Madam, – Your dramatic diagram showing what purported to be “house prices” (Home News, May 14th) was defective in one very important respect. In fact, the prices of houses themselves have not changed much over the seven years. What has fluctuated is the value of the land sites on which those houses were built. The diagram is actually a good illustration of the boom-bust cycle caused by an unrestricted market in land prices.
The recent boom/bust cycle is merely the latest in a series that has been going on for 300 years, with a frequency of about 18 years.
Such cycles will continue until the proposed tax on land site values is applied. – Yours, etc,