Would be land owners - to afriad to buy?

I am one of them. I want a full SIM - until now, I was 100% sure I wanted full mainland SIM - because of the tier and because of a better chance of reselling and recouping at least some of the $L I paid for it. Now I am not so sure. Do I wait until they say something about possible changes to tiers (mainland and/or island).

I keep trolling the land sales for deals on full SIM's that I just can't pass up - but so far nothing has gotten me over the "uncertainty". Just haven't seen an offer I can't refuse.

I sort of feel the same way, just waiting for the other shoe to drop. But, they said no change in tier for this quarter so we'll have to wait another couple of months for the Q3 bomb to go off.

In light of the recent island price change, which came after the recent open sims change (which might be changing again) and uncertainty over tier pricing, buying big now would be too much of a gamble for me, and I like a gamble.

It depends entirely upon what you plan to DO with your island. People keep looking at them as investments - well, unfortunately, they're not. They're not real estate that will almost certainly go up in value; they're assets, which will almost certainly depreciate - go down in value.

rant {

If you're going to buy an island, buy it to USE - build something great, have a nice private home, I don't care, just USE it, instead of trying to make money off of it.

}

We try to be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.

Indeed, but you don't expect them to depreciate by 40% overnight.



I trust you take the same view on all content creation within second life and are calling for everyone to give away their content for free. I also trust you expect LL to provide people with free land to build and use, or are they the only people around here allowed to generate income?

If it makes any difference: in November 2006 Zee hinted that mainland tier would be due for a change "in the next few months" but that was the last mention of that.

In Q4 2006 they said old-tier sim would extend to the end of the year and be reviewed in 2007.

They've done the same "no change in tier structure this quarter, we'll examine it again next quarter" dance another 2 or 3 times in 2007 and now once more.

As omnious as it sounds, they do have a history of saying it and then just stating the same thing the next quarter.

Ciaran,
I agree with Buckaroo but let me put it this way.
There is not much money to be made in SL. The time and effort you invest could easily be out earned by a kid with a lawn mower.

Buy what you want to USE and enjoy. If you are not having fun, there are easier and more reliable ways to make money. If you actually turn a profit, GREAT!

If you go in with the idea of trying to make money you may well be disapointed.
If you go in with the idea to have fun, at the very least you have done nothing worse than paying for your entertainment.

Yosef, with all due respect, you have no idea what I do with my land. However I doubt there are many people who own islands and just use it to build and pay LL tier completely out of their own pocket.

wait intell the new containt is out which will be very soon because when it comes out prices are gona drop like a stone

Yep, I doubt that anyone that can justify $1000 USD up front and $295 USD per month as entertainment expenses would even bother with SL as entertainment anyway.

That level of expenditure, for most people, would have to be viewed as business expenses and had better be looking for ways to, at least, break even on it.

One thing I do agree with though, if you are in SL exclusively to make money, then chances are you'll be disappointed. Unless, of course, you go in with a solid business plan and your eyes wide open.

Agreed. In case the blog post wasn't explicit enough, when we start seeing the "at least 10" sims per day at auction at the reduced opening price of $750, it will become all the more apparent to people that prices are headed lower!

Nope. No idea at all.
Do you enjoy what you do with your land?
Buying as an investment is a risk. Do you enjoy the risk? I play craps when in Vegas and find it a lot of fun. High risk and I go in knowing full well I may not break even much less make any money. I have played for 12 hours straight and walked away up US$300; at one point in that run I was down almost 5,000 counting what was on the table. Lots of risk and damn hard work but I had fun.
WHAT you do is superfluous. WHY you do it is what matters.

If a profit is your primay goal, I still say there are easier and more reliable was to earn a buck that don't rely on a barely solvent company experiencing management turnovers to stay afloat. I love SL and am as big a fanboy as anyone but realisticly I know that I could try to log on tomorrow only to find that LLab filed Chapter 11 and all the hardware is be auctioned off to pay creditors.

So I guess what I'm saying is if you are afraid to risk buying while the price is down then you should not be buying at all anyway. There are much higher risks than "what if the price changes again next quarter?"

If you want a Mainland sim, wait a few weeks until the combination of LL lowering the starting bid and them dumping 10 regions a day begins to affect closing auction prices. In the meantime, scout out purple soon-to-be-auctioned sims and pick a few you would want as your own. This is how I chose Liome and got it for less than it ended up being worth when I resold it.

Gambling is banned anyway.

Absolutely and I love meeting plenty of people, I also love gambling and my intention wasn't to come here, buy land, put my feet in and watch the money roll in, it was to be able to pay enough to enjoy myself and if I do better than break even it's a bonus, I reinvest all my money. If I ever have a big surplus I guess I'd consider withdrawing.

I play around with scripting and will soon have time to engage in that more, I can't draw so I'm crap at design.

I'd like to build a Victorian themed sim but don't have the time, more seedy Sherlock Holmes type Victorian kind of builds.

For those saying wait until 10 per day is dumped at a STARTING price of 750 - who is to say that it will stay at 750? Maybe it will go right back up to the 2k selling price it normally goes at? I am fairly new to land and its trends, so hard for me to even venture a guess. At this point though, I think it may be hard for anyone to venture a guess!

they won't stay at 750, but they won't go to 2000 either

standard mainland at auction got more or less a 25% premium to new estate sims (~$2100/$1675), so that puts new auctions around $1250 before you adjust for tier/market sentiment

It's not the starting price that will lead to lower prices, it's the dump. Prices inworld are already down 12%.

well that statement proves your don't seem to know many people.....

And falling. But they'll probably over-correct in anticipation of the 10-sims-a-day effect. That is, it's my guess that the sweet spot for prices this time will be before the flood actually commences. (For example, I doubt if anyone who read the blog post is buying land today at any price.)

In any case, it's just a shot in the dark as to what prices will do longer term. Generally lower, one might expect, but if one doesn't want something for immediate use, the money should stay in the bank anyway--and if one has an idea for generating revenue (or other utility), waiting around is rarely worth the cost of delaying investment (the current step-function decrease a notable exception for some).

Go on then, surprise me, list the many people who paid $1675 for an island and then happily pay $295 a month out of their own pocket just for entertainment value.

Well in my case, I was not sure my idea for generating revenue would work, so I tried to time my purchase and sale as best as I could. To do this, I watched the auction market like a hawk for 4 months. It was a lot easier to do with the old auction system. And Melina Loonie was keeping sim sale statistics back then as well.

In the end, my revenue idea (tropical rentals) was successful enough to cover tier but the time investment got to be too much.

Actually, I do know a couple that have an island to themselves as their home. He owns several business IRL and she works at a Walmart in Virginia. They have been together online only for 5 years or more. This is as much as she will let him give her and she did throw a fit about him buying it, but he wanted to be sure they never had neighbor problems. They have a club done up in a ventage burlesque style where they hang out with their friends -- and thay have a lot of friends.

Still, this is a very rare exception indeed.

I know people who spread the costs between themselves to have a sim for just friends and family, I'm sure there are a few of those sort of setups.