Land Prices?

I have to disagree with you Ray. Look into the Eastern edge of Corsica. There are over 80 new sims being created.

LL has repeatedly stated that they want the land market to hover around a specific L$ per meterage (I agree that this is necesary, but disagree with the way they go about it, namely ambushing land buyers with new sims, holding off of sims that were schedualed to be released, or implementing some sort of taxation or ban on SL residents, without warning, that results in a mass land sell off). Right now they are finishing off those 30 last ugly granite sims they held off auctioning back in August. However, those 30, and the adfarm land, and the smaller parcel auctions, all put together, haven't cause the market to do more than dip L$0.25 per meter, and it appears even that has been rebounded from. I was expecting a more significant drop myself (which is why I slowed my buying the week before and of Valentines day, and lowered my prices even further), however it never materialized, and now these new sims just happen to show on the Corsica map? I don't think that's a cooincidence. Those sims are Plan B, and if the remaining sims in the initial 30 don't drag down the market, the 80+ newly minted sims willl be announced a week or two before dumping (so LL can claim they gave notice beforehand), which will do the job the first 30, the increase in smaller land auctions, and the adfarm ban with it's subsequent rush to dump 16m's, did not.

LL won't let this rise continue, nor will they permit the market to hover at what they percieve to be a somewhat inflated level. They will pop this bubble one way or another, which is why I'm going to continue a less profit/less risk, more defensive strategy for a few more weeks.

PS. I agree on the mainland tier raising idea, but I don't think they'll go that far, when these new sims will bring in new revenue and do the trick, without causing a mass, somewhat uncontrolable, customer exodus.

I just sold my 4096 Estate lot for L$6.5 within 24 hours so I wouldn't expect Mainland to be that low. I'm pretty shocked at how much of a difference there is between mainland and estate prices, but haven't seen much mainland in the range around L$8 that wasn't crap. As for estate, there's a lot out there going for just L$1 now so that should give you an idea of how the market is going.

Estate prices are meaningless in themselves.
Mainland tier is in a fixed structure for all mainland.
Estate tier could be anything, and the 'price' could be anything.

It's simply not possible to talk about estate price v. mainland price per metre

Well, I did say that I think LL will be stepping up the release of more sims and that it might lower prices some. Still a 10% drop, which is as much as I think it will drop, would take us to $7.7 a meter. Do you think it will go lower than that as a base?

I know there typically is no comparison. I only mentioned it because it usually is less than mainland.

I'm very sorry if I offended you Sling.

Since the market for a person looking for land includes both mainland and estate options, I would say that estate prices are affected by what is happening on the mainland, albeit indirectly.

As someone mentioned earlier in this thread, you don't have to take or leave a published price for a piece of SL land. By talking to the seller, one might get a much better deal, based on many variables. I've bought land at half the published price a few times myself.

Moral is: don't pay retail.

Question is: Does LL (publicly) track what the actual prices are for completed land deals? What I mean is, in RL, there is a public record of what price the parties in a real estate transaction agreed to. Can we look up private land sales in SL? Or what the average going (gone/sold) rate is in any sim?

i got a 1024 deep water parcel in Ribblesdale for 11K less then 30 days ago, sold it for 18k last week to a nayber

does 'deep water' with no land still qualify as waterfront, or is it waterbackside?

Lower than L$7.7, yes. I'm almost certain it will drop lower than that. How much lower I can't really tell. I seriously doubt it will go any lower than it did a few months ago, around early September, but it might. LL didn't really put a halt to the new garbage sims till the lower end of the market was in the 5.8 range. I don't see that level happening again. However, if I were to estimate, I'd say it'll eventually bottom out around 6.5. However, it's all about what LL will permit.

To me this is the problem with the land market as is. With nearly 5 years of metrics at hand, I'm sure, by now, LL can average how many new sims per month it takes to keep the land market from booming and busting, and within the range they approve. Sudden population increases or decreases alter this occasionaly, but for the most part they should be able to gage this number with the available data. LL should then review the market quarterly and auction off new sims on a consistant schedual, say X new sims to be auctioned off every week on exactly the same day, ending at exactly the same hour, without deviation. at the quarterly reviews the weekly number of new sims can be raised or lowered based on the previous quarter's metrics or any new change LL has coming down the pike that will likely affect population. Then leave the market alone!

I disagree about LL knowing - I'd say that the rapid increase in land speculation in the last year has made knowing the sustainable number unpredictable. The first flood in March of last year with the unnamed continent barely dropped the prices once people got over the shock of the news on the first day. It was the second surge of land in late summer that, combined with the casino/gambling ban, sent the land market plummeting. The reason why the March surge failed was because a large crop of new players entered the speculation market. New names were showing up in the auction with deep pockets, keeping the prices of the sims near their highs. That wasn't really the case, but now that the economy has adjusted for casinos, VAT and landbots, the question remains about how many people are out there flipping. I don't see the prices dropping much if land speculation is still high.

