The amendment would prohibit the federal government from owning more than 50 percent of any land within one state, and requires the government to transfer the excess land to the states or sell it to the highest bidder.
-If you get rid of the "sell it to the highest bidder" part, it doesn't seem that ridiculous to me.
I can see this driving down the price of land and tanking the housing market (again). If they HAVE to sell their land, then suddenly a whole lot of new acres come up, and likely priced on the cheap. If there's all this new land being sold under market value, why buy something else? edit: this is of course, doom-mongering and worst case scenario, but it is the sort of thing you have to think about.
If they put in a stipulation that the land wasn't to be used for housing, that would never happen. Also, this assumes that there isn't abundant land for housing development as it is. There is plenty of open land in rural areas that is available for development if someone wants to do so. I doubt this changes the housing market one iota.
Let's face it, in a perfect world, this would be all well and good, but it is unlikely to occur with politics in America the way it is. Even if such a stipulation was put in, odds are it would have a giant loophole, or be completely toothless. Ah, but the virtue of this potential land is that it is CHEAP. Because the government would be obligated to sell it (and most likely within a certain time frame), odds are it would be sold below market value to make it happen. People will buy it just for the potential profit of selling it again later. It might not change the urban market (the government doesn't have as much land there anyways), but it would DEFINITELY negatively affect the rural market, and especially the agricultural market. Anyone being pressured by big agricultural conglomerates to sell below what their land is worth has just lost any bargaining chip that they had. But that's just how I see it, TNG. I hope you're right and I'm wrong.If they put in a stipulation that the land wasn't to be used for housing, that would never happen.
Also, this assumes that there isn't abundant land for housing development as it is
I doubt this changes the housing market one iota.