Friday, December 27, 2002

Low-Income Buyers Get Homes, Thanks to Bay Area Land Trusts
"Nonprofit land trusts buy land and either build new homes or fix up old ones. They then sell the homes to people whose incomes typically are below average, but retain the land to guard against escalating property costs. Buyers like Simpson agree to a limited profit when they sell, keeping the homes affordable for future buyers.

"All the work that went into making it affordable doesn't disappear just as soon as someone decides to sell it," Winters said. "The whole idea is to take real estate out of the speculative market. Housing and land are basic human rights."

The cause of high "home" prices is high land pricers. Land value taxation helps keep land prices down, thus making housing affordable at the same time as generating public revenue.

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