trying to sell estate land...

It's your perspective that is jaded. Jaded refers to perspective coming from "overexperience" in an area and often implies that the perspective is skeptical. If you were going to say anything about the character of my post in the perspective you might call it "naive." While I am sure there are people setting low prices to game the system you are speaking in absolutes and such absolutes are almost always deserving of rebuttal. I have no idea how pricing the land affects its rankings in search but if by merely pricing the parcel at a very low price automatically places it high in search results then unless you're a mind reader you cannot know every estate owner's intentions for setting a low price on a parcel.

Renting estate parcels in this manner keeps things simple. I didn't even find the parcel I rent now by using search. A friend mentioned the sim to me because she knew I needed a new place to rent. My landlord's sale box gave notecard with instructions to pay $100 to obtain ownership permissions and then pay weekly RENT to a RENTAL box on the land. The notecard summarized the land covenants including an explicit covenant restricting resale so it was obvious to anyone with an IQ greater than that of a potato that the land was being offered for rental and not for sale. When I asked a tenant if there was a way for me to get the landlord to hold the land until I could contact him to ask questions about the rental she told me if I paid the $100 the landlord would give me at least 24 hours to contact him before he would reclaim the land. For me that certainly was better than dropping an entire weeks rent and hoping for the best or waiting it out to get in touch with the landlord while hoping the land would still be available by the time I could speak with him.

Similarly most experienced SL residents don't just pop L$ into a rental box without asking the landlord some questions and doing some research, and it is worth it for some residents to put down a nominal amount of L$ to preserve an exclusive right right to rent the land while they do their homework on the landlord and setup their build. Rental land in a nice residential sim can dissappear quite quickly, particularly if you want a specific parcel, and landlords cannot be expected to be available for consultation and questions about rental 24/7. I would have hated to lose out on a nice location simply because someone else happened to be online when the landlord was available.
My landlord was only selling estate land in the technical sense. It was transparently clear that it was defacto rental of the land with the benefits of full admin rights. There is nothing slick about the way he did it and you can't get shafted by people who are not competing in the same market as you.
My landlord does cut slack for tenants late on rent. Then again he is not a "scamming" estate owner.
ALL estate owners need to be checked out before you trust them, whether you are renting or "buying." Further if all you are really doing is renting as I am doing, my financial risk with my estate landlord is significantly less than someone else who is paying a significant purchase price on the land on top of tier/rent as they are on your estate. If anything their buying land on your estate (or anyone else's) instead of renting merits more investigation of the estate owner than if they were simply renting the land.

So why not just set the parcel to sale for you for 24 hours then? It's gaming the system to put land out for L$1. I reserved a parcel for a lady on mainland yesterday, I don't charge a fee for that.

I wouldn't get up in arms about the 1L reservation - it gives you time to secure the land, fill a linden buy order, etc. If you get removed after a day, you have only lost 1L. It works because most estate owners and managers cannot be there 24/7 to serve people on hand and foot and finders end up being keepers.

You can't set the parcel to sale to someone if you don't know the person is interested in renting and the landlord was offline. I also sent him a notecard asking him if he could hold the land for me but since a neighboring tenant online said that it would automatically be held for me for at least 24 hours if I paid the L$100 I decided pay it just to be on the safe side. As a prospective tenant it served a legitimate and convenient purpose to me. It's rental land not land for sale so if it is never in competition with estate land for sale how is it going to game the system against someone who is trying to sell estate land? It's not as if he advertised land that would be marketable to sell at L$10,000 for only L$100 and then had a notecard stating that it was just a downpayment and that an addition L$9,900 linden dollars would be required to actually own the land. Anyone that went to the land would have clearly seen it was for rent and would have moved on.

They are infact not only competitng but shutting legit land sales out by dominating the first 10 pages of the estate land sales search, if you feel strongly that they arent competing, then how would one explain that thier primary source of clients are from a system that wasnt designed for them and that they ruin for legitimate land sales, by gaming that very system. IMHO anyone who is gaming a system so blantantly has already shown that they are willing to lie, cheat and steal. They are lying about the land prices to get better search placement, they are cheating or "gaming" the estate land sales search, and they are stealing prospective clients from legitimate land sellers

The land sales search is just that, a LAND SALES search, anything thats listed on the land sales search that isnt land sales is , for one improperly placed, and two a open deception

Not according to LL. Their policy is "Bring the Deception, We'll Co-Sign Your Bullsh*t".