I think also that the fact that the sims to come are going to be nice terra and not steep granite blobs will help keep prices at L$7.7 per meter or higher.

I have always called that land "WATER". It ain't waterfront if there is no beach edge to give it a front, IMO.

It's no use being sorry Bradley!
Nope. Way too late.
You've totally gone way over the line and hurt me deeply.. in some way... that I'll have to spend some time thinking about.... so it might sound vaguely convincing.... if I eventually manage to invent some slight



Yes. It could be anything, so it makes sense to make it less than mainland - even way less.
I remember as a total newbie being confused between the two.
"Yowsa - that's a good price!", "but what's this tier box, and this covenant .....","where's me free 512?"

Maybe some estate pricing tends to track mainland price so that it can be pitched as high as possible while *appearing* to be a better deal than mainland pricing.

So what was the final price that the 'Papa" sim went for??

Unless you were tracking the auction there is no way of knowing. Unlike the old auction page where you could see past auction history, this new "improved" version leaves you in the dark about any past auction closing prices or who the bidders were. It truly sucks.

The snow parcels surrounded by adfarms go for under 10. But people don't want those to live on - I've seen one decent sized snow parcel get bought and sold by four land barons in the past four months. The one that owns it now is a previous owner, even - maybe they forgot. They mark it up and eventually give up and sell it for cheap and then it gets snapped up by a new one, and the process repeats. It's kinda funny to watch.

That will mitigate things SLIGHTLY. The high end of the market, that is the quality waterfront and larger lots, will drop a bit, which will send the low end into decline, as those who would have bought in the low end, decide to put in a little extra and get something better, leaving fewer buyers for low end parcels and thus a price drop to unload them.

Still, OVER 80 NEW SIMS!!! That can't just be absorbed by higher-tiered barrons, and consumer confidence plays an even bigger role in SL than in RL, as when RL money probs come up, online fun gets shafted, as it rightfully should. When the market is in decline here it feeds on itself. Those with stores of land or even just a single parcel they need to get rid of dump their land at lower prices. Buyers who would buy during the fall, hold off, waiting for the bottom, decreasing the number of new buyers. Like I told you back in the halcion days of December 2006, when we were speculating on the land market crashing majorly, I PRAY you're right about stability, but my gut tells me it can fall and fall hard.

This is a very odd post joy. LL have said they want to keep land prices stable at the level they were 6 months ago. That is to say about 8/sqm for the very cheapest parcels. They then went ahead and did that for, what? The last 3 months? Is it 4 months now that prices have barely moved?

Exactly what you complain about LL not doing is exactly what they have been doing for ages now. There's no possibility whatsoever of land prices falling below 7/sqm in the foreseeable future. Even 7.5 is highly unlikely. LL have said we will see stability and I firmly believe them especially based on their actions and following through on their promises of the last 6 months.

To clarify, I'm talking about parcels over 2048. And I repeat, there hasn't been a snow parcel under 11/sqm for months. I know this to be true because on the rare occasion I see one I go out and buy it. to be fair there is one parcel barely over 2048, as you say, surrounded by ad farms, that is just barely under 11/sqm but I hardly think one single parcel should disprove my point.

well total sqm for sale has dropped about 100k in the last weeks despite 3million sqm new land, i think those numbers are a bit funny , certainly because it does not count the hundred's (400+) of private estates added each month, i wonder where it all goes ?

....and now 80 new sims ?? another 5million sqm easy , i wonder where the total sqm for sale will be end of march ?

to me the numbers dont ad up, it could only be explanend by a large number of new dedicated residents joining or expanding these last weeks ?

pretty sure there is a bubble in it, but dont dare to predict anymore

Considering the changes to search, where it has become more advantageous to own a parcel in order to be found, I would not be surprised if more people have taken to owning mainland for their businesses. Residences are a different matter, of course, but people do tier up to get more prims or expand.

Raymond, Although you cannot see the identity of the winner, it is possible with a bit of searching to find the closing prices for the past auctions.




[QUOTE=Heath Homewood]So what was the final price that the 'Papa" sim went for??[/QUOTE] I think this auction ends tomorrow

:)

They may get around to re-instituting the closed auction page. My jira on the issue got a dev number a week or two ago.

Cristalle see my previous post...

Ah, you are only counting parcels over 2048 in your calculations. That is pretty consistent with what I've seen for that size. I see the ones under 2048 go for sale at $10 or even less all the time - there's a 512 for sale right now at $4998. Too many ad parcels in the sim devalue it.