Advice after latest land rip-off

This whole so called "buying" of covenant land and paying tier sounds like a gigantic ripoff to me! First off, the land you "buy" is never really YOURS! Miss a tier payment and the whole thing is taken from you, if you paid 50K for it, its out the window. At least with buying your own land, if you do miss a teir payment, LL will usually give you a grace period in which to catch your tier payment up , rather than some psuedo-landlord snatching it from you without any consideration. And relining their own pockets in the bargain

Yes some advantages like you don't have to have a premium membership to "buy" the land and the land is usually restricted in such a way to eliminate obnoxious neighbors and/or builds. But what price glory? The restrictions can work against you too.

Reselling your covenant land can be difficult too because most folks don't want it.

IMO, get yourself a premium membership, even if the monthly fee is tough in the beginning, if you buy your membership for a year its much cheaper. This allows you to buy your own land without any BS from landlords. If you have cruddy neighbors well...build a skybox or buy one to put up there. You can make almost any piece of sky look homey

It all depends on what you are looking for I guess. I had a nice 512 mainland plot, but i wanted more space, and the casino who owned the surrounding land, which was empty, wouldn't sell except at an exhorbitant rate. I looked around for awhile but saw nothing on the mainland that suited me. A friend moved onto an island, and I fell in love with the place and took a plot there. My landlord is a reputable person, and I have the ability to sell my space when I leave. Yes, there is the chance that he may go and a new owner may change that, but that's the way it goes. Whatever I spend in SL is play money, it doesn't matter to me whether it goes to Linden or an individual, in the end I'm not owning anything in any case.

I suppose it depends on how much abuse you can tolerate. I finally gave up on the mainland last week after the Great Wall of China was erected next to my parcel in an effort to make me sell low so the baron could grab it and sell high. I tried to appeal, but the megaprim wall was then made higher and shunted further forward to block out even more of the tropical sim I was located in. I'd spent two weeks working on a pretty elaborate, large build (not intrusive) and was in the middle of custom texturing in Illustrator and Photoshop (very time consuming work due to the detail involved) when everything changed.

I could have doubled my parcel size and had a HUGE boundary to lessen the problem (basically "buy the view", but no way was I paying the extortionate prices expected so I sold up. A psychological game, some huge prims of my own and a little patience paid off though and I managed to get a very good price...but I'll never buy mainland again. The thing is, I've rented 3/4 sim from a very well known land baron before now, but when they decided to relocate the sim away from the neighbourhood of sims where I'd made many friends (coupled with fears of increased tier due to PI price increases announced at that time), I gave up on private islands as well.

Seems we need a third option.

(Maybe that's where the SL competition should come in.)

This thread seems to be turning into a "bash the estate owners" fest, so let me speak up in their favor.

I currently own mainland, but I was previously on an estate, and I was very happy with my experience there. I did pay an up-front "purchase" fee, because I bought the land from a previous owner. Fortunately, that fee was low, about one month's rent. The management couldn't have been nicer. They answered all my questions quickly, and usually resolved issues in my favor. They didn't use "ugly rent boxes", but a payment system that used ATM machines, similar to SLEX. They accepted payment in $L or $US. They published notices via group notice and IM of upcoming payment due dates, and would give you a day or so of leeway...they wouldn't foreclose on you without warning.

Added to that, there was an active community association. There were daily announcements of parties, events, and get-togethers all over the 30-some sims of the archipelago. And my immediate neighbors were quiet, friendly, and not inclined to creating ugly builds.

When the time came to sell, the management helped me list my property on their own website.

Some estate owners do charge an up-front "purchase" fee, with no intent of ripping you off. They have a large investment to recoup, and they can charge this fee while still keeping the price more attractive than mainland. This helps them recover that up-front cost while keeping rents attractively low.

I would "buy" estate land again in a heartbeat...provided the owner was reputable. That's the only caveat. DO YOUR HOMEWORK on the estate owner. Ask around. Search the forums. Ask the neighbors. Find out how many sims he or she owns. Find out how long he or she has been in business.

All kudos to estate owners like Desmond Shang of Caledon, and Garth and Pituca FairChang. They make SL a nicer place to live.

I'm pretty sure Sarah Nerd does not charge upfront for her estate rentals. Same with Darien Caldwell. Yah, it's the upfront fee that makes it more risky. That, and going with someone without a stellar reputation.

