Every time I say I have no interest in buying land, the room goes quiet in a specific way. Like I said something either very stupid or very arrogant. So let me explain my thinking. Not to convince anyone. Just because I think the question behind the question is worth asking.
The question is not “should I buy land?” The question is: why do you want to?
Start with the why
Most people do not start there. They start with the conclusion: land is good, land appreciates, my father bought land, my neighbour just sold his plot for three times the price. Then they work backwards to justify it.
But if you slow down and ask yourself honestly: why do I want this piece of land? The answer usually falls into one of four buckets.
Is it to park money? Is it for name and fame? Is it as an investment? Or is it to build a house later?
Each of these is worth taking seriously. Each of them deserves an honest answer, not a comfortable one.
“Land prices always go up”
Yes. So does everything else.
Gold goes up. The stock market, over time, goes up. A good business goes up. Even the price of rice goes up. Land appreciating is not an argument for land. It is a description of how value works in an inflationary economy.
The question is not whether it goes up. The question is: compared to what? At what cost?
The “future safety” argument
This one frustrates me the most, because it sounds sensible until you press on it.
Safety from what, exactly?
You cannot control who your neighbour is. You cannot control whose eye is on your land. You cannot control what the government decides to do with the road that runs next to it, or whether a dispute emerges over the boundary, or whether the documentation turns out to be messier than the seller let on.
The word “safety” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this argument and deserves to be questioned every time it appears.
Name and respect
Let me be direct here.
If you are buying land for name and respect, stop and ask yourself: do you think you do not have name and respect right now? What is it about a plot of land that you believe will change how people see you?
And if you already have name and respect and you are still buying it, what are you actually chasing? More? How much more is enough?
I am not judging the answer. I am asking you to know it.
Did you secure yourself first?
Before you buy expensive, illiquid real estate with its own set of ongoing costs, did you take care of the basics?
Term life insurance. Health insurance. An emergency fund that can absorb a bad year. Your children’s near-term needs. These are not glamorous. Nobody posts about them. But they are the floor, and most people are buying the ceiling before they have built the floor.
Did you run the numbers?
I mean really run them. Not just the purchase price. The total cost of ownership.
Registration. Stamp duty. Legal fees. Annual property tax. The cost of securing the land physically if it is not near where you live. The cost of your time when disputes come up. The opportunity cost of that capital sitting in an illiquid asset for ten or fifteen years while the rest of your financial life waits.
Then: what is the realistic exit? Who is buying, at what price, and how long will it take?
Most people run the upside scenario and stop there.
The practical reality
You are not just buying land. You are taking on a responsibility that follows you.
Encroachments happen. Legal disputes happen. Local politics happen. If the land is far from where you live, you are managing it at a distance, which means you are dependent on someone else to tell you what is actually going on.
This is not the future I want to spend energy on. I want assets I can understand, monitor, and act on. Not things I have to worry about from a different city.
What I would rather do instead
I am not saying do nothing with your money. I am saying be deliberate about what you are doing and why.
Ramit Sethi has this concept of your rich life, the specific vision of what a good life looks like for you, not a generic version borrowed from someone else’s Instagram feed. I would add one layer to that: question that definition too. Because the rich life you think you want might have been quietly installed by your social environment, not chosen by you.
For me, land ownership as commonly practiced, bought vaguely, held indefinitely, justified emotionally, does not fit my rich life. Other investment vehicles give me liquidity, transparency, and the ability to act. Land, in most cases, gives me none of those things.
That might change. If I find a specific use, a specific location, a specific plan, I will run the numbers and decide.
“Everyone is buying land” is not a plan. It is a current.
I have learned to be skeptical of currents.