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

For some people. SL means Second Land rather than Second Life.

Land in this virtual world is simply a means to an end. It's a bit of server space for the creation of 3D digital content.
Second Land people are in the way.

If the intent of LL in creating massive amounts of new mainland sims is to change focus from land dealing and into content creation, then I say hooray!!

I doubt very much that that is LL's intent, kill the core backbone of their business model?

Why can't people play virtual real estate in their second life, their world, their imagination.

You can break this argument down into virtually every purchase you make, what's the value being added when a wholesaler gets a better deal than you for umpteen items you buy a month from anywhere and everywhere?

I'm paying value added tax here, when there is no value being added and I have to suck it and see, if someone can make a markup then more power to their elbow. Consumers ultimately have a choice here and plenty of it.



Well if you want the cheapest land available then yes, you need a bot. People can get a 512M flat green parcel for less than L$3,000 without a bot.

Don't celebrate too fast... you'd be losing your reason to feel superior.

Who will you have to look down on once the land brokers are gone? People who just play in SL but don't create content?

There will always be Goreans.

I for one welcome this new development and look forward to some bargain-priced landy goodness.

I can see the headline now...

Kajira market has officially burst, and goreans pour it on!

How much forward are you going to look? We're near the all-time low.

I don't mind that LL has adjusted the market. I just wish they would let people in on the master plan, or explain the method to their madness, or at the very least stop lying to us.

The core backbone of their business model is tier.
No amount of land dealing by residents affects the tier paid on the land.

If anything, the activity of opportunists in increasing costs has a negative influence on the amount of land that will be demanded.

As with any economic event, there are winners and losers. I don't own any land at all at the moment, so I can only gain from any drop in prices.

After the land brokers??

Hamsters!!!!

They gotta go!!!!!

1. Who do you think the biggest contributors of mainland tier are?

2. Yes land dealing by residents affects the tier paid on land as tier is set on a sliding scale. If one person owned each mainland sim then LL would be bringing in a lot less money than several people owning small parcels. The people who cut land up and sell smaller parcels are flippers.

Bring it.

One person owning each mainland sim isn't a realistic proposition.
You're comparing apples and myrgozigogs.

What the hell are you doing in my house?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq9Y8cghVzc

Hey! That's my line. Oh wait. I am your ghostwriter, aren't I?

Actually this is incorrect, if a land flipper buys a piece of land, and then sells it to another person, who in turn does the same...let's suppose it gets flipped 10 times in a week before ending up with an end user who wants to keep it. LL just collected tier 10 times on one piece of land in a week from 10 different folks.

If it went immediately to the end user, LL would only collect the same amount of tier once that billing period.

Not really, not if the flipper had a tier gap anyway. Which they usually do, after selling to another flipper.

Ok Cristalle. Let's assume that someone has to tier up now and then when buying land. Which they usually do. Most successful flippers do not do it using only their free 512.

Well, since I have been a wholesaler as well as retailer (and a manufacturer, to boot!) in RL, I can tell you where the value add is: Distribution. Manufacturers make their products and need someone to carry it to stores, so they depend on Wholesalers to do that. Wholesalers build a channel for goods, however, they aren't into B2C marketing, they are in B2B marketing; it's their specialty. As such, they need someone to actually sell to consumers, since they don't have the skill set or business acument to market direct to consumers, so they need retailers. The value add for retailers is *drum roll* personal interaction and support with and to the consumer. So, all along the line, there are people who ARE putting in a value add for the price they charge. Now, if you have some dude go into Walmart, buy up some X product, then go out on the side of the road a mile or so from Walmart and put up his little store selling the same products at inflated prices, where is the value add? That's right, there isn't one, especially since if you have a problem with what you buy, he probably won't be there tomorrow to assist you.

With land flippers in SL, I ask again, WHERE is the value add? Simple. There isn't one. It's just a form of opportunism which has only one goal: to game the system and line someone's pockets with money for minimal effort and risk involved (no, I don't buy the "risk" argument for most land flippers. Most have less than 1-2 regions' worth of tier, and the total loss wouldn't amount to more than a few thousand dollars in RL).



Great! So freebie reselling, excessive price gouging, land extortion, etc are all fine, too, because "Consumers ultimately have a choice here and plenty of it".



Then you've just made my argument for me. You HAVE to have a bot to get a good deal, compared to the market. Average market price right now (according to Jack, again) is around L$6/sqm, so L$3000 for a 512sqm is just under average price.

The problem with this example is that in today's stagnant market, no piece of land gets flipped more than a few times. As soon as it gets higher than L$5 a meter, it's gonna just sit there while the flippers move on.

You don't have a tier gap if all you are using is 512.

If a flipper is paying a sim's worth of tier per month, they're not going to tier up for a new 512 held for a day or two and incur another $97.50. That would be bad business. They pay the same amount to LL or less, depending on demand. Flippers' resources aren't infinite and the profit margin is usually not worth the doubling in tier.

haha I don't know very many "average" people who think *only* a few thousand dollars is a good amount to risk/lose in SL.

Most flippers have already tiered up, so that assumption is invalid. They are using tier they have already paid for. Sometimes they do tier up, but only very carefully.

Don't forget that quite a few land dealers buy tier from other folks. IE, if you have your 512sqm tier free, they will often pay you something like L$0.10-0.15/sqm per week for it, or something. As a result, they often have plenty of already-paid tier to use in their land trading practices.

As such, LL doesn't get any extra tier from land being flipped.

They had to tier up at some point in order to have a tier gap. Therefore LL did get their money, and the next person's and the next person's. And of course they wouldnt keep doing it if it were not successful. As far as the profit margin being worth the doubling in tier, that is totally subjective depending on the parcel you are looking at, and how much of a tier jump the flipper would be making.

Well, you also have to realize what they are earning in the flipping business. These people aren't stupid; they aren't going to get caught with their britches down holding several thousand US$ worth of land for an income of a couple hundred bucks a month, either (which wouldn't even cover their tier).

No, most land traders have the money to blow, and they know where their limits are.