Yes, you have to be careful when renting on estates. But I have some sympathy for the estate owners, too. The reason that the Lindens can give you a grace period is that they have got lower costs, and they've got the ability to just _take_ the money from you IRL or even sue you because you have an RL agreement with them. For an estate owner, their only option is the Reclaim button, and many of them don't make that big a margin per individual sim, so even a single missed tier payment can cause that month's tier to punch through onto their bank accounts (and they can't just recover that when you do pay - bear in mind that will mean they have to cash the money out, thus paying transfer fees and tax, which they otherwise might not have done)

I think Sarah charges a nominal fee, to put it into the renters name. Can't possibly think where I got the idea from...

Made up figures, but say you bought 8192m² of estate land for L$50k and your tier is L$15k/month.

If the sim owner waited a full month before evicting they'd loose out on L$15k, except the new renter will be paying L$50k as well to buy the same plot that was already sold before so it's actually more profitable for a sim owner to evict a renter than it is to wait for them, but even if they choose to wait they'd still profit, just less.

Not waiting is only an excuse for pure rentals, as soon as a renter paid for the land there's really no reason not to wait until the initial deposit no longer covers the waiting period plus the time it would take for the plot to sell again.

I really don't mean to bash Estate owners here. I definitely see the advantages of renting over buying. But I'm not at all clear why there's this big distinction to end-renters between Estate renting and Mainland renting, assuming the Mainland sim is managed like an Estate would be managed. I see that Estate fees are much higher than Mainland tier, so that would account for the need to charge higher rent--and there's some benefit that goes with it: no neighboring sims (if you don't want them) to have "child agents" contributing to lag, Estate tools, the ability to do deep terraforming and land texturing, and probably other cool stuff I don't know about.

But I dunno. Renting in a full-sim Mainland rental establishment seems pretty darn similar to me, yet I don't know of Mainland landlords who charge a "deposit" at all, let alone a hefty "purchase price." Maybe I just don't know the right Mainland properties; otherwise, I'm just really not seeing enough difference to make the distinction.

Recently I had an issue where a private estate on which I 'rented' land (you never really own it, no matter what they say) was sold to another owner. The new owner screwed everyone that rented there. I have learned several things about land 'renting' in SL.

1. As stated above, on private sims even when they say you are an 'owner' you are only renting the land and paying a tier.

2. Most of the private sim I have seen charge parcel costs that are as much or more than purchasing, and truly owning, mainland.

3. If you buy into the land sales and ownership B.S. that goes on in SL and pay more than 1L$ to initially purchase the land you are sucker.

4. Land prices in SL are the most ridiculous prices I have ever seen for anything, real or virtual. People selling tiny little plot for tens of thousands of dollars knowing that someone will jump at it and just have to have it.

I understand that people want to make a profit in-world but most of the land owners and their pricing are doing nothing more than screwing people out of L$. When Linden Labs decides to create a standard for land owners and support the regular user in disputes then things will change, but not until then.

On a side note, the whole not naming names and such on the forums is another load of B.S and is nothing more than a way to protect the scum element that infests much of SL. Naming names would resolve quite a few issues in the people would be called on teh carpet for their misdeeds and have to either make good or make tracks.

Just my two cents

There are times when I agree with you, Callila. The hard part comes in deciding where to draw the line. In many cases, there are two sides to a dispute. "Naming names" can lead to unwarranted damage to someone's reputation. It can also lead to extended flame wars in the forums...he said, she said. "You cad". "You scoundrel." and on and on, endlessly.

And then there are the people who actually are in the wrong, but decide they want revenge for what they feel is a raw deal. Those people would make false accusations against others, again resulting in damage to reputations.

Although the "no naming names to defame" policy can wind up protecting evildoers, on the whole I think it's the best approach.

In a free market, how can anyone be screwed out of L$? Other than fraud? Just because a piece of land is priced more than you would pay, does not mean that someone else would not be happy to pay that price. If no one buys it at the listed price then the land owner has priced higher than the market will bear.

As for naming names, no it will be nothing more than a griefing tool. What is to keep a group of people, who for what ever reason don't like you, from coming on and saying you are into kiddie sex? They can show chat logs proving it. Chat logs are pretty easy to fake. Naming names only tells one side of the story.

Not only that, until alts are either more tightly controlled or tied to a main, all a crook has to do is create alt after alt.. As reactionary a groups as we are, naming names on w whim would be of no use except a a griefing tool.

I think everyone is entitled to their opinions, and I fully respect everyone's choices. While some may disagree with me, here are some of the 'whys', as I see them.

