Philip's blog suggests selling developed land

*giggles* Go on flame me, post personal attacks! Go go go!

Kinda funny how many people here feel not only addressed but outright hurt in middle of their heads by my comment on "jeleousy disease". I think I hit in the black mark

Anyway, I am off. What matter to me is my customers are happy and come back for my business, which sofar is true for most of them. So I better spend my time with them instead on forum.

*waves and smiles*

While I'm in the mood for insulting people today....Been playing too many really bad rpg's before you came here, at a guess.

Here's a tip: NWN has just come out in platinum edition at a very low price... may I suggest you might feel more at home there instead? The NPC's would no doubt welcome your 'humour'. In fact, you actually come across much like a hastily written Aurora NWScripted NPC yourself (non plot essential, of course).

edited to delete personal attack

heh.

Buh-bye! Watch the door on your way out!

heh

Buh-bye! Watch that the door doesn't slam on your backside on your way out!

I am not one of your customers Anshe but I appreciate the real estate service. I used to bitch and moan about it but I bought some $3/M beach front property and sold it at $30/M so there's no way I can diss land barons now.

The facts were simply this: 3.5 sims worth of land not claimed, with another 1.5 sims worth of land about to expire the next day.

Compute that into tiering fees not paid to LL. Compute that to people who *wanted* that land and immediately purchaesed it after you finally claimed it.

Compute that to the immediate $10 fee, the $15 fee or the $75 fee that other users either pay the moment they purchase the land from you; or have paid by an accident in tiering while working with group land.

Scamming both LL and the end-users out of money and opportunity to build/own land to maximize your profits is not business. You made it your business, so others in SL stepped up to the plate to expose it; and they will continue to do so until the rules are fully enforced.

It's simple. If you want to do business, then pay the costs associated with your chosen profession. But please do not try to say that you floated three sims worth of land because LL flooded the market. As a businesswoman, you also had the choice not to bid on that land and make sure your profits were maximized during the snowland glut as you call it. Instead, you chose to bid, not pick up the land, and allow the land prices to rise. Instead, you chose to allow that land to sit while you claimed new land in the lakes region and elsewhere FIRST. Auctioned land should not have a pick-and-choose option as to claiming it when you feel the market warrants it.

But please do not flatter yourself into thinking you were the cause and effect. Let's just say that your floating of 3.5 sims worth of land without paying one tier fee was the highest amount of unclaimed land found. That was a very nice way of skirting $600 in tier fees for one month. Because you felt the market was flooded and that it would affect your profits.

LL has promised that not only will this change, but it will change for everyone.

So for every newbie who has to tier up $15 immediately after purchasing land from you or another land seller, for every other person who wins a plot at an auction and immediately tiers up $15 to $75 -- this was their justification. They pay their fees fairly and in accordance with the amount of land they CHOSE to purchase. Whether they are "in business" in SL or just hobbiests -- THEY PAY THEIR WAY TO PLAY THE GAME.

My only sadness to this entire investigation is that you were not penalized in back-tier fees for the unclaimed land, knowing full well that once you sold a sim's worth of land that there would be an immediate $400 to $600USD profit in your pocket. Realize that you were damn lucky that your profiteering was permitted to continue.

Edited to add: Your floating of that much land over that period of time, along with the other unclaimed auction land basically makes the economic data on land sales and purchases worthless. With the new rules and regulations in place, now economic data should reflect the true price of land sales.

True, it just means you screwed someone else the same way. You must be so proud!

Do you really live your whole life assuming that anyone who thinks that someone behaves like [you] is simply jealous of them? Even when that opinion is held by many?

Actually, scrub that. I think I know the answer already.

edited to delete personal attack

LOL thank you, at this unusually early hour for me, I found your post really amusing - though please don't hit me, but Land Baron's posts kind of amuse me too lol. Probably because I have not had any Mt. Dew Yet.

The NPCs would no doubt welcome your humour LOL!

Obviously this issue has struck a lot of chords, and there's a lot of anger and passion in some of these posts. I've deleted the personal attacks, and will leave the thread open in case you have a few more last points to make. However, please make your points without attacking individuals.

Um. Robin.... you have actually made a personal attack out of something that wasn't a direct one in one of my posts....

