Have property developers become extinct?

When I first came to SL (all together now..) 2 years ago, there was quite a lot of talk of property developers. By this I mean people who bought land, built something 'nice' on it and put it back on sale at a higher price.

Nowadays, it seems that people just deal in bare land and there's no point in developing it, since the new owner will probably rip down the nice building and put a poorly made full-bright pink plywood box up in its place.

Am I right that there used to be developers but now they've almost gone?

What's so wrong about improving a piece of land with a big, full bright, pink box???

You forgot GLOW and PARTICLES on that pink box!

I rent private estate land and sometimes offer lots with houses on them. Often they sit unrented while the plain lot next door gets snapped up fast. People have very specific ideas about what they want, and overall they seem to prefer to rez their own home. I just wish they'd choose nice houses and not POS freebies. I have had to say "please make that a skybox" so many times I've lost count.

Ah! But I did say 'poorly made full-bright pink plywood box'

Folks that actually care to develop are probably maxed out on their land holdings under the circumstances. I don't consider sticking a house on a lot "property development" unless you own it and elect to maintain it in that condition. Most people that pretty up lots just put down stuff that doesn't transfer anyway.

Blindly purchasing and developing a parcel or a sim in hopes that your design will be just what some stranger wants to buy is extremely risky, in today's world of trashed land prices.

I think a lot of the developers who used to do that sort of work have moved to making developments for clients as custom orders. For example, at Fox and Ground, I *never* buy the land. I get hired by a client, who buys the land and tells me what they want to develop on it. I then turn their dreams into reality. Working that way, you stand a far better chance that when your hard work is completed, the client will actually keep what you were paid to make for them.

Then again, I know of at least one Corporate client that comissioned 4 sims, got just what they wanted from another developer, and then wiped it all and did something completely different within a few months.

You did. Sorry - my mistake. I forgot about the glow and particles that Ayesha mentioned

I'm not a professional property developer, however, usually when I'm trying to sell off land I put down house and some trees and whatnot. I do it to show one idea of what could be done with the land. If they keep it, great; if not, that's fine too. I'm not really sure it helps all that much though.

--Hugsy

After watching a "property developer" take one of the coolest looking sims in the southern continent (Gorbash), cover it with staggered grass-textured cubes, and put identical prefabs on each platform... I think what happened is that people who wouldn't know "nice" if it bit them in the butt made the very idea of "property development" stink.

You can build something very nice, trying to sell it for fair price and
it just be bought by someone who flips land, will return everything or
leave it there until a newbie buys it and instant messages you to
remove items left months later.
That was one experience I had year back when I tried to sell some
land after fixing it up.
In 2006 the idea of fixing up land was putting up freebie pre-fab on 512m
lot and sell it to inexperience players for 9000L$ or more.
Now I assume they just want to get rid of land and the tier.

Let us hope the influx of themed mainland will be a wake-up call. Personally, I am *so* tired of bulldozed, square plots of "tropical island" separated by small canals.
It was frankly depressing to go looking for land, and one of the major reasons I ended up buying my own OpenSpace.

I used to invest in land and develop the plots. Then I realised that I could make allot more per hour doing custom builds that people requested rather than developing a unique plot in the hope it would appeal to someone. Also spending time creating prefabs would provide a much higher return than spending tme developing a single unique plot or even a high value custom build. Overall I think if you have the ability to create a well deveoped original plot then you are better off spending your time creating content that you can sell an infinite amount of copies of rather than a one off.

Maybe they figured out that cutting out the middle man and buying from Linden is way cheaper, maybe they figured out that when they do it that way, they actually do own it!

I used to rent houses when I first came to SL, but I'd get bored with them and kept moving. Now I have a huge Island and when I get bored, I terraform, landscape or buy a new house.

This thread isn't about renting, it's about actually selling improved plots.

Porky I am interested in having a prefab custom built, can you send me some details, ie cost per hour, how I can convey my ideas to you and are there any inworld examples of your work I could check out? etc etc

thanks, but I understood the context of the thread.

Personally the first thing I do when acquiring land is return all remaining objects and revert the landscaping to LL's original design. Clean slate so I can do what I want to. Why spend the money and tier buying land if someone else makes everything for you? May as well rent if that's what you want, save some money and hassles.