Perhaps you will find the perspective of a land baron interesting.



"Buy" and "own" - are these deceptive terms?

Hell yes. As an estate owner I could reclaim your land instantly, ban and mute you. Do you own a thing, if that can be done to take it away on a whim? I'd say no.



Why charge for estate land up front?

Because if I don't, I'll spend 1675 USD only to have the first twenty or so free tenants come in, rent for free, and then 'sell' the rental rights in quiet side deals. It's a lot like passing out 1675 USD to anonymous strangers on the internet. Yes, I've had this happen.



Why would people rent from me, even with nonrefundable up-front fees?

Because I'm providing something they want, at the rate offered. Not everyone on the grid is a broke college student.

I have many residents that could buy their own sim (or ten) and simply don't, because they are there for the community. I'm pretty sure my entire first-life house would fit in the real living room that some of these residents have.



Is it riskier to rent from someone that charges up-front fees?

Consider: I've got 3 months tier stashed away in Company USD credit, and 31 sims right now. No flaky 'investments.' I could survive without getting another penny from anybody until March. Could your landlord? Could even our service provider?

So would you really prefer to rent from someone who can't even recover regional costs for nearly a year, let alone build reserves? That's presuming they can keep their region full, too.

That's some scary risk there, if you run the numbers. Try it! Even pretend a region makes 200 a month profit over tier, too.



Could I charge a lot more than I do?

Yeah, probably about triple, *easily*. Basic supply and demand. Consider, I'm the guy that rented a region out for $L4/m nonrefundable where people have been selling the rental rights for $L 40/m and up for a solid year.



Would I charge triple since I've got the demand for it?

Nah.

Caledon wouldn't be very fun if it were just a residential haven for the wealthy. I feel I run a good balance as it is - goose, golden eggs and all that.

With respect Desmond, you could make an argument that someone who has not 'sold' their estate land is less of a risk. If a landlord has not received 'setup' fees for the land in their sim, they have a lot more to lose should they fail to pay tier, and are also less likely to do a runner. I ran 40 sims on the no 'setup fee' model for two years to Oct '06, and always had a long waiting list, so clearly there were no trust issues. I also appreciate that you have a lot of trust placed in you and your sims by many people, and for good reason. We could come up with for and against risk arguments in this way for either model, but what really matters is the reputation of the estate owner.

I put a JIRA proposal up for a Linden system that can be used to give consumer protection on private islands. Basically the island-owner would set up their rent details in this tool, and when people buy the land they can see these settings, and if they accept them then they are bound by them. But similarly, the estate-manager is bound to them too, by not receiving money until it clears. This means that the worst that can happen is that an estate manager reclaims the land and you get a refund automatically. In the case of changing ownership, the settings would be available for the new island owner to go over and change if required (automatically informing tenants and letting them leave or agree to the new settings).

The result is hopefully a much simpler set-up for managing private-island land, while protecting buyers and removing the reliance on clunky rent-boxes and manual management.

The JIRA issue can be found here if you think it's what we need:
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-950

Amity,
You don't mention whether you have brought the object's error to the estate owner's attention. That would have been the obvious thing to do.

But that's why "land baron" is so far from apt in your case--or at least so far from complete. Yes, Estate land is (mostly) how you monetize Caledon. And yes, you actually handle the land sales and management professionally and reputably. But the folks who are on your waiting list for months are there to buy into something more than the right to pay rent each month on a little square of virtual property.

Of course, all SL "property" is about fantasy, really; hence "virtual." But a community fantasy is a lot more compelling than a standalone doll house fantasy. (I think that's because the abstract construct of "community" is a whole lot more similar between RL and SL. But that's just a hunch.)

So, yeah, it's pretty clear why you can charge an up-front fee. And of course it's much better for you if you do. And I even follow the logic that it could benefit a tenant to know that the Estate's finances are stable, which is certainly helped by that up-front fee.

But Caledon excepted; considering, rather, the standard-issue tropical beach island Estate vs a similarly appointed Mainland rental sim: why does one charge an up-front fee and the other doesn't?

I just wanted to Highlight the issue with the retnal box itself either being faulty or the land not having the correct permissions for the box to behave properly. I rent stores in many places, and in 3 places I have had this very issue with the rental box. I pay it, it takes the money and many hours later it refunds it. The trick is usually to see if you get any response from the box when you pay it , or even before you pay it, on touch, and to make sure it is updated with the correct time you have paid for before you leave. 2 of the places i have had experience of this did not work each time I visited, and had to be re-set by the owner, and the other was beacuse scripts were not allowed to run following a greifer attack. Once allowed it was fine.

