Problem for OS and Private Estates is also to blamed on some Land Owners

This post is pure crap. People should be informed from the person they are puchasing from.

So now the average resident needs to read the freaking SL Knowledge Base and Wiki just to own some land? No.

What is wrong with telling the people you are renting to exactly what LL posted about the use of Openspace sims when they came out? Why not educate your customer? I know why not, because you just may lost some sales.

Passive thievery and deceit. Willfully taking advantage of someone who is ignorant is low. We are a community, but so many of you forget that and only look at each resident as a walking possible ca$h cow instead of a person.

lets see, people expect estate owners to refund the upfront cost.
That makes no sence, LL does not refund those cost, how can you expect estate owners to refund then?
I make a profit of 5USD per month per OS, this means if a OS is abandoned by the tenent just after I paid LL the tier then I just lost 15 months of profit. We are not greedy, we just need to cover our risks.

when i go to rent a house in RL, do i have to pay the costs of building AND after that the rent??....
of course not, only the rent.
So greedy landlords?....YES!!! they want double profit!

upfront payments are taken by people in business who aren't real businessmen/women

Risks are ALWAYS for the one who runs the business he/she has to take care for a good plan to cover that.
It's normal to pay a higer price when renting compared to owning. In the difference in price is profit AND a part to cover the risk.

The mistake that;s made by most landowners is that they want to be cheaper than mainland. A good Estate NEVER can be cheaper in price, but only offer the renter what on mainland is impossible.

I guess you have never heard of land lease, it's the same situation, you pay the upfront cost of the lease contract and building the house and a monthly lease on the land, there is no double profit, in my case the first month is 255 usd and the second month onwards is 80 usd per month, where is the double profit in that?

Exactly. Land Owners should inform their residents of what is going on and perhaps give them a notecard with the wiki knowledge info on it. Of course many will not do this simply as you started, they do not want to lose sales.

If Land Owners cannot be honest and responsible, then perhaps Linden Lab needs to start penalizing them or better yet, remove their right to own, buy, sell and lease land out to others.



Yes I fully expect Land Owners to be a responsible business and refund costs. Many land owners demand that "renters" become the buyer, thus make all of the investment for THEM, the land owner. They pay the purchase price (often much higher than the actual cost) then the pay the tier PLUS extra and usually way more than 15 or 5 USD profit. Often the "renter" will abandon the land and the land owner will "sell" it all over again for purchase price (even though the original purchase was paid by the first victim) plus extra tier to another unsuspecting victim.. the cycle continues. In the end the legal land owner, the one who subleases the estate covenant land makes no investment and has only gains.

Many people end up leaving Second Life because of being scammed by these tainted land owners. Linden Lab really should take measure to protect newbies in Second Life. I can't even begin to post just how many people that I personally know who have been ripped off in this way. It's not sad, but it makes us all look bad.

Exactly. Land Owners should inform their residents of what is going on and perhaps give them a notecard with the wiki knowledge info on it. Of course many will not do this simply as you started, they do not want to lose sales.

If Land Owners cannot be honest and responsible, then perhaps Linden Lab needs to start penalizing them or better yet, remove their right to own, buy, sell and lease land out to others.



Yes I fully expect Land Owners to be a responsible business and refund costs. Many land owners demand that "renters" become the buyer, thus make all of the investment for THEM, the land owner. They pay the purchase price (often much higher than the actual cost) then the pay the tier PLUS extra and usually way more than 15 or 5 USD profit. Often the "renter" will abandon the land and the land owner will "sell" it all over again for purchase price (even though the original purchase was paid by the first victim) plus extra tier to another unsuspecting victim.. the cycle continues. In the end the legal land owner, the one who subleases the estate covenant land makes no investment and has only gains.

Many people end up leaving Second Life because of being scammed by these tainted land owners. Linden Lab really should take measure to protect newbies in Second Life. I can't even begin to post just how many people that I personally know who have been ripped off in this way. It's not only sad, but it makes us all look bad.

PS .. I feel the need to say that not all estate owners who rent out are dishonest. There are many worthy estate owners in SL who provide an invaluable service.= and lovely themed lands.

By this logic, since the "owners" in SL are really just "renters" of LL services, it would seem that Linden should ....

No, I'm being silly. (But this just so sounds like what many landowners are saying is happening to them.)

