Land Business crisis ?

I have land near a load of ads but it's not the 16M plots. All the ads are for a gentleman's club but the ads aren't bad. If the plot sells, the ad goes, they aren't spinning ad farms, they aren't trying to extort money out of people to buy the land and they aren't intrusive.

These are the sort of ads I don't mind and I wish there were more of them around. The ad will only be there as long as the plot is for sale, it's a nice business move by the land company who own those plots.

Yep.

The same way I'm glad that AOL Time Warner stock isn't worth what it was during the 90's bubble.

It was horrifically overvalued due to excessive speculation, and the longer the 'value' stayed up there, the more damage would be done overall.

Online land isn't a very good investment. Think about it. It *shouldn't* be a good investment!

What economic horror would keep its value propped up long term, considering tier fees? Only a tragic, economy-debilitating shortage in a market underserved so bad, people would be quitting the grid in frustration to play Puzzle Pirates.




Erm... no. I can personally attest to what happened to dozens and dozens and dozens of ex-premium accounts myself. Believe me, the people are still here, without premium accounts but with higher user retention and spending plenty on digital services. Doubt this? Have a walk around my sims, or any private estate bigger than say, 5 sims.

The problem with the premium account is that it doesn't get you too much.

For the small change they toss back to you every week (that you paid for), you get the right to buy crappy mainland at insane prices. And have unused land tier hanging about - tier that is paid for but languishing.

But what about service for a premium account? The basic members who rent can drop a note or IM to me, and get concierge level service. Or just ask me directly - usually I can answer 95% of questions clearly and accurately myself. Sim restarts? Land scam? Particle attack? You are better off being a basic member on a private estate. That is what happened to premium accounts.

I'm not following this line of thought at all, AOL had the market by the short and curlies. That's not the way with land investment here and if this platform is to thrive, then land should be a commodity that is valued, not having scorn poured upon it.




Maybe I'm just cranky tonight, but this comes across as "I'm alright Jack". I own mainland and private estate. I don't see the plus side to the mainland price crash at all even though I'm not a land speculator. My mainland rental business is doing fine but I just don't see how people benefit from mainland being in such a recession.

Don't forget all that casino land that is up for sale.
I just bought 4000 meters from a casino owner who was dumping his land for half of what he paid for it.

It's a win, I guess, if lower land prices net more premium accounts holding Mainland and/or more basic accounts paying reduced Estate rents (which is also revenue to LL, through the Estate owners payments). One can only hope that this is the result; I think it's kinda too soon to tell from any current statistics.

But speaking of current statistics: Raymond, that upturn in response to the auction hiatus is very good news. If the LL auctioneer sits on his hands a few more days to be sure this up-tick is more than a dead cat bounce, then I promise to stfu about that "hysteresis in the control loop" malarkey. I honestly hope the market is indeed that responsive. (I've been much more concerned about prices going into free-fall than about where the prices bottom-out in a normal supply-driven cycle.)

Land is not in a depression. Land prices have finally returned to normal historic levels.

Mainland Snowland ...sneaking in as the new Hot ?????

There won't be a free-fall other than the one that already has occurred. Won't go below L$5.8. LL won't let it happen.

If I am wrong I will eat my crab.

This is how they benefit, in no uncertain terms: low land prices = more people can be on the grid, period.

Imagine if gasoline was 20 USD a gallon. Sure, the economy would adjust, and soon driving would be an expensive luxury.

And were the cost of gasoline to go back down, there would be many who would decry the 'price crash.'

The land market isn't crashing. It was a bubble in the first place. For it to crash, it would have needed to be truly supply-restricted for some other reason than that our service provider simply couldn't keep up for a while. Well now they did, and the land market bubble has popped. As they intended.

dirt cheap land enables adcutters to flip a few 4096's (minus the 512 adfarms of course) on every new sim, thus ensuring that every sim looks like shit, therefore driving more people to estates. its no wonder estate lovers dig the land glut. it makes their holdings more attractive to the end users and thus more lucrative. this is not a theory, it is a fact. there is one particular estate owner that LOVES adcutting and engages in it regularly (no its not desmond).

There are no normal historic levels in a platform this young. There has been a population boom, it's a different scenario. I'd expect land prices to fluctuate but prices reducing by around a third in a few weeks is a crash.

Premium accounts are on a downturn, there's seasonal adjustment to be taken into account however I see no evidence that lower land prices = more premium members.



The land market is crashing, even auction prices are way down. That's where LL make a lot of their core income. The simple fact is that if more premium members buy more land then land prices will increase, not decrease. You're also missing out the constant in this, the constant that really makes people not buy land and that is tier fees. That's the true barrier to land ownership in SL. People can rent land for a lot less money than a premium account + tier fees equates to.

raymond i think you like crab dont ya

considering i can buy waterfront or roadside for about 8 when i am quick enough, what would be a fair price for a 512, in a ad-farm controlled sim ?

i would say L$5 , or even less

would you like a drink with that crab .... ?

To all those who consider buying "land" is actually buying land, it's not. Any land, be it the best coast line ever or the worst rock cliff, is just space on a server and should be sold as such (i.e.: one and the same price).

But people are so deluded by appearances that they are ready to pay whatever price to have their "dream" place...

Can't wait for the open source grid to come.
http://magrathean.ca/labs/dgig/

And just what difference do you think that will make? If you want to join your open source server to the main grid where all the action is, it's going to cost ya

You must be using the text-only SL client then.
How's that going for you?

I think this is very wise, but some "unpacking" may make it more apparent. One example of being "supply-restricted for some other reason" would be supply kept from market (including being priced above market levels) by speculators. (This was the fear of those of us who fretted about vast amounts of "for sale" land that never seemed to trade.) A crash results when such speculative supply-restriction is suddenly released by sellers scrambling to reprice for sales to a demand dramatically lower than when the speculators were still buying. Really big crashes result when almost all demand is driven by such speculation, as in the 17 century Dutch tulip bubble ().

yes yes... the dutch tulip bubble.

This might be true but first the prices had more then tripled in a few weeks. This is called an adjustment, and thank god for it. Prices were ridiculously stupid for awhile.

Hi Pratyeka,

We seem to be in a open and free choice economy and not some failed system where all had to be the same.
And yes, Sigmund Freud is still very right with his theory that people seem to be loyal to their dreams and illusions... It has brought us Second Life... lately...

my answer, too.




Damn straight...

I have 1024 sq meters free that I've not devoted to any land tier since January. No desire to ever buy mainland again. I keep my Premium account for support access, that's about it.

I personally would not buy a parcel in an ad-farm controlled sim at any price. But it won't go to L$5 a meter because LL does not want it to go that low. They are surprised and delighted to see how quickly it got to L$6 and they are quite willing to leave it there.

Now when they look at the premium accounts and see they are not hitting their target for new accounts even at this price, they will have to figure out another way to add value to premium memberships. Because even with three, count em, three links to the auction page on the redesigned home page including a "Premium Zone", I doubt they are getting the number of premium upgrades they desire.

I just sold all my land for cheap and cancelled my premium account. I don't see the point of paying for something I can hardly use. Everytime I log in(If I even get that far.) It's either very slow,TP doesn't work,Search doesn't work. Sometimes it works great,but more often not. I'll still be around,just homeless.

So you're glad that land prices have plummeted and you won't buy mainland anyway? This benfits SL how exactly?

i agree no parcel is worth L$20sqm , certainly not now , whatever the parcel is offering can be found elsewhere for less




lol ..didnt know that, very funny