Note from landlord about price increase

here's an obvious thought...maybe ask the landlord to translate that from klingon?

I know if i sent out a notecard with information like this i would have a lot of 'splainin to do.

I encourage all potential tenants that I see to ask around to others living on a sim about the reputation of the sim owner. I'm very serious here and the owner should have nothing to fear.

Its actually very easy to find them even if they are offline. Right click on the land and look at the land owners profile and send them a message.

If'n I had an island for everytime I heard of some less than professional land dealer, that used fuzzy math to take advantage of someone that didnt do any reasearch in the first place...you would be calling me Anshe Chung and I wouldnt be here in the forums..trolling...for...customers...looking...for...an...honest...sim...owner.

I have only had the place a few days, and i just don't understand why the new rent was was not mentioned in the first place and the new price given?

I have sent the landlord a couple of IMs but he has not answered, I know its the holidays and all that, but if he can send me a notecard he can surely answer my questions.

Maybe english is not his first language, but it all sounds like gobbly gook to me. lol


Thanks for your help everyone.

I would guess that it is hard for an honest and competent landlord to actually provide good service in Second Life.

In my first experiences with buying (yes, I bought) land from private estate owners, I had dealings with incompetent persons who eventually just kept my money and took the land back from me.

In my latest experiences with renting from private estate owners, I thought I had narrowed down the most competent, honest landlord that I could find in Second Life (Sarah Nerd). I have rented two places from her. In both cases, the rental did not last long, because Sarah had to close the sim where I rented due to unprofitability. (And both times, she provided adequate notice and refunds.)

So, it's my guess that fairness, competence, and honestly is ultimately unprofitable in Second Life. (Though maybe someone like Desmond Shang has the model for doing it; I don't know, I never researched Caledon much, since I'm not into the steampunk theme.)

At least you are renting and not buying. That way, you minimize your potential loss to whatever you have paid in advance for next week's rent. If or when you have that problem with your landlord, at least you're not out a ton of money.

And if you're frustrated with what you think to be less-than-competent landlords, just remember that you may not be able to afford to pay for competence.

Sorry but that is BS. There are plenty of competent, honest landlords that work for a profit here in this forum that manage to stay in business.

Same here!

When the OS mess happened, I:

*Notified my single-tenant OS renters immediately
*Refunded the full island set-up fee for those who'd had OS sims for less than 3 months and wanted out (in my case, all my OS renters)
*Gave the renters on the multi-tenant OS two weeks notice, and a refund on unused tier. They also got a week's free rent on any of my other sims.

The rental business is very difficult, if you are going to do it right. I've been at it for several months now, which isn't as long as many people - but there are also many new landlords who think the land business is an easy way to make a buck. IT ISN'T. LL loves to make changes that hurt us, even though we're their biggest paying customers. Advertising is costly and time-consuming. Competition is fierce.

Many people get into land rentals to help cover the cost of their sim's tier. If tier were less insanely expensive, you'd have fewer people who don't know what they're doing entering the business out of desperation. I bought my first rental sim because my main sim wasn't making money, so I understand this. However, I went into it as the honest person I am, and I won't screw over a good renter for the sake of a buck. Good renters are worth hanging on to, and resolving your mistakes in their favor will always result in a profit to you - because they'll stay longer and refer friends.

/me nods.. I went a little cross-eyed reading that notice.

The price changes that landlords have to pay LL are hardly a surprise. I'd be a bit wary of ones who are just telling their renters this stuff today..

I want to qualify what I said. There are plenty of landlords who are competent and honest. I can think of many that are in the forums, and not just Desmond. We have different business models, and different long term plans, and different pain thresholds. We all take different steps to advertise and market ourselves, and competition is fierce enough as it is. The good far outweigh the bad. Honestly, I wonder how some of the bad people are found when there are so many good, longstanding landlords as there are.

I'm sorry about what happened to Sarah but at least she still has her mainland operation.

Well, ACS was one of the places that made an error in math. However, as I caught it as we were talking they disappeared for a few minutes and had a corrected amount those minutes later. Making an error in math can happen for many reasons - the professionalism is recognizing it and dealing with it. If this person does that, that would end the issue.