Firelight

I have always offered to rent out an openspace sim for 95 usd rather then lease it at 255 the first month and 80 usd onwards and guess what, nobody wants to rent at 95 usd, they rather pay 255 the first month so the tier is lower, if I was to re-lease an abandoned openspace sim I would have to do so within 2.3 months or I lose more then the setupcost, all risks covered by the abilety to lease again and the small profit, I don't mind taking those risks but tenents should be aware that those risks do exsist and what they are covered by.
I have always offered landswap within the same sim or on anothersim and will keep offering that but that is not seen as a refund by many and I won't call it that.

Um.............are we supposed to take this post seriously Elani ?

Alot of what people our complaining about over the OS issue.........many probably estate owners because they have the most OS sims........is LL lack of info about OS.......but like you say........maybe they should have READ THE KNOWLEDGEBASE

Think about it

Hmm.......what was it you said........ohh yes........"THE REAL LESSON HERE IS TO BE A MORE INFORMED CONSUMER IN THE FUTURE "

Well its easy to say that once we know about knowledge base and wiki,i remember when i first came into sl and did a lot of shopping only to realize i wanted a home base
I did'nt know about the knowledge base or wiki as a new bee.
So i pranced around sl looking for whatever it was i could get for a home,i found a nice little house with a small lot,nice ocean on the front
So i bought it,then i went out buying furniture,i was having the time of my life decorating it.
Then the estate owner told me i had gone over my 918 prim allowance,I said "prim allowance" whats that,then he told me and i wound up buying the lot next door to increase the prim allowance
Long story short,i left there cos i could not ban access to anyone,i found OS,luckily with a real estate who explained all the in's and outs of OS,so i knew exactly what i was getting and it's limits
I got mine just before the 1875 was increased to 3750 and i was so happy about that
I paid $500 for my island and another $150 to have it moved to open water
My point here is new bees sometimes don't know where to go for info and the longer we are in sl the more we learn,so they sometimes have to rely on what they are told by estate owners

Vryl needs to be applauded for voicing what (a) some are afraid to voice and (b) many are dismissive of. Some - and I say "some" because that's not "all" - folks simply took advantage of the Openspace sale to buy land at a low price and then rent out to make a profit. That's capitalism and nothing wrong in that. What IS wrong is that right from the start, OS sims were categorically NOT to be used for rental.

There are many excuses out there; "I can't be expected to read the small print"; "well, it's a matter of interpretation"; "everyone else was doing it"; and "Linden Lab(R) allowed it." But that wouldn't fly in real life ("Sorry officer, but everyone else was doing 100 so what the hell!" so should it be OK in a virtual life?

Are any of the "OS landlords" going to give money back to the folks who "bought" property from them? I bet not! Yet do those same landlords expect LL to pay THEM the money they invested? Yes! So it's OK for landlords to say "hey, you paid for X and that's it" but not for LL to say"hey, you were not supposed to do Y and you did"?

This is typical SL hypocrisy where everyone is out for themselves. Buying an OS is called an "investment." Taking rent on the OS is called a "return on investment." The difference between the two is called "profits." However - and here's the really hard part - there is no guarantee that an "investment" will yield a "profit." And when you're profit hangs on the illegal use of land, you're batting on the proverbial sticky wicket. Anyone here heard of a sub-prime mortgage? Unfortunately, there is no LL bail-out.

Folks, 80& of businesses in SL go belly up. 80%. I say it twice because it is a big number. That means that 80% of property businesses may also go belly up. Sad, but capitalism is immune to emotion and just operates on the basis of shuffling around of stuff between people at a price that makes the stuff appealing.

This argument doesn't apply to everyone, and I say that because someone will be tempted to post a reply about "my friend Bill who has a sailing ship on an OS with no rentals... blah blah blah." Yes, I know, and there are lots of people caught in the fallout of all this. And yes, I believe LL has made a serious set of mistakes over this issue (http://sigmundleominster.blogspot.com/2008/11/openspaces-and-land-barons-who-is.html).

But there are folks in SL who have contributed to the problem and folks are either choosing to ignore that or have been persuaded by the land-owner lobby that LL is bad and they are good - just regular land barons who want to make SL a happy place by providing affordable rentals - oh, and to make a profit.

If you say something a thousand times it doesn't make it any more true. The rental issue is simply not true. Linden Lab did not forbid rentals. Your assumption is false.

there are way, way too many estate owners now, due to the prices being dropped for openspaces earlier this year. as a result, the quality of the private estate market has dropped as well, both in terms of land quality, and the shoddy business practices and ethics of some of these fly by night estates.

the cost of openspaces will be higher soon, true, but if there is good to be seen from this it is that slowly, the quality of private estate land will start to improve again, and renter confidence will improve with it.