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

Funny that we cook up clever ways to discourage land speculation, often assuming or hoping that LL wishes to do the same, when at http://secondlife.com/whatis/businesses.php one can read:



And one of the choices on the list of suggestions is: real estate speculator

hahaha

they used to list Gambler and Casino operator in the "Official Guide"

Never mistake hype and ad copy for actual company policy and direction.

still Land speculator is a valid job

they just seem to prefer people buy private islands and "SELL" off parcels.

LOL

I wondered if "ad farmer" used to be on there.

And you OWN it.

Just like in RL. "Speculation," creates an artificial demand, based in quick buck thinking.

“Why do you show such a bestial appetite for your neighbor that you chew on him so ravenously?” ---Dante

Arg! Don't get me started!

*shakes her little fist*

I still am so peeved at the Lindens for what they did to an entire segment of the economy. Just wiped it out clean in one fell swoop.

I still miss Texas Hold'em Poker. I wish someone would open up a site where you could just play for fun on SL. But who wants the f'ing aggravation?

Well, in my case, it is because he is soo tasty, even if it takes a little ketchup to improve the flavor.

No, actually, I just lick my neighbors.. I don't need the sustenance, and this way, there's always flavor to be had. Consumption is so... one-time.

Ban land flipping.

So...

Who's going to buy your land when you no longer want it? Or are you just going to hang onto it, paying monthly fees until someone wants it.

Who's going to buy the new mainland SIMs that Linden Lab is cranking out at a rate of 10 a day? Because I am sure Linden Lab would like to start getting paid as soon as possible on those $195 / month tier fees they'll cost people to own to start with. Someone has to pay the fees in SL to pay the employees who put the world together and stuff.... L$ sales and Land tier fees pay those bills.

What are those of us who purchase those new SIMs supposed to do after we've sold off all that land and have all that extra tier sitting empty and unused in our "My Land" window? Maybe buy your land and resell it? But that's land flipping, and that's bad.

It's the free market. Why is buying and selling land seen as bad, when someone sitting on some land making stuff and selling it ok? It takes time and money to buy and sell land, and the risk is big. It takes time only (if you use a sand box) to make something to sell.

Risk of buying and selling land is bigger than creating stuff (more real money involved), so why shouldn't the reward be bigger. I do both.... Most of us probably make about enough to cover the tier fee we're paying so that others can buy land at their leisure where they want it, and cover the land we ourselves may call home in SL. Why are we seen as a evil land flippers?

Hopefully it's clear that I have nothing against "land flippers"--truth is, I've had almost no dealings with them, and the few that I've had have been fine. The following just raises an interesting question about the future:To be honest, I think the days of the in-world land-for-sale tool are numbered. Once private owners can put their parcels up on the auction page, I think the volume of land sold any other way will drop to near zero.

There will still be a few who'll put a premium price on a parcel in hopes somebody might someday buy it, but really that will be even less effective than it is now, because practically nobody will even look for land that isn't on the Auction page.

I honestly don't know what that will do to the "land flipper" business model, to the land market as a whole, or to landbots. In theory, the private auction should be a more "efficient market." But the change will be disruptive.

Bins will always be popular but the auctions will have an impact.

I would love to be able to put land on the auction block for sale ... I don't see that happening though. Unless you've read something I've missed.

The very same people who buy it from you 10 minutes after you set it for sale at my price + 10-100%. *shrug* Why do you think people need a middleman to facilitate trade in land? I have news for you: the majority of land transactions in SL are between land consumers (that's what Jack Linden says, anyway).



Who is buying them now? Well, RIGHT now, even the middlemen are shying away from them, but yeah. Ultimately the same point comes back: Those who want to develop them.



Time IS money, as the old saying goes. Money is nothing but stored time. Oft times, way overvalued or undervalued time, but still time. I think that creating something of value takes a lot more money in terms of time investment than land speculation does, but that's just a creator talking. I value my time greatly.

I don't think buying/selling land is considered bad by anyone, at least seriously. What I think people are objecting to comes down to a handful of issues related to how some people go about it: 1) Profiteering with little real effort or investment (aka "flipping"; 2) Abusive practices, like buying mistakes for L$1, and then profiting hugely off those mistakes; 3) Attempting to manipulate (however successfully or unsuccessfully) the land market to one's own favor, at the expense of land "consumers" (aka "land extortion", cartels, and monopolistic practices).

As for me, #1 can be odious, but I don't necessarily see it needing so much to be banned as just discouraged. #2, I think it is a despicable action, but ultimately, I don't have a lot of sympathy because the land trading system goes a long ways towards preventing it form happening; it still does, but there's almost no excuse now. #3 is a particularly nasty problem, and LL needs to take action when it happens.



I have to disagree with this. Creators invest quite a bit of money to create (via time), advertise, and have places to sell their items in-world.

I think "land flippers" are seen as "evil" in the same way "creators" who either resell freebies or sell titler scripts for L$3000 are seen as "evil". They are profiting off of someone else's good will.

For example, let's say I want to sell my land to another content creator, and give that person a good deal, yet I don't know who that person is, yet. If I set my land for sale to that "good deal" price, to anyone, it will likely be gobbled up by a landbot, marked up to some price far exceeding what I wanted to see it go for, and some poor creator schmuck now has to pay that price to have my nice piece of land.

