A Question on Real-Estate in SL

Hello, residents. Thank you for responding to this first post.

I am a member of a social network, on which an article was posted from an MMO blog yesterday at http://mmorpgjunkie.blogspot.com/. The article discussed several methods of earning money on SL, and I have to admit I was intrigued.

After taking a glance at the "How do I make money?" question in the FAQ, I wanted to ask residents about their personal experiences earning revenue with their avatar. Does it really happen? It is difficult? Are there success or failure stories you have to share?

A friend of mine from the network I am on told me that the bulk of her experience was filling out online surveys, which she despised. Is this consistent with the norm?

Thank you in advance for your helpful responses, and perhaps I'll see you in the world soon.

There are people who make real-life livings off of money made purely in Second Life. There are really only a couple hundred in this situation. The number who make as much as/more than a _good-paying_ RL job is most likely in the 2-digit range.

Most "successful" business people in SL earn enough to pay for their subscription and land use fees, and buy some virtual goods for fun. Different businesses come with different costs, but the most important cost, in my mind, is time. Most of the folks making the big money in-world spend a LOT of time in Second Life, developing product lines, handling customer service, or just maintaining the business. Anyone considering SL as a potential income source needs to understand that this is no casual game that you can expect to conquer in your occasional hobby time. It's a serious commitment, a competitive environment, and generally entails a lot of hard work.

EDIT: Your subject line mentions real estate but the rest of your post doesn't. Real estate here is very much like real estate in the real world. It takes money to make money. You either need to work your way up off in-world earnings til you can buy some land to rent/resell, or you make a personal financial investment of your RL dollars. The people who profit in any meaningful sense from real estate are the ones who deal in significant volume, and that comes with significant costs that you'd better be prepared to deal with if you have any hope of competing in this near-saturated market.

Simply buying L$ is the easiest and best way when you're just starting.

Unless you're skilled you're not going to be able to create or do something that someone is willing to pay you for right from the start.

The amount of time put into scraping L$1 here and L$2 there just isn't worth it and you might as well take on a menial second job in RL for a few hours and use the money you get from that to buy L$, it'll be orders of magnitude more than what you'd make in SL.

---

From the linked blog post:
...

I'd suggest you forget everything that's said in that blog post to be honest...

Hey now, it's rewarding to get the apple, banana or cherries from the Money tree!

There are a handful of inspiring stories about people who made living income, or better, from Second Life business.

They were the lucky few. Very, very few.

Second Life is not a stable business platform. Most people coming to Second Life with dollar signs in their eyes end up losing a lot of money trying to make it rich.

So if the prospect of making money attracts you to Second Life, then you'll probably be disappointed.

Otherwise, it is within reason to do some sort of business in Second Life that might at least help you break even on your entertainment expenditures.

But don't put the cart before the horse. If you come to Second Life looking to make money, you'll probably be frustrated. If you come to Second Life for entertainment, along the way you might find a way to make some money to recoup your investment or even make a little bit extra.

And just to add something when it comes to "real estate speculation" in Second Life:

Second Life real estate was a way to make easy money. Several years ago. While very few people were doing it and before the word got out about it in blog posts.

ditto...

When i first started out I was very fortunate to meet some really generous people...who took me around, gave me clothes...showed me where to get GOOD hair & skin for not a huge amount of money...and hence begun my first career of *stripping/dancer*. I managed to pay for my rent on a really cool beach house doing this plus some left over to play & shop. Other I knew funded their life by camping, at the time i didnt have a really good connection, and often got disconnected so it wasnt a viable option for me.

The dancer route has changed considerably ive noticed. Club owners are asking for set times (in my day you just sorta showed up whenever lol) and want you to work for a predetermined amount of hours & days.

Other friends also did escorting to earn a few pennies...but they always earned a lot more pennies then me !

I really wanted my own little piece of land, so went ahead and *rented* a parcel...learnt how to build from a neighbour and built 6 pretty beach houses to rent out and cover my costs. So I had my land, a home...a dancing job and residents paying rent. sweet Rented more land from the oh so wonderful Mister Blake Dwi...and built more homes etc.

Grew from there....to (cut out the boring bits lol) to now owning a Sim full of rental homes and people renting land from me


Phase 3, also included learning how to make things...gifts...lights...furniture...emitters...and animated beds. Have a store thats doing pretty well these days, you dont HAVE to have a store..some just sell via onrez & slexchange, we do both

Its been quite a climb..and we work really hard most days, at the store , on the sim...but we love it

Of course, you can just buy lindens dollars...

The most cash i lost was in starting a club...money sucker...awful...hated it, lesson learnt!

If you can find sometihng you enjoy do it, if you make a few $$ doing it great....when its not fun, stop...simple advice i know, sorry to sound glib.

Fai x

Yes it IS possible but it needs a heck of a lot of good luck as well as hard work. At one point I was making enough from furniture sales to cover the rent on a 3072m store AND a 4096m residential parcel. That lasted about 5 months, then I gave up the store due to RL commitments and when I came back I wasn't able to find a site as good as that one had been. Lately I just don't have the time to commit to a business, I'm happier to earn money in RL and spend it in SL via the Lindex.

You need to do some research, that's the best route. Engage with the world, then think about what you'd like and try and develop it. If you find a good niche market you're in with a chance.

