’t technology provide us with more time and leisure, and less need to work and toil?
The answer is of course that land prices absorb the gains of innovation.
Fred Harrison calls this ‘The Law of Absorb’.
And as land prices increase — the split between the haves and have-nots broadens further.
There are many examples we can use to demonstrate.
It’s commonly observed in areas close to transport innovation.
Businesses that could have benefited from the improved connectivity face higher costs for establishing their operations near the hubs.
The same can be said of new innovations that lower the price of construction.
We saw it in the 1950s — some 70 years ago.
William Levitt — nicknamed ‘The King of Suburbia’ and ‘Inventor of the Suburb’ — used mass-production techniques to construct large developments of houses, eponymously named ‘Levittowns’.
They were sold for less than $10,000 — all equipped with modern facilities and within an easy car commute of work zones.