How about a Tier Bank....

Lots of people have some spare tier they aren't using.

Could there be some way for a centralized business to collect unused tier (and pay the people who donate it, of course), and then resell it to others?

For example, you could create a group, called maybe "Tier Bank". Enough people could join the group, and contribute some amount of tier. Let's say there was enough to cover an entire sim.

Then someone comes along and offers some amount, let's say $175/month, to use that tier. The group then donates it to the buyer's land. The buyer is getting a deal on his monthly tier.

The money that comes in gets divided among the original tier investors, minus some cut for the middle man that does all the book keeping. The investors are making money on some tier that was just sitting there.

One nice feature of this is that the investor (the person who donates tier) can go in at any time and withdraw, so the middle man cannot abscond with the funds in any serious way, maybe just one months worth, at worst.

Unused tier is out there in huge amounts, I bet. An untapped resource.

As usual, I throw my ideas out into the wind to see what happens. I don't have the energy to carry something like this through to fruition

Enjoy...

There have been pleas to do away with block tiers and make usage payments be based directly upon square meters owned.

Actually brilliant idea.

And I think we should entrust Dzonatas with the book keeping.

Neat idea, but you run into the issue of a couple too many investors pulling their tier and having LL reclaim group land, especially if they reclaim the WRONG part of the group land. Investing wouldn't be so bad, but being the one who rents the land that donated tier has bought would really seem like being on unstable ground. Besides, a sim costs what a sim costs... anyone half smart would know introducing a middle man who gets a cut into the mix would just mean you pay more for it than you should, and the risk is lots higher.

Letsee, L$1 rentals? Yep, I'm paying more for it than others.

If we downsize our land holdings to a lower tier level, our payments will drop the following month anyway! If I have some unused tier and wasn't intending to downsize, I'd hang onto it in case I wanted to use it.

lmao ok, as long as investors donate the same amount each then the tier is covered fairly... So who pays for the inital land purchase, and how does that not lose money for the investors or the group?

I understand your question.

I've maximized my land to fit my tier. It seemed sad to pay for land by the block tier when one doesn't even get a chance to use it all for what they pay, so that is part of what the group is about. One can donate the land and have access to the greater space usage. Of course, this works well with land being in the same region. For land not in the same region, then the group only provides land management products. The L$1 rentals are featured showcases.

The thing to note on topic is that one can be 1 sqm over the tier they want and pay double that tier rate.

That's not a bad idea, I'd like to see wear and tear on the servers factored in as well.

I actually would love to do this too. And I have the ability to do the bookkeeping and so on. I'm not sure if the demand would be that high. Regardless, even right now I could pay L$0.15 per sqm per week. Feel free to contact me if you're interested and we can beat out the details and work out the accounting as we go.

*edit: I already have two or three customers paying me L$0.25/sqm/week for tier so I'm halfway there already. If you're interested in renting tier from me you can contact me about that too.

Utilizing donated, unused tier is how we pay for our land costs at the Shelter.

Over 40 folks have donated a portion of their unused tier, which nearly completely covers any tier charges we incur.

This is one of many reasons why we've always stayed on the mainland: not only do we like it there, but its not possible to use tier donations to pay for a private island.

You're thinking backwards! A much better plan is to purchase tier in bulk and then rent tier to others in exact sizes. Because it is bought in bulk, you can rent out the tier much cheaper and still make a profit, so everyone wins.