Land Bubble has Officially Burst, and LL Pours it On!

Asking and getting are two very different things. Also, the old continent makes up a very small percentage of mainland.

I'm not against lower prices. My main beef is the lack of communication from LL and how what they do does not jibe at all with what they say. Does not make for a stable market.

I think what Cortex says holds and I can understand why LL wants to keep land prices down especially for 512m starter plots.

The break even point between renting and owning is 63L/week. That is how much it costs to buy a 512m plot with premium membership and initial cost factored in. This is a sale down at the land auction. Most rentals are well above the break even point. It pays to buy a starter plot at auction.

That is a good thing. It means that small landowners will be owners and not renters. It means that people who might not otherwise buy land will do so. It means that I will have a place to rez something other than clothing. I have a six prim quonset hut in my inventory. The textures need a bit of work, but it could come out of the magic pocket right now.

I also have six plants that I think are pretty much first time introductions. I want to make bee hives. Yeah, I want a farm. It takes land for that.

Making a lot of small landowners is socially good for Second Life. Small land owners might stick around since they can do more than rez clothes and walk and walk and walk. It also means that the gap between the haves and the have nots on Second Life narrows. You can see this gap through something called a Lawrence If the distribution of wealth is highly uneven, the Lawrence curve is concave. When I used to play Neopets, I speculated aobut the shape of the Lawrence curve and decided it was more or less a piece of circle seen from the inside.

I think LL does not want that to happen on Second Life and hence the barrier to land ownership esepcially after one has initially bought some Lindens is low.

Right now my eye is on a pretty piece of land that is sitting on the auction block. It has no bids yet. I suspect I'm going to get outbid for it. You guys have raised some gareat issues for helping me shop for land. I've been doing a lot of looking at my neighbors and at the surrounding location. If I don't get this land, other land will come along.

Iyoba, if you really want that parcel, go for it, even if you have to pay a bit more than you want. Even with prices as low as they are, most of the areas have been uglified by ad cutters or ugly textured builds. So if it's a place you'd be happy with, I hope you take it.

On average, auctioned land goes for slightly higher than average price because of the natural tendency for people to get "bidding fever". The land flippers will only bid up to around the average price, unless there is something desirable about the land itself which would justify the higher up-front price to them. Most of the time, you are bidding against consumers, who are willing to pay that 'little extra' to get a parcel they really like.

I'd say th' same ting as Raymond: go for it. I was sure I had no chance at a plot in Bay City after dat initial wave of speculation, as was pleasantly surprised to get a beautiful plot of land dat is perfect size f'r my needs.

Best of luck!

Mari

Actually, it doesn't hurt to get outbid because straight sale land starts at around 2,900L Once land hits 2,900 you might as well pick out a piece of fairly nice straight sale land or at least I think so. I think one of the reasons they say don't buy land in the first thirty days is I think you really need to do your homework.

Not at all I loved going to the parks as there was always something new to see. I especially enjoyed the annual International Food & Wine Festival. As for too crowded...that is the benefit of being a local - I go to the park when it is off-season and WAY cooler. I have often gotten off a ride and been able to hop right back on...no wait.

I don't go now because the price does not justify my regular returns.

BTW - I'm in Orlando so I'm not limited to Disneyland, but Disney World, Epcot, Disney-MGM Studios, not to mention the rival Universal Studio parks nearby. That's a LOT of interesting things to see...rides to ride. (I LIVE for coasters!!!)

The L$50 per meter thing was for large chunks of +40/-40. Other than that, you're right, that is so overpriced, nomatter the terrain color, but at the top of the market, that was a reasonable price for +40/-40.

However, I'm in some doubt as your being able to sell your land at L$15, if it has no special properties, other than being old sim. I'd need to see the land before I could say for sure, but there will always be a neighbor who decides or is RL manipulated into durmping their land, and they will dump it in the L$3-5 per meter range, when they need a quick sale. Some adfarmer comes along and boom, the sim is low market, despite location.

I'm not saying that old continent land isn't in the long run quite valuable, but tier fees often eat up the profit of holding land for long periods, and it takes just one person dumping a 1024 to pay for for the jump in gas and food prices in RL, with the money they pay LL each month in premium membership and tier, and all of a sudden, a premium sim looses value that it likely won't reclaim for at least a year, if ever.

