Just curious: why is "flat land" a selling point?

I'm a landlord, not a land-flipper, but I'm just curious why so many land plots are sold this way.

To me, the bulldozed plots all on stepped terraces with severe dropoffs between them look,... um, retarded. The first thing I do before I start building, is "fix" the land, and put natural-looking contours back into it.

Is it just too hard for people to build walls, stilts, or boulders to put their pre-fab house on the plot? There must be some universal reason because I've had to "fix" most of the parcels I've bought (and I haven't gotten around to some yet). And most parcels I've looked at look equally bad (in my humble opinion, mind you).

Just a suggestion to land-flippers (particularly ones who sell or give away a structure with the land) Would the land possibly be more attractive and more valuable if it looked natural, and the structure creatively blended with it? Just my opinion: I'd love to hear others'.

Totally agree, it looks horrible and unnatural.

Because many people lack creativity.

Novice builders don't seem to understand the concept of building on anything other than a dead flat lot. It probably also has a lot to do with a large percentage of SL users coming from urban environments, where city lots are usually dead flat or as close to it as the developer can manage. People build what they feel familiar with.

I personally detest pancake flat lots, especially if the whole thing is just barely above sea level. I recently got to move to a new sim, on a large parcel, and my home is up on a 60M elevation plateau, ringed by steep mountains on two sides, with terraces going down from there to the sea.

Most people want to (or "can only" bang down a prefab.
Flat plots make that easier.
Maybe the 'flat' doesn't matter so much in a 512 grid ghetto. It can be hard to see the land in many places.

When barons and flippers set land for sale, the last thing on their minds will be my 'peculiar' taste in land.

I hate flat. I'm not fond of smooth.
I've bought more than a few plots. The only ones that excited me were the hilly ones. The first thing I do is revert it back to what the Lindens started with. Then I think how to fit a build into it.

Now I've bought a few water plots.
WTF??? The barons flatten the seabed!!!!

The people who desire flat land are also often incapable of terraforming it to match their satisfaction. It takes some practice to get the terraform tools to work properly for you- especially on a lot as small as a 512. Mistakes are amplified when you have such a small area to work with.

the people who desire non-flat land are usually content to break out the land tools to get it "just right" because their idea of nice and natural is probably different from everyone elses.

It's mass market appeal and generally a good decision unless you're selling the land pre-terrformed with all the plants and structures included.

My last lot was a 50 degree ice slope into 30m of water. I sold it in <24 hours with the tag line "What the fsck is so great about flat green land anyway?". I'd have loved to have kept it, but I just wanted a bit more space. Like Sling, the first thing I do when I move in is undo the ugly terraforming attempts of previous 'developers'.

On a related note: does anyone sell mangrove trees, so I can sink my new plot back underwater and still have some greenery? I'm thinking voodoo cabins and wrecked pirate ships

I think the main reason is that many people (ie folks who are not building, terraforming, texturing themselves) prefer to buy a pre-fab and auto-rez it on a flat lot. It surely isn't nearly as creative, but it's much faster for people who don't want to take the time to learn how to do it the other way, because their SL focus lies elsewhere -- no judgments there, everyone has different preferences.

While I think that flat land has its place, I think that given the possibilities we have in SL, it's much more fun to build and so forth on rolling, or even dramatically landscaped, land. After all, we really *aren't* subject to the same constraints as RL, so why not go with that, in my view? However, I think that the flat land has its place, and it's totally true that many people can't be bothered with doing the terraforming/building thing from soup to nuts, and that's cool if that's the way they want to experience SL.

Well, if you think about what some people are going to do with the parcel, flat is generally more desireable, for example, I have 8500+ sq meters for my store, and the store itself has a 30x30 footprint. Right outide the store I also have a road, and an "outdoor" store with other items that I sell, and some other things as well. It's setup to look more or less like an urban scene with the roadway, streetlamps, etc. So, since urban areas are flat, a generally flat area is what I desire.

One thing I've noticed is that heavily sloped are incredibly cheap. Looking just yesterday I found 6 or 7 1024's, all right next to one another selling for $6700L each, which is around 1/2 of what flat lots that size are going for. I once built up a 4096 lot in the corner of Maeshil and the land sloped quite a bit from both directions, (think 1/4 of a toilet bowl). Now, I was building a store there as well, so I had to "prim out" a flat floor to build my business on, and, when I sold it, they guy who bought it didnt realize my "floor" had a 1/4 toilet bowl underneath it, and he thought when he returned my objects it would be flat because I had created the illusion that it was, so, I was actually able to offload that lot for current flat land prices So.. a word to the wise, if you're land shopping, be sure to turn off volume rendering in the client menu to get a good view of the land beneath

because most people still believe the Earth is flat?

Wow - strange thing to say.