Which only goes to show as I said in another thread, SOME Estate owners can be trusted beyond that of what LL can be trusted

This all hypothetical mumbo jumbo......you don't go into business (Yes, even SL styled business) with the notion that you might drop dead tomorrow! Shit happens!
In my case, I've made contingency plans should anything happen to me that is unforeseen, and this involves my SL partner...my assets which are significant would be transferred over to her.....likewise if something should happen to her. My residents will be looked after either way.

First of all, you're bickering about semantics to assert where a "rental" ad should be placed. When you cut it down to its core, ALL land is rental land. Mainland is land residents rent directly from Linden Lab. Estate land is land that residents rent from estate owners. Some land that is for rent from estate owners requires payment of a significant entry fee and comes with the right to assign the rental rights to another resident while other land is for rent with little or no entry fee payment required but no right to assign rental rights. All estate land "sale" prices listed are essentially entry fee listings regardless of whether some choose to categorize one type of entry fee listing as a legitimate "sale" price and another as illegitmate. If anything the big lie is in allowing any estate land to be offered under the pretense of a "sale" at all. They should just put it all under rental and let it be filtered out by assignability of rental rights. Maybe if they did this more people would realize how precarious estate land "ownership" is compared to mainland and do the proper research on estate owners to avoid getting taken by the "sell and evict" scams that everyone keeps hearing about.

Second regarding competition, it's not a feeling, it's a fact. The rental market and the purchase market are 2 different markets. If people are renting instead of buying based on automatic land sale listings like the ones that would have resulted from the parcel prices combined with the sales box notecard information on the sim I am on, that means they were open to both options and weighed the benefits of (i) "ownership" and (ii) rental with full admin privileges and decided to go with the rental. People who are TRULY ONLY looking to purchase estate land are NEVER going to "buy" rental land that has a restrictive covenant on resale unless they are idiots (there are several other restrictive covenants with regards to type of builds on the land I am renting, including no terraforming, which should be big clues to any purchaser that they are renting not buying, but a land covenant against resale would be the deal killer for someone looking to "own" estate land). If you're complaining that this is unfair because you are losing potential purchasers because they are being educated about alternatives to estate land ownership that are ultimately more appealing to them then who is really trying to do a disservice to the SL community by wanting to keep residents ignorant of such options and to perpetuate the myth of estate land "ownership"?

the point is YOU never seen my land because of these gamers got you first, you might have liked the terms that they offered, but you dont know what terms I offered. Thats the point Im trying to make, not just with you but with countless others that are searching for land too.

To go and say I want to keep people ignorant and uneducated infuriates me to no end, when you know not weather I allow resell, division, joining, parcel access, media rights without mandatory group membership, or any other list of other variables that one would consider when BUYING a plot.

And to continue with buying vs renting, who ever said definatively that all land is rental? and who for that matter said humans dont have wings? or theres no such thing as furries?... your applying what you know in real life to a simulation, that is losely based on life, with alot of fictional additions. though in the real world you would not consider this SL land as ownership in SL it IS considered ownership just the same as furries are considered people too, or mermaids, Goreans, angels, bart Simson etc. so that point is moot when you take into context that SL isnt RL and you cannot make a RL comparison in SL

Rental in SL means land doesnt go into your name and threres no upfront cost
Ownership means that land goes into your name and there is a upfront cost

Both are very dfferent, and both should be separated, and for now, advertising rentals on the land sales seach is gaming the system, and I'll be dancing on clouds when LL finally starts taking action on this gaming of resources

I'm not sure how many peeps will dance on clouds when LL will eliminate the term "sell" on private islands plot, so the rentals on estates will be just: Fees + Entrance Price (if there will be one). It will happens "soon".

