Take a look at page 4 of this report and gawk at the $1.1 Trillion dollar number. In 1990, the Los Angeles County Assessor's Office valued the land and structure at $430 billion. Converting these numbers into real dollars using the CPI, yields an annual average real appreciation rate of 2.5%. I realize that LA County now has a larger quantity of buildings than it had in 1990 but this example highlights that the land has value out here because the building themselves are mostly nasty 1950s tear downs.