That reminds me: Is there a way to see what a for-sale parcel would look like, fully reverted? It's kinda significant because there's a limit to how much terraforming one can do (+/- 4m on Mainland, usually), and the best I've come up with is to "guess" at the natural topography based on neighboring parcels. (As others have said, the first thing I do with a new parcel is to revert it fully. Next I try to figure out how to relate that topography to whatever the neighbors have been up to, and only then start designing a build.)

Stilts take up extra prims.

The slEarth is flat.

I always take it to mean "not on a hill so steep that you can't flatten the land"

It's a lottery. The ground might be raised and/or lowered.

I bought a plot that looked like a bland steep rounded drop from a flattish clifftop down into a Linden sea.
When I reverted it, it turned out very interesting, with ledges for terracing and a natural gulley that became the bed for a waterfall down the cliff face.
There was just enough left of the -4m to pull the land back from the Linden protected water and make a decent dock.
Reverting turned a boring (albeit desirable) plot into the basis of something way more interesting.






Oh! Did I mention that it's in the Black sim?


No?

Then I probably didn't mention that it's for sale. Another more interesting project turned up.
(I'm pretty sure that I didn't mention the sale aspect because that would be a very naughty thing to do here. If I did mention it, then I'm really really sorry.)

Fair point.

I jump on this one... (and it is not only to the person I quote here, but more in a general).

And what is so bad about that? I am not a builder and will never be. The person who tried to learn me building is still a nervous wreck...

Ergo.... I am a customer of all you "creators". I use my CC to buy L$ so I can buy your stuff.

Yes, my log cabin is prefab. Yes, my photo-studio is prefab. Yes, my gallery is prefab (my bathhouse is specially made for me though). All my clothes are bought... all my furniture is bought.... You "creators" make money on people like me.
Does that make me any less then any of you "creators"?

For me someone how manage to decorate a house in a very good way with bought stuff is just as creative as all you "builders". There are many way to be creative apart from "making stuff".

I am in RL business.... I learned and am taught to have respect for my customers. Some of the remarks I read here show very less of that.

Edit: I get mostly the nicest compliments for my "flat piece of land".

*gets of her soapbox*

Morwen.

i live on the top of a mountain

the ground is round

and is slopes down on all 4 sides

i really like the way it looks so i didnt terraform it at all

i just put 6 32x32x40 prims on it, textured them bright green super grass

nothing looks better on top of a mountain then a huge 6144 sq meters of flat green cubes

...because it's easier to build on?

I'm all about the sky so I just pay attention to the land's location on the sim (middle vs. corner) and the sim's location in relation to the continent (middle vs. corner).

Morwen, people get a bad opinion from the folks who prop up a freebie and have no care for the land around them or how it connects up or if it connects up at all. there are consumers whose creation is in bringing together pretty creations of other people to a full and nice look- and then there are the people who create an giant freebie eyesore on their perfectly flat land and don't work with the land or the neighborhood to make a nice overall look.

Flat is not necessarily bad. I flattened the area under my shop to make it easier to place, and if my land had been even remotely flat to begin with I'd probably have landscaped with that in mind and kept it flat. But the truth is, the linden road I'm connected to in front and the parcel in back are about 6m different in height and that's the case with a *large* portion of users. I can either accept a 3m drop off on either side to keep it unnaturally flat, or accept the natural slop of my land and work with it.

I like to feel lie a part of my neighborhood. It involves lots of trees and a certain amount of accepting that my land just wasn't mean tot be flat =D

As someone who has listed a lot of mainland, the steep parcels just don't sell anywhere near as fast as the flat ones.

Desirable plots for resale (ones that sell fast and sometimes command a premium): Flat, green, rectangle plots with nice views. It also helps if there is an oceanview and if the plot is divisible by 512. Sand and all water sell as well as flat green. Waterfront is far and away the fastest seller if it is truly waterfront.

Plots that take longer to sell: Steep, granite, snow, odd shapes, odd sizes, any land near ad farms or any combination of the aforementioned. The steeper the plot, the longer you will hold it.

Sarah Nerd has done a fantastic job over the years terracing steep plots and decking out water with her own attractive decks and docks. Just another reason why she is the best in the biz.

flat land is easier to walk on.

which is why RL buildings, parks, etc..... tend to be built on flat land.

I hesitated when I first looked at the 3000m plot on a rocky hillside with fog I ended up buying. Now I love it. I have my retail space on a big platform anchored on the upper end of the slope. I have a series of waterfalls under the platform. I had ambitions of making a sculpture garden on the slope and may do that yet. Been too busy making stuff. I love the open feeling, the fog and the stars. No matter what my neighbors build, I still have an expansive view. I may just buy some more cheapie hillsides for fun now that prices are low-ish.

i own much of maeshil and am familiar with this corner. ive actually tried to get them to sell it to me and they wont sell!