alt Hacker NewsAt that point you've ceased to describe construction companies and are now describing real estate speculators while calling them construction companies.
Moreover, notice how little sense that business model makes. To do that you would be sinking capital into vacant lots that you're neither developing nor receiving rents from while paying both property taxes and opportunity costs. You're paying interest on the loan or could have been getting ~10%/year by putting your money into the stock market. A real construction company would be trying to minimize the period they're holding an unproductive property.
And even if you wanted to be a real estate speculator, how does that make you more money than investing in rental properties and then actually renting them out so you receive rental income on top of any price appreciation?
Meanwhile, what, if not for zoning rules and other regulations, is preventing anyone else from undoing your attempt to constrain supply by opening up a new construction company which is actually a construction company?
You must be drawing from experience in a specific locality in the US, probably a rural one, because what I described is how land sales in the largest cities in the US has worked for half a century.
Doing what I described in New York City is exactly how Donald Trump made an initial fortune back in the 80s. It's happening right now in Seattle.
The business model not making sense, is due to the incorrect assumptions you make. For one, that land or buildings in cities appreciate less quickly than the stock market.
> At that point you've ceased to describe construction companies and are now describing real estate speculators while calling them construction companies.
I'm not sure what you think the difference is in practice. There may exist some construction companies that don't engage in real estate speculation, they just aren't the big or most profitable ones. Which addresses:
> Meanwhile, what, if not for zoning rules and other regulations, is preventing anyone else from undoing your attempt to constrain supply by opening up a new construction company which is actually a construction company?
The fact that the most valuable land is owned by other construction companies who have more money because of the real estate speculation.