I seriously wouldn't reccomend real estate, the market is open to too many factors and interference, there's no real stability and the long term trend in value will be downward. Rentals are different and developing a theme can bring rewards but you have to work for it and the pay per hour ratio is way below a minimum wage, but it can be rewarding on a personal level and bring in some bonus money, which if it's something you enjoy doing makes it worthwhile.

Surveys, camping, being paid for having someone's pick on your profile are all available, but they're akin to gathering sweat in Entropia Universe.

You need to be patient, if you're looking for a get rich quick scheme the chances are you'll be out of luck.

I would have liked to make a modest income from SL but that wasn't my main reason for coming here. I used to sell quite a few of my creations and it covered my modest membership and land fees. But sales stopped. I improved my shop and put more, better goods for sale but still hardly anyone buys anything. There seemed to be a deep seated change in the SL economy.
I've had various other sales outlets too - mostly networks of 32m or 64m plots to sell boxed goods. Again, things used to sell from these plots, now they don't.
Recently I let a friend sell some quite nice boxed vehicles from some of my plots but he sold none. So I'm selling off the plots now.

I still like making stuff. At the moment I'm doing clothes, for myself but I'll sell copies of them at some stage.

I'm struggling to think of any unfilled niches you could step into.

Your odds of earning even the equivalent of a minimum wage job by working in Second Life are comparable to the odds of an average, not-terribly-atheletic individual in Real Life making a career in pro sports. If you're lucky, work hard, and get the right breaks at the right times, it might happen. Maybe... Don't hold your breath.

Real Estate used to be a way to make money here. But the real estate market has crashed, and those who made loads of money on land have either bailed some time ago, or took a huge loss as land prices crashed worse than the Great Depression.

Most people in SL that are successful enough to at least pay for their land, membership fees, and in-world purchases with funds earned entirely in-world will tell you that to get to where they are today, they have to work just as hard as they would at a real part-time job. 20 hours a week at least, lots of time spent learning new skills, and maybe, if you have an exceptional level of talent or just the right idea at the right time, you might do better than breaking even.

Millions will play. Less than one thousand make a profit at all. A few hundred make more of a profit than they can spend on one dinner at a restaurant per week.

You do the math. If you're interested in making a real-world profit, go get a part-time job in RL. You will almost cetainly earn more per hour, even if you're just flipping burgers in a fast food restaurant.

The streets of SL are not paved with gold, and you can't make money here with little to no effort or talent.

I rather blew that one, I just turn up at dance clubs naked! Must be my British ancestry!

wut was your question about real estate, as indicated in the title?

To be successful in SL is really no different from Real Life. If you have skills you can use here, that's a plus. The willingness to put in the time and hard work to succeed also helps. Having a great idea or marketing strategy also helps. Being observant, finding a niche not filled, willingness to take a risk, and the ability to handle failure *or* success, all important.

There is no magical, easy, legal cheat to making money in SL, no more than there is the real world. My best advice is, find something you enjoy and do it, don't make money your goal, make having fun your goal.

Well, it does happen. It's quite possible to live off what I make on the grid, though it's not my only income. That's the situation today. Tomorrow it could be different.

Like any business situation anywhere, except making money on the grid might be less stable than say, a government job. On the other hand, it's not a government job (yay).

* * * * *

Is it difficult - well, not terribly, no! It would be fair to mention though, that I'm no stranger to business in RL. I have worked with small California startups that later sold for multiple millions, have started my own RL biz (I'm still here, it's not a startup anymore) and I've been at exec level long enough to have a bit of daring and believe in myself.

That's the biggest problem, really, with so many utterly capable people - they simply don't see themselves as capable of doing really well, and plant the seeds of their own demise in a million subtle ways. Aim high, have a parachute just in case. After a few tries you really *can* make it if you are competent.

* * * * *

I'm not sure I can be called a 'success' - yes I make money here, but I love it, it's really not for the money (few really understand this). Essentially what happened, is I managed to pull off a successful importing business in RL, which means that I send out a few emails and wire transfers, occasionally send product on to sales distributors that do all that part... and it's sloooooow at my office. Exactly as I had planned it! But I'm a people person, and this is a far cry from running a busy department or company... it gets really lonely.

So I don't mind being busy on the grid. If I didn't make a penny here, I'd still probably be talking to people - it's just my nature to start businesses and "get 'er done"... a sort of workaholic personality... it bled over into my inworld experience as you can see. I'd say the person who naturally watches TV while munching chips when left to their own devices... well, how would you think that sort of person will do in online business - it won't be much different for them, will it?

As for success or failure, honestly I can make about double for my time by doing electrical engineering consulting than what I make on the grid presently. So am I truly a success? On the other hand I can do this when I want, I can hang out with my kids in the afternoon, I can come and go as I please (my RL biz is pretty flexible that way too). So if it's success, it's not a really "monetary" sort of success. On the other hand, I'm not a triple-divorcee with a tricked out Corvette, thinning hair, and a boss from hell. I was at the beach yesterday afternoon though, and the Pacific was beautiful, and my kids were just out of their last day at school playing in the waves. My old 1993 oil-leaker of a car was filled with sand on the way back as a result. I don't care. Success? You be the judge.

* * * * *

Online surveys... erm... well other than this one, or the occasional other one that drifts through this forum from some student doing a paper, I don't do 'em. I don't think I've ever done one on the grid. It would probably be cheaper overall to get the local paper and cut coupons, than get online and fuss with surveys.

* * * * *

Good luck!