The land in the sim behind mine has been for sale for quite a while there's a dozen 1024 plots selling for $9915 each they have been steadily dropping over last 3 months from $15k so the estate might be glad to offload them for any serious or maybe even rediculous offer. Seems like a quiet sim. but then 1/3 of its for sale.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sammamish/25/51/126

Tegg, 9615L is still very high for 1024 (plus you pay an extra $5.00/month in tier for it). Land at auction starts at 4400L for 1024 and there are probably places where plots of that size sell for even less. I know there are places where 512m plots are selling for under 2200L which is the auction minimum. I did more homework tonight. The pretty land at auction doesn't close until after 6pm EDT tomorrow, but I probably won't bid on it.

Even on the same continent, land prices can vary by 50 to 100%. Caveat emptor.

I have another question: at what point does the marginal utility of additional land start going south?

Yeah it's not bottom dollar for sure I guess, but then it's not the worst land in SL either, I too have seen cheap 512 plots, most in the middle of adfarming forests. I don't have anything to do with the land for sale, it's just seems ok land if you can afford it and whne you said you wanted a farm then I thought you meant much more land than a 512m, I'd also rather have real residents for neighbours
And remember 4400 might be the start bid, but doesn't mean the average end bid isn't much higher as auctions can get emotional.
As far as land usability goes, personally I need at least a 4096m to build anything decent sized enough to be entertaining and have enough prims, apparently the average sized plot is 1024, many though do fine on a 512m, possibly you should consider renting a plot for a few weeks, build what you want to then work out if you need to rent or buy a bigger plot, you can then pack up your build and move it to the new one or perhaps rent additional land/prims. Fighting for "the heavenly first plot" at auction, getting it and then finding you want to expand but can't then can't get a good resale for what you have may be disappointing.
Also remember that what land value is mainly about is prim count not size. Size is good for distance from neighbours and light scattered landscaping. You can get land with double prims but what this sometimes means is half the space so you overhear all the chat from the neighbours. Some half prim land is great for something like a farm where you have a heap of just grass.

The particular lot I was referencing is in Windermere. It's a nice corner, waterview, edge of sim parcel that I think i could get $15L per pretty easily - but who knows, I have no intent on selling it anyway. And as for ad farms and such, yes, your right, could happen, and it would bring down the value, but thats just an inherit risk to mainland that I just accept, and with that said, worst case scenario, it would only drop the value 2-3 linens per sq m at most in all likeliness. People would still recognize the sim for what it is, and realize the potential in that location. BUT YA KNOW WHAT? None of this matters, because the days are long gone that I buy land with any expectations as to it future value. Linden Labs are too unpredictable. And I don't even blame them so much for the decisions that they make as much as the manner in which they make them.

Yep, buy SL land to use it as a tool or for entertainment, but never as an investment.
How many people seel their RL home purely because it has doubled in value over the years?

I bought my 1st plot of land on a private estate back in Sept 06, I still have it. The value of that plot has probably dropped by 75 % at least, possibly even more. It's gotten to a point, it's probably more cost effective to abandon it instead of trying to sell it.

No way, you've gotten tons of value from it if you are still there and you are still happy...

I am considering this right now.

I wonder how low it will have to go for some big players to throw in the towel.

I'm puzzled by the advantage of abandoning land in any circumstance. It's really not many more mouseclicks to throw it to the bots for just under the current minimum for-sale price per sq.m. Of course that's not enough for it, but at least one would get *something* for it almost instantly. And anyway, bots gotta eat, too.

I don't think bots generally buy estate land.

D'oh!

Yeah, in that case, one hardly needs a mouseclick at all.

Maybe it's more an indication to LL that they can stick their game where the sun doesn't shine, if you sell it to bots, LL are none the wiser, and you might make $5 US on a 512m plot, hardly worth the effort of withdrawing.
Also I suspect if you don't abandon land or sell it, it remains in Limbo for a long time, and I think that might be deliberate, possibly a lot of nice builds on the old continent are owned by people that have left the game and LL doesn't want to reclaim the land destoying the landscape when they have plenty of land elsewhere.