Will never happen, thousands of sims have been sold under the premise that land is sellable, to stop that would mean LL's heaviest investors would not only be upset but willing to make a stink about it. It wont happen soon, or even eventually, Genie is out of the botlle

Watching the "route" they took i see they are taking radical solutions pretty easy these latest times... did u ever believed one year ago that the bank affair would have be "banned" a day? And the gambling? ....i think they are trying to eliminate any exploitable way to fool others (or to destabilize the economy) with definitive decisions.
Your exact words have been said about gambling and that (sort of) casino: there will be too much ppl complaining, they'll never do that, the economy will be wasted, SL will collapse... we have seen the result now after few months (noting happened.. no it's better). I don't think that "ban" the private land resell would have a big impact, in the end everything will remain the same, it's just the word "buying" and be indexed in the land search that must be eliminated, pratically nothing change: buy = entrace price. I think there are too much people that doesn't understand the difference between estate (basically always a rental..) and mainland (a sort of buying.. or "renting from LL" and they seems so surprised when they realize they "bought" a temporary ownership and not the "piece of that sim".

Despite all of the arguments posted here you can't "own" private estate land unless you own the sim. Yes yes yes I know that some people consider that owning mainland land is nothing more than renting from LL which is nothing but meaningless semantics. If LL goes belly up of course we lose our mainland land but so does every estate owner as Second Life will cease to exist.

The chances that a private island owner will go belly up have to be 1000 times greater than LL will.

Maybe even 1 billion.

Well, not *LL*'s heaviest investors, surely. And even the premise that they're *SL*'s heaviest investors is kind of a stretch. They're the largest customers, I suppose: they certainly have to pay a lot of US$s every month, and they paid a lot for the right to collect fees from other residents to funnel off to LL. More like very well compensated tax collectors, really.

On the larger issue of whether it will change--my crystal ball is a lot cloudier on that than it was about the adfarms. The very best-of-the-best Estate owners know that the current situation is not really benefiting the Estate market long-term, and would welcome some change in the language around "sales" and "covenants." And LL has been tinkering around the edges of Estate property (escrowed payments for sim transfers; new OpenSpace sim arrangements), so something new and different might be in store. Or not.

I never saw your land because I was never interested in "buying" a plot. If you'd bothered to read my entire posts carefully you would know that. You'd also know that I never even used the search function in estate land sale listings to find "my" parcel.
I hate to burst your bubble but anyone who goes to land like the parcels for rent on the sim I am on is going to learn that there are estate owners that are willing to hand over "ownership" with only a few admin rights disabled such as being able to set the land for sale. I have access to almost all the land ownership and administrative tools so I don't have to join any groups to use my land. There are only a handful of rights that you could possibly offer over the land I currently "own," I already know what they are, and I'm not interested in paying for them unless your willing to hand them over for L$100
The dictionary.
Yes, and land "ownership" is one of those fictions. Because Second Life land ultimately involves an actual investment of real money, in order to carry on any honest conversation about the risks and merits of investing in mainland ownership, estate land ownership and estate land rentals and the marketability of each one, one has to understand and apply the real life terms of what these things actually are. Honest land transactions should be approached with transparency, not with fictitious sales pitches more appropriate to a snake oil salesman like denying that all land is not rental.
That argument is both ethicaly and logicaly bankrupt. As to why it is ethicaly bankrupt refer to my previous statement in this post. It's also logically bankrupt because there are in fact real people behind those avatars while there are no real ownership rights behind the fictional ones in Second Life, only renters rights.
Wrong again. Ownership of the land I rent is in my name. If that is your determining criterion for ownership then you have absolutely no ground to stand on to argue that it is unfair for my landlord to list his land as for sale. By your criterion it was in fact for sale since he sold me "ownership" same as you.
They are not very different based on anything you have presented. Aside from the fact you just gave a meaningless distinction (ownership of the land being in the resident's name), the only meaningful distinction to which you could point between my "ownership" and the "ownership" you're offering is, at its core, resale rights. If you consider that the distinguishing criterion for "gaming" the system a simple solution would be to place all estate land in the rental category (unless it is an entire island) and adding a search filter for estate land based on administrative rights that come with the land. It would also add a new level of honesty to estate land transactions.

