<i>"There is a ton of land, were not running out of space in our lifetimes"</i>
Who owns that land? Do you realize how much is BLM and state / federal wilderness that can never be developed?
There has never been a time, not once in the history of this country where land prices have declined from normal ascent of value. That does not include brief periods of wild speculation on certain plots... I'm talking about buy & hold for a decade or three.
As for carrying costs, that depends. Standing timber takes cost out of the equation. Aerable land can be rented for agriculture... and rent in most places is going up considerably.
I don't deal with commercial plots, so cannot comment on that aspect.
Given a choice of buying raw land or Dow Jones stocks right now, I'd take the former every single time. There have been many decade blocks of time where stocks went nowhere or lower. Raw land has never gone backwards in value over any measurable period of time. Find a way to handle any carry costs, and it's 100% risk free.