I wrote "Do you really live your whole life assuming that anyone who thinks that someone who behaves like pond dwelling scum is simply jealous of them?"

and you changed that to "Do you really live your whole life assuming that anyone who thinks that someone behaves like [you] is simply jealous of them?"

I was not necessarily calling Anshe pond dwelling scum. Thats why I used 'someone' in my example as opposed to making it a direct attack. But you have essentially edited it into one by changing whom I was referencing in my post!

Yes, the first line that you deleted outright was a comment on her inability to comprehend what anyone else was saying to her, and I accept that.

Sorry to use the same words you previously edited out - I'm not trying to antagonise you in doing so, it simply wouldn't have made a lot of sense to edit my post to illustrate the change of meaning in my post due to your editing, if you see what I mean.

And this post is SO gunna not make sense when you come edit it now... but I hope you see my point, anyway.

eltee Statosky

i'd say there is *UTTERLY* no purpose for 'real estate agents' in sl other than profiteering. They add *NO* 'value' to the land other than literally jackin up the price of it. Its essentially a useless job. They are the guy in office space who took the specs from the customers to the engineers. Except they're ripping off the customers to do it.
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I totally and utterly agree with you eltee. What am I missing? What possible benefit is there to me if I were to be beaten by a 'real estate group' or baron in an auction which I then lose? They pump the prices higher and I will never buy from a land baron or 'real estate group'. It's pure greed. Added value because you put a cheap house and a few trees on the land? I don't think so.

Can anyone tell me please why the people who buy land at auction are allowed to be anonymous? I, and others, would like to see who is buying what.

I still hear of land barons feeding off of newbies, offering them derisory amounts for their new land and then they don't have enough to buy elsewhere. I want to ask you, do you think your Mother would be proud of you. Because I think you are the lowest form of life.

Lastly, why is there not information on land ownership at the Welcome Centre that additionally points this out. Newbies should be warned LL, and if you won't do it then I will. Its disgraceful.

Land Baron - why don't you put yourself where the sun don't shine. If you don't know where that is I will be happy to tell you.

The identity of land purchases in auctions is only protected while the auction is ongoing - once it closes, the winner's name is shown, along with the names of all who bid. This was done to protect somewhat against auction sniping that occured in the past - people would bid against people they didn't like just to cause aggravation. The solution was to hide identities so it is blind bidding against others on the land - a system that has worked well I think at curbing that one form of behavior, without keeping information secret ultimately.

Well I can either write scripts that get stolen and Lindens refuse to help stop the spread, or I can buy land and jack the price and get a pat on the back. You do the math.

Ah, so as long as the end justifies the means.

It's not about justification. I know that if someone pulls a land scam on me, or steals all my money, I will get help. I also know that if someone steals my script, I'm totally screwed. So it's about not getting "griefed" by people who refuse to delete stolen scripts because they know the Lindens wont step in. I could not beat these griefer players who steal scripts, so I switched to a different type of game-play that has more Linden protection.

Well if you demand it, then by God they should do it Anshe!

In RL, real estate transactions are public record, at least on this side of the world. Sales data is only publc for public companies. Income tax returns are not public record. I agree completely that land transactions should be public. An informed buyer is good for everyone involved, except those who would operate on the ignorance of someone to sell them something. You aren't that kind of real estate developer, are you Anshe? Why would you object to land sale information being public?

Well congratulations to you, as I said in my original post, you must be so proud. I mean a 1000% markup is impressive by any measure.

It saddens me that because of the actions of other people who game the land trade business in order to make a RL profit, the community turns en masse against any idea of people performing any type of real estate service.

All the comments use phrases like "sky high prices" and "plonk down a cheap house" and "scamming newbies on First Land resale prices" and "keeping auction land out of the hands of people who want it".

Yes, that goes on only to often. Yes, it's despicable.

But that does not mean there isn't a place for someone to be in the real estate business who does none of those things.

Someone who sells land for under market prices, thus keeping prices lower.
Someone who takes time to build a decent, well-built house that many would like to live in, but cannot build for themselves.
Someone who educates newbies on the real value of the First Land, and helps them find a buyer.
Someone who does not bid on auctions except when there are no other bids, and who doesn't bid every day, on every lot.
Someone who doesn't do this for any type of RL profit - who may not even cover their tier fