There’s already a lot of land deals out there for anyone who wants go where the developers fear to tread. These developers are figuring out that regardless of what approvals they have in hand, it doesn’t make much sense to break ground on a project if they can pawn it off to some other adventurer.
Yes, land values do take a beating when times get tough. In my opinion the land market is usually the first market to get thumped, price wise. You just don’t notice it as much because the transactions are all scattered and involve parcels with such widely divergent development potential. It’s tough to relate what’s going on unless you have some familiarity with the development process and development potential for the sites so you can compare the parcels against each other.