Crystal Ball: Virtual Real Estate

Current acvtivities and Linden announcements promise to change the real estate market once again.





1. How do you think this will effect mainland tiers?

2. Do you feel that they will lower the $300 USD a month for a class 5 Sim?

3. Make some wild, unsupported prediction about SL Real Estate.

My true fear is that with rising costs of gasoline and food, inflationary pressures, election year stunts and just plain global market mismanagement, the Company won't have to lower tier.

Because 300 USD/mo will be relatively worthless in short order (3 years?), and everyone's dollar income will go up even as its net valuation will go down. It's the late 70's all over again, folks. Gods, even disco is simmering in the background.

* * * * *

SL real estate - like Zee said, their income is tightly coupled with the SL economy - and the Company has maybe 100 million reason$ in 2008 to not bork it too badly.

Mistakes are totally possible though - this is all breaking new ground.

1. It won't.

2. No.

3. There will be more of it soon.

Gee, Lias...we've gone over all this stuff already. Must've been while you were distracted by your infohub neighbors.

Oh yeah, I guess I missed it. I just see every once in a while that they bring up the subject of mainland tier prices. Just wondering if anyone has a feel for when the official announcement regarding the mainland tiers may come out.

They will not lower tier.

The real question is what effect openspaces are having on the market. There has been a spike in the orders, clearly, and more places using them as low density housing sims. Follow-on questions are: How prevalent is this? How many people are buying in? Is it worth getting an island now just to get into the openspace market?

The OpenSpace market is booming. Buy one full-priced sim and get as many Open Space sims as you want placed anywhere on the grid. And many are not advertising them as Low prim islands. They just advertise it as your own island with the name you want on it. New players aren't aware that real sim has 15,000 prims.
I think the open sim at 75 USD a month is a good resource for Store owners. A inexpensive way to control the area and build a well-stocked main store.

Wild speculation?

I'll win the plot I want in Bay City, and not go broke in the process!

Mari

Tier will go down when the LL employees all start demanding pay cuts.

Aww, shoot. Well maybe not go down but change the structure.

The jump from 75 USD to 125 USD is a hard one to deal with. There is always talk about this. And when buying land to transfer it - you get charged for the month for owning the land. Do you feel any of these mainland tier issues will change?

I would expect more tier levels, not for actual tier to go down. More tier levels would make tiering up a lot easier at the higher levels, especially that jump from 75 to 125. I'm at the point where I have to buy in increments of half-sims. I wouldn't mind that coming down to a quarter.

The jump from US$125 to US$195 is a tough one. Once you start buying over half the sim, you're paying for the whole thing. That sucks. You might as well sell out and buy a whole sim.

--Hugsy

The other options are:
1) Rent tier for sub-half-sim expansions
2) Bite the half-sim tier jump and lease out the unused tier

Sometimes a bit of ninjanuity softens the costs.

Softens the cost at a loss, if you rent it out. Better than a complete loss, but it's still a loss. I would rather have productive land than rely too much on renting tier.

You're missing a quote, it was made by Zee at the metanomics debate. I don't have it to hand but he said something about the costs of maintaining a server are about right.

Tier will not drop.

You're also missing a Robin Linden quote about "Simplifying tier", now that might mean something changes,l but I wouldn't expect costs to be lower.

The real question is when will they raise the tier for all those grandfathered islands, and give the newer estates a level playing field to play on. As long as the oldbies have lower expenses, they will continue to dominate the land market.

Create a premium alt and let him supply the little tier you need for over half a sim, maybe a 3rd premium if needed. That way it is $125 + $25 instead of $295.

Well, to totally level the playing field it would take a bit more.

a) equalise tier (as you mentioned)

b) force oldbies to get unknown alts

c) rename our regions to something obscure and unknown

d) rip out all our landmark builds

e) censor out all the blogs, media mentions and all that

f) get us to do business like we were just starting out

g) knock eeeeveryone back to class 4 region performance

h) give the new folks a taste of grid performance circa 2006, one year free

i) give us back 1000 hours of our lives (20 hours/wk x 52 weeks-ish)

j) cancel accounts of some fraction of the new residents that we helped attract

k) purge Anshe's Business Week article from everyone's memory that ever saw it


That would make it fair dinkum.

Those are interesting ideas. But, I have qualms about relying on other people. If I'm renting tier, the other party could pull it from me without notice and LL™ won't get involved. If I'm leasing it out, then there's not guarantee of a taker.



Interesting idea. I like it because it's self-contained. But, if I did the math correct, it only works for adding 1/8 region (or less). Adding a 1/4 region (or more) means you're paying a higher annual cost.

Numbers for recurring costs only (i.e., tier and premium, but not purchase price of the land):

-----------
Scenario 1:
-----------

Main:

Tier Level: Full Region (US$195 per month)
Premium: US$72 per year
Annual cost: US$2,412

-----------
Scenario 2:
-----------

Main:

Tier Level: 1/2 Region (US$125 per month)
Premium: US$72 per year
Annual cost: US$1,572

Alt:

Tier Level: 1/8 Region (US$40 per month)
Premium: US$72 per year
Annual cost: US$552

Total Annual Cost: US$2,124

-----------
Scenario 3:
-----------

Main:

Tier Level: 1/2 Region (US$125 per month)
Premium: US$72 per year
Annual cost: US$1,572

Alt:

Tier Level: 1/4 Region (US$75 per month)
Premium: US$72 per year
Annual cost: US$972

Total Annual Cost: US$2,544

--Hugsy

If the "other people" you were relying on were J Random Avatars, maybe they might not be dependable.

Hint: I did say "Sometimes a bit of ninjanuity softens the costs".
That's NINJAnuity.
I use them and it's trouble free.

Even if a reputable tier renting operation were to suddenly withdraw tier donation for some totally unforeseen reason, it's not really a huge problem.
The group would go into negative tier, but the sky doesn't fall immediately. I understand that it will take a number of days before LL take note and suggest that perhaps maybe pretty please you might like to correct the situation.

If you can't find dependable replacement tier donations then you could always use an alt to take on the lower tier levels.
One downside of that is that the alt will be paying a higher rate per metre of tier. That rate will be higher than the rate for which you can rent tier.
Another downside of the alt is that the billing is for an entire month at the highest level reached in the month. With rented tier, you can take it for less than a month.

Sorry i'm half asleep but noticed this thread & have two questions if someone could help me pls?

#1 Are the openspace sim prices already as mentioned above, or being changed in the future? (Prims too)

#2 I'd like to buy one but I don't own an island a mate here does, i'm down as Estate Manager, would he need to buy it or would they let me? God VAT too, maybe best to let him!

Any help appreciated ty

Ypur friend that is the island owner needs to buy the Opensim island.

These are the set Opensim prices.

lol. That's a little extreme. I don't begrudge anyone making a reputation. The point of class 4 performance is a good one. LL should really eliminate them all. I'm only asking for one thing on your list, is it really that much to ask!

Why is it unfair that people who were willing to invest earlier in a class 4 sim should not get a break on the tier cost? Maybe all the mainland sims should have their tier raised too.

I mean if I bought a 1987 car I wouldn't expect to pay the price of a 2008 brand new one.

Well if you're paying 1987 prices for the petrol in your 1987 car then that's a valid argument

Class 4 shouldn't cost the same monthly cost as class 5 however. The $100 a month difference does appear a bit large mind you.