You're presuming that a new renter comes along instantly, which they might not do. I have found that quite a few estate landlords now are not really interested in being land business professionals full-time, but either a) resold land because they could afford the initial investment and wanted a continuous income in SL, or b) felt forced to buy a private island to escape griefing and mess on the mainland (or to gain access to extra tools), but didn't need that much land and thus want to use the extra to recoup their costs.

In these cases, once the land is initially sold, the tendancy is for the estate landlord to exhale and relax and get on with what they _really_ wanted to do in SL. If someone has to be thrown out, they're snapped out of that position, having to attract another renter and to worry about the tier fees in the meantime.

Amity rental boxes do at times refund money for strange reasons, I had it happen to me on one of my mainland rentals at the weekend. The guy tried to pay twice and both times it refunded him.

However I'm not sure I'd rent from someone who spoke in txt speak anyway!

I've sold estate parcels, I don't think I'll do it again. I've had people put their plots up for sale and then go away without paying tier. I'll pay them what I can as and when to buy their parcel back off them because I feel guilty about reclaiming land.

I've seen people get into fights with each other and after paying L$35,000 they then sell the parcel to their "friend" for L$1 just to get out and it makes me feel bad that they paid me an upfront cost and then let it all go because they got into some drama. It's not my argument but I feel bad that it ended that way for someone who placed trust in me.

There should be some sort of code of conduct for estate owners, LL should be able to intervene in cases where an estate owner continues to trade. If someone goes bust, they go bust, that happens RL and if LL went bust tomorrow plenty of people would be left with nothing. However when there are transaction logs, LL should be able to enforce a code of conduct that an estate owner can't just take the money and reclaim the land and then get more money for the land.

It's in the interest of estate owners for there to be a more trustworthy system as well as tenants.

This happened once to me with Hippo boxes, and I keep meaning to ask Andy if this is by design: I got an IM from one of my boxes that one of my tenants had just been evicted. This guy had always been a good tenant, and I had even spoken with him a couple days before, helping him with a deeding issue. Anyway I tried to look him up in people search and couldn't find him. I ultimately heard through one of his friends that his account had been frozen that same day. (He was banned for buying money on LindeX by the way, but that's another story.) I also checked my records and found the guy had just paid his rent two days before, so he wasn't even in arrears when the box evicted him.

My theory was that the rent box monitors users' account status somehow and kicks them off if they're banned as an early warning to you that they won't be making their next rent payment. But I've never confirmed that with Mr. Enfield.

I use the Hippo system for all 5 of my sims. I have been for 6 months and I use the web enabled plug-in. I have not had an issue of any kind with it.
Although i will be honest and say that it took alot of effort for me to learn how to use it properly.
There are plenty of reasons why it could refund your Tier payment. But the Estate Owner gets the transaction on his/her transaction history also. As the Op did. He should see the L$ payment and L$ refund also.
So in this case I think the new sim owner had a buyer lined up and just wanted to sell the parcel again...A he just bought it and wanted to make some money.

A free market depends on free flow of information, which does not exist in Second Life. Inability to freely share information about who ripped off whom, or who is honest, is one of the things that kills free flow of information. Also, successful free market economies have laws and dispute resolution procedures- for example, courts, Better Business Bureau. The mere fact that someone can actually do something to right a wrong when someone is ripped off acts as a disincentive to potential rip-off artists, and an incentive for legitimate business owners to do good business.

There may be honest estate owners out there. But, I know two things. One, I have no way to really find out who they are. Two, my chances of finding the honest estate owners are pretty bad, because Second Life is set up to reward the dishonest. This thread contains the blueprints for successful scams that can be run with impunity. I'd like to think that most people are just inherently honest and would not want to scam someone, but if someone wanted to make a little money on a scam, it is so easy in Second Life. Second Life just calls out to it.

My biggest lesson here is simply that I was an idiot for "buying" land in the first place. Everyone who has posted along the lines of "it doesn't make sense to pay up front" is exactly right. It made no sense for me to initially "buy" the land. I was foolish, and I have learned that the hard way.

(And by the way, if you are a fan of the free market, a free market doesn't work when consumers are afraid to spend money. It works only if consumers have the confidence to spend money.)

The information is out there. If you didn't educate yourself it was not a failure of the market.