Being able to resell, or resell your renter rights as you would like it called, is the one of the basic principles of SL< without "economy" to dictate the price of a plot of land, or a item, services or goods, SL is nothing more than a 3D chat, But Im sure when you buy your self a new skin, you not considering yourself renting it, but in actuality you are. and FYI I sell my land at 1L$ per meter, and that upfront cost is deducted from the monthly land fee's cost, So im not robbing anyone, as a matter of fact cosidering that 100% of the purchase price goes towards land fees, my land is actualy free, but I dont stoop down to be a con and list my land for any price that its not, So defend what you must, and accept the respect and leaniance you get from your estate owner, but please dont be on this forum crying about how they took your land for any reason. because you where warned by thier actions and sales methods before you purchsaed that reservation

good post!

Jackson, with all due respect, you seem to be taking the position that anyone who "sells" estate land for less than you charge is running a con.

This is not the case. I don't "sell" estate land for $1L because it tends to bring an undesirable element of those who think they don't have to pay tier, or those who think that now they "own" on one of my islands, they don't have to follow the covenant because they can do what they like with land they "own", I did this for about 1 day before changing my business model and I found it to be non-viable and create a lot of headaches, including newbie avatars who would come and "buy" up the whole island the second I left my computer to get a drink of water.

I don't think estate owners who do sell for $1L are necessarily scamming or gaming the search, though they may be creating more headaches for themselves.

When it comes right down to it the people who "buy" land from them for $1 have less to lose when they don't have to put out an upfront fee for the privilege of being able to own/rent on a private estate.

The ones that *are* gaming the system are the ones who when you TP to their island have no parcels available for $1L, I know there are some of those and I do agree that they are gaming the system.

Well I certainly dont set the standard, the people I say are cons are specifically the "reserve price" people, and NOT anyone who is selling land for less.

I buy most my sims from private estate owners rather than LL, I get them for about half the price and I also get a few new residents if Im lucky, Most of these new sims I get because of a failed business plan on the previous owners part, whethere its a issue with reputation, or a isue with a bad financial model, I can say with 100% certainty that I do have resdents on my sims that bought L$ reserve land, not from me, but from the former owner, they wherent able to recoup any land investment cost at all and thier land fees where too low to make worth running for 18 months to break even on thier investment, so in one aspect, I do kinda like the 1L$ reservist, at least it keeps a fresh supply of new sims for me to purchase, but to say I respect the L$1 reservists, or admire them, thats going to far for me, Runnning good sims isnt just about having a lower pice than other people, running a good sim has alot to do with being a smart and STABLE estate owner, Im sure some of the other estate owners on these forums would agree with this

That would be the biggest land scam ever in the history of second life. The vast majority of SL land is estate. Estate scams are very much a minority issue. LL need to take a more proactive role but considering that the biggest private landlord here uses the up front payment model on some of her sims, this would not be a clever move.

You may be fooled and you cannot even send an abuse report (exact like the banks affair..), you agree on this? So it's a way to legitimate a (inworld and possible) fraud. There are many other ways to exploit "the system", i agree, but u cannot say the business is fair when the whole thing here is based on how honest is the sim owner: when a business is conducted, it must be regulated by certain rules, not by a promise. Unfortunately there are so many people that doesn't understand the difference, because you provide em the same "buy this land" tool on mainland and estates, it's certain their "mistake" (not reading the "instructions" but many business out there are conducted upon this "ignorance", so who's the bad guy here? The one that doesn't pay enough attention, or the one that takes advantage of this?
I'm not say that any single sim owner here is unfair, i'm just saying that the difference between buying on mainland and buying on estates must be clear and immediatly percepible by ANYONE (newbies or not....).

Vittorio, I agree that the people who use the estate system to scam the unwary need to be dealt with. But I can't agree, in general, with your comment above.

ALL business, both in SL and RL, ultimately is based on the honesty of the parties involved. Whether there are rules or not. "My word is my bond". "Let's shake on it". The best dealings I've ever had have been with honest people. If they promise something, they deliver, even if there's nothing between us in writing. Some of the worst dealings I've ever had have been with scoundrels who hide behind the rules, and use every dodge they can to avoid delivering what I've paid for.

Rules are good, enforcement is better. Seeing miscreants get nailed is best of all. But you know, sometimes you can get to the "nailing" part without having to go through the "rules and enforcement" parts. These people are going to take a serious hit in the reputation...which is why we keep saying:

RESEARCH YOUR ESTATE OWNER BEFORE YOU BUY!