dumb question of the year: #3

thank you for all you great replies helping this newbie out and making *my* experience in world a great one.

is there a general "exchange rate" UI or area that i can go to find out how many linden's i'll need to buy to give to my landlord each month? (instead of buying the exact amount, i tend to keep some linden cash in my account)

thanks in advance.
-n

This is about as far away from being dumb as we'll see here. It's an excellent question.

What exactly is the arrangement with your landlord? Many will specify rent in Lindens, so you know exactly how much you need to buy (but not necessarily what it will cost you in RL currency).

You can find out the current LindeX exchange rate at https://secure-web22.secondlife.com/currency/market.php , but it can be confusing at first. Basically, 'best buying rate' (265 at this instant) is what you'd probably get if you did a market buy. If you put a limit buy order in at the 'best selling rate' (275 at this instant), it would usually take several days to fill. If you go one less than the 'best selling rate', e.g. 274 at this instant, it will usually fill relatively quickly - within a day, often within a few hours - but of course that's variable, so no promises.

You can look at the 20 best exchange rate offers, for buying and selling, on the LindeX page from your account. There is also a little calculator that will tell you how much the USD equivalent is after a buy/sell transaction.

thank you very kindly for this info.
i'm paying in US dollar. ($32 / mo) but when i did the math this weekend and sent my land lord her cash, she mentioned i was short. so i sent her more. (but i think i sent more than i should have - unless the US dollar is trading really low against the L dollar)

thank you!

thank you Cristalle as well. i will check into this.

Well she should provide you with a figure. Leaving you to guess how much she wants doesn't sound like a good way to do business. The exchange rate doesn't vary a whole lot, in fact the sudden dip after Phillip's announcement was the first time in recent memory I've ever seen it change substantially for more than a few hours.

sounds like she wants 32 us in the rate of selling, not of buying

example right now on the lindex
1000 lindens cost 4.08 us

to sell 1000 lindens you only get 3.51us

(those are market buy/sell figures)

so if she wants the sale rate you will need to go to the sell panel and then keep trying specific amounts to see how many lindens will sell for 32US

then go to the buy and put in that amount of lindens to buy (it will cost you more than 32US)

for example right now.. it works out to be
9500 lindens sell for 33.34us
then you go to the buy lindens and buy 9500 lindens which will cost you 36.15us

might want to ask her which rate she is using, the sell rate or the buy rate (or have her quote you the price in lindens for example 9500 lindens and keep it at that regardless of the rate changes)

Tell your landlord to give you an exact number; she shouldn't keep you guessing! I generally err on the side of caution when buying Linden Dollars. L$265/1 USD is a safe number to use pretty much all the time. Do you pay her via PayPal, I'm guessing? If so, she should have no problem giving you a solid number.

There's no point in building in a rate increase at the same time.

Set the rent to 9000. At 266, that will yield $32.64, which is more than enough buffer for the landlord.

my explanation was mainly to show folks unfamiliar with the exchange that the cost of buying is not the same as the net from selling

It won't be exact (but not too far off either) but for back-of-the-envelope it will do since the exchange rate has been stable for the past year or so .

L$275/$1 for L$->US$ (limit sell, includes 3.5% fee)

L$265/$1 for US$->L$ (regular market buy)
or
L$275/$1 (limit buy)

---

Since you want to how much L$ to give her so she ends up with $32 after selling them you use the first and end up with: $32 x L$275/$1 = L$8800

(Right now it would take exactly L$8791 to yield $32 so you really do get very close just using those number)

ah thank you all for the total understanding of how this works.
i WILL ask to do a set Linden amount from here on out.
thank you very much, this really helps a lot.

Um, no, or at least that's not what the LindeX calculators show. The L$275/1 limit sell does not include the fee. If you enter 8800 and 275 into the limit sell boxes at https://secure-web12.secondlife.com/currency/sell.php , it shows $30.88 as the proceeds. At that price, you need to up the number of Linden to 9122 to net $32 from the sale. You can get a better rate than 275, but I don't know how long it takes to fulfill a limit sell at better than market rates.

Personally, I'd try to negotiate the rent based on the average of the best buy and sell rates. I don't know whether LindeX will accept fractional shares in the rate, so that would work out to either 269 or 270. At 270, you'd need to sell 8956 to net $32 - which is essentially how I came up with my 9000 suggestion, after rounding to the nearest 100.

On SLExchange, you don't have to compensate for the fee, but the market rate for selling isn't as good, currently 281.1. You'd have to sell 8995 ($32 x 281.1) to net $32.

Is it common for landlords to charge a fluctuating L$ rent based on the exchange value like this? It just seems like an odd business model to me and would be simpler to charge a set L$ rent based on the exchange value plus some buffer L$ amount to account for fluctuation (and whatever L$ amount that the landlord wants to gain in income).

*points to the "includes 3.5% fee"*

A limit sell at L$265/$1 + 3.5% fee gives you a net L$275/$1 exchange rate when rounding up.

The OP wanted a quick and easy way to calculate the amount of L$, not all the details of how the LindeX works and using L$275/$1 to calculate US$ proceeds works fine for that since it already includes the fee, saving one step.

That was my question in all of this -- I would want a flat L$ amount to pay every week or month.

I get the feeling he's being charged USD but earns his money inworld or doesn't want to use paypal.

Ok, that would still be new to me. Is it common for landlords to demand rent in USD?

Most don't, since the Linden Dollar is stable against the USD. But some estate owners do, and some require payment by paypal. Depends on the landlord.

Wow, really? I may be missing something here, but unless I set up a special paypal account, they would get my RL name as soon as I paid them via my paypal account - and I am not completely sure of how I could set up a paypal account without associated my RL info to it.