Yes, I am aware that I set my land for sale to anyone, and that does mean "ANYONE", including land flippers. However, there's no other real effective way of advertising your land for sale, except by setting it for sale.

I suppose one of the many suggestions that has been made to fix that problem, where you have to approve sales, might work, but who's to say that the person I approve the sale to is nothing more than a land flipper's alt or proxy?

Land sales turnaround restrictions can be used to stop some of the gaming and profiteering. The idea is that land sales should be by and between land consumers, instead of traders, and a minimum time between sales of a particular parcel can be one way to bring that to the forefront.

Anyway, I am more or less playing devil's advocate. Land trading middlemen are here, probably to stay, and they don't really bother me a whole lot, except in the case of land extortion. For that, I have nothing but eternal enmity.

Here's a thought.
The best way of ensuring "that others can buy land at their leisure where they want it", is to stay out of their way.
Don't make the land that they would have bought at their leisure more expensive than would have been the case had you not swooped in before them simply to increase the cost for them.

You paint opportunists as people who selflessly sacrifice themselves in order to keep SL going. "So that other can ....." my arse!
Hilarious!

They've by no means committed to it, but I've heard Lindens say more than once that they're looking into making the Auction Page available for private land sales. I imagine there are at least two big hurdles: First, the eBay page itself has to be well-behaved for some extended interval, and whenever that hurdle seems near, the accursed thing throws a sprocket. And second, they're probably trying to devise a way to limit how soon an auctioned parcel or any land intersecting an auctioned parcel can be put to auction again. That's not to frustrate land resellers, but to prevent the auction system from being bogged down with bogus sales, where alts blithely outbid each other to establish an unrealistic minimum price, week after week. (Probably other pitfalls, too, but that's one obvious even to me.)

Problem for LL is they'd have to hire people to do this and deal with the customers. Better from their perspective to setup a system where people would actually pay to do this work.

You're bang on the mark there Qie.

That's a free market.
Put it up and whoever wants it most will buy it. The delay introduced by the auction helps to ensure that everyone gets a chance to bid.
If someone is in a hurry to get rid of land without abandoning it, then they could have the option to nominate a close time that suits them.

How about:
Option.1 - Close at time x. If unsold, withdraw from sale.
Option.2 - CLose at time x. If unsold, abandon to Gov Linden
If nobody wants it, and you want to dump tier, then just recycle it (abandon it).

That gets rid of the self-serving claptrap about preserving land for some ultimate buyer.

If nobody wants the land, it goes back to LL.
If LL find themselves with an unacceptable amount of unsaleable land, then LL have to think about why nobody wants it.

Yeah, I don't know either. It's just clear their reports haven't matched up with what's actually been going on for several months. It's either lying or incompetence.

They buy the land, they set it for sale and eventually a consumer gets it or they eat tier, don't see the problem at all.

All the way down the line land is being flipped, from Linden Lab, to the guy who buys the sim to whomever gets it next, that's the way it works.

Yes we all know that it happens that way currently.
In the extreme, some parasite owns a parcel for a few hours and increases the cost for someone who actually wants to create something with it.

How much do you think Linden Lab make on the setup cost of a sim? Are they parasites?

There's loads of yellow on the map. The slight increase in prices pales into insignificance compared to the ongoing tier costs.

Why include Linden Lab in this? By default, everything comes through LL. Anything after that is just markup. End of story. Unless someone bites the bullet, that usually involves the cost getting a lot higher.

I have to agree. It really rankles me when people say "I'd abandon it before I'd sell in this market." Every time there is a down turn, I hear that at least 10 times, and I have never understood this.

#1. Even if you only get a fraction of what you paid, you'd still make back recoup some of your losses if you sell. Abandoning land means you loose ALL of your initial investment.

#2. The idea that you're sticking it to land flippers by abandoning land is crazy. LL gets the land, and auctions it. LL flips land constantly.

#3 LL is the source of bad markets. Look at how the game really works. When land prices are higher, say L$10 per meter, LL destroys them by dumping new sims onto the market or putting in new TOS rules that invalidate the businesses that were using the land or makes the cost of holding the land too high. LL devalued your land (and if your use of the land was made a TOS violation, your business) and you're gonna reward them by giving them more land to flip? Land Flippers increase value to those who hold land, so if they ever need to sell, they can make back their investment and even profit by having an asset worth paying for. LL devalues land towards there own ends, and while I agree with Elanthius that LL doesn't have the best record, I truly believe the company has an overarching strategy. It likely does not benefit the current resident base, be they land flippers or not, but it's there.

LL set the base. All your base is theirs!
After that it's "Your World, Your Imagination".
Unfortunately some people's imagination can't stretch beyond being griefers, or being out-and-out scam artists, or being extortionists, or being parasitic.

Of them all, I'd be kinder to the parasitic clan if it were not for the tendency of some of them to dress up their activity as something heroic.

I think the issue comes from the "value-add" angle.

I mean, I don't mind paying for something where there is a value-add, but where is the value add in simply buying a parcel for $X, then turning around and selling it again for $X*1.25? What has anyone done to "earn" that 25% profit on the price? What is the value add?

Yeah, I don't have to buy it. Instead, I can try and see if I can beat the landbots at their own game, but why should I have to? Why can't I just go and buy it from the person selling it at a good price? Do I, as a consumer, have to become a landbot owner and user to get a good deal?