Auction Start Prices Much Higher than in world Prices?

I just realized that in world land is now at 2.0 per M while the auction start prices are still closer to 3 per M

Does LL ever adjust the auction opening bids to reflect what is current pricing?

They did lower the starting auction price by 50% about a year ago when their flood of Mainland sims to auction crashed the market. It's conceivable they could lower the starting bid again.

Although with LL's strange math, they don't see Mainland prices dropping the way us mere mortal humans do:

From Jack (Office Hours Transcript - Jack Linden: 07-09-2009 - Slapt Wiki)

Edited down to just Jack.

[11:20] Jack Linden: Daemon, we haven't seen much loss of value on the old Mainland (Zindra is small compared to the 5000 other Mainland regions)
...
[11:29] Jack Linden: Reggie, it isn't down to 2.1.. I think you;'e looking at the For Sale prices not at what actualyl sells
...
[11:29] Jack Linden: It's at around L$5.4 per meter at the moment

Jack Linden seems to think that the actual price of land is closer to 5 per meter.

Does that mean that there's a lot of land sitting around at low prices, not being sold?
That would indicate that people are only interested in buying "prime" areas; good locations or neighborhoods, and that "normal" land is just so much junk.

Auction land is the land that was abandoned by people who think its junk..mostly

There is a ton of nice land on the search pages way under L$5 a meter. A TON of it.

I had a lovely flat green 512 plot listed at L$2.4 and it sat on the first page of land search for days and days...and it was one of the cheapest plots in all of SL.

I never got how they arrive at their numbers and they are always higher than what I ever saw land trading at.

Maybe there are enough people desiring land on a specific sim, who pay a premium to get the shared prims. Or there is a lot of waterfront being sold. Those are the only two reasons I can think of. The masses and the land traders simply aren't paying that much per meter as far as I can tell.

You beat me to that answer Raymond. I was typing slowly and pouring coffee.

You are so right that land is sitting. The only real sales are going at bot prices, and those don't last long enough to make it to the land search listings.

mmmmmmmm. Coffee.

If they are counting average, something like the insane prices Bay City was flipped for could hold up the number.

I wondered who set the beginning auction price - one piece of land began at 4900 it really should've ended there...I won't even say how much I ended up paying =(

But it's okay because I looove water.

The few that I have considered bidding on lately have ended way way above the starting prices. I think it is the prime spot prices that fool LL in to thinking all land is still worth much more than it it. Other than prime spots (beachfront, etc) it seems to me that land is not moving much right now. I figured it was cuz people are waiting to see what really happens with the Adult changes.

As has been mentioned, the 'average' Jack talks about is artificially inflated by the prices of Bay City and other premium parcels. Almost certainly LL is using the mean, because it leads to a higher number than would the median.

The median (the central figure in an ordered list of all the sold-parcel per-meter selling prices, for any time period for which you want to give the 'average' selling price [such as a week or month]) would give a far more accurate representation of the 'true' value of land.

But...the mean makes LL look better, I guess, assuming they want to project an image of high demand for land.

As for the fact that land can be had for around L$2/m, yet the Auction prices begin at L$3/m: it used to be clear that a lot of parcels were simply receiving no bids. No one thought them worth the asking price. But LL made it harder to see this, a few weeks back, by changing the system so that the parcels disappear from the listings instantly when the auction closes (at noon SL time, in recent weeks).

That information used to stay up for at least a minute or so, making it easy to get a rough feel for the demand for land.

But like most businesses, LL no doubt feels that their interests are better served by giving people as little information as possible. (I'm not saying this makes them evil, I'm saying this makes them typical.)



(Yes, you can see the selling prices of each parcel by going through Advanced Search and inputting the parcel's sim name and checking 'include closed listings'. But that is very time-consuming.)

Hope you don't mind, but I am going to repost this part of your post on a similarly themed thread over at SLU.

http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/business-land-economy/31437-mainland-prices-taking-dump.html

Many people are questioning where Jack gets his figures. Your post helps clarify things a bit.

Even 5.4 is old compared to 2 years ago. Raise your hands all that remember 12-13L$/m land.

I remember it.. but I never paid it.. not even for beach.

Even a small-time operator like me made a killing during the long period where no new sims were coming online. It as a great run from a base of L$8 a meter to that 12-13L$/m. Beachfront at that time was L$20 a meter if you could find it that cheap.

And then the never-ending queue of auction sims, landbots, the gambling ban, the banking scam and ban and the SL stock market closure all hit the Mainland. Then came open space sims, Bay Cities and Nautilus taking more people out of the traditional Mainland market. Now we have the Zindra fiasco. No wonder we have a base of L$2 a meter.

In fact, the only positive thing to happen to the Mainland in the last two years has been the ban of rotating signs and ad plots. Their blight is the only thing about the Mainland I'm not nostalgic about.

SL has moved on. You may remember it as the glory days, but perhaps SL will fair well by these changes. Land value isn't the only metric.

Didn't say it was. Few people ever saw the value of land flippers and their exploits. But those of us who did it had a grand old time and it was a way for a person like me who did not excel in creating to make money in SL.

SL will fair well when LL starts implementing things that benefit their users not themselves. So far, I haven't seen any evidence of it.

Look at it like this. A recent chunk of land near me sold for I think 31.25L$ (maybe 29.29)per meter. If it went for the advertised price (15K or 16K for 512).

Must have been a very nice parcel indeed.

In the end, cheap land is not going to benefit the masses. Even if they start giving it away, there is still tier to consider. And, unless you form a group and rent tier, premium membership is a pre-requisite to mainland ownership (of course you also get the free 512 that way).

At the moment the large swathes of yellow on the map are of no concern to Linden Labs. They are owned by someone (probably a "Land Baron" so they are having tier paid for. How long that will continue to be true, is the real question.

Occupancy on the private estates is much harder to get a feel for. They seem to be doing better with their week to week rentals and "predictable" content. Perhaps LL should look into a business model that would confer some major advantages to mainland ownership.

Doing an experiment right now. I'm listing a flat green 512 high enough to not get snatched by a bot but low enough to be the cheapest price on the entire list in SL. So far it's sat there for about ten minutes.

The truth is, other than the bot runners, there just aren't any land traders out there anymore moving Mainland parcels.

I miss having to hurry to beat Weedy Herbst, Wrestling Hulka and Dragon Keen to a cheap plot that just popped onto the list.

Ha! Some of us still try.

mainland, flat tropical beach, corner of sim against an LL Void sim. Only down side MIGHT be that I think if not flat it goes below water but I know it is at least 50/50 if not 100% flat above water.

But that's a perfect example of the price inflation going on. Cheap land is cheap....expensive land is very expensive. By the way it took at least 3 maybe 4 months to sell. It's the third or fourth flip since the sim started in december? It's in Searfoss.

LOl, it's pg land Raymond. I am standing there now. A bot just bounced in and back out so fast that I din't get a chance to get the profile up.

I noticed that too. I recently lost an auction for a parcel that had no competing bidders with me until the last 5 minutes of the auction. I would have won the parcel at L$3/m if "someone" hadn't stepped in during those last 5 minutes and bid it up L$15/m. Not against me, but I'm assuming against themselves in an effort to grab the parcel at a price I wouldn't dream of paying. The only way I saw it went for L$15/m was in the last 30 seconds of the auction, that was the winning bid, and I wasn't going to pay that much for anything. As soon as the auction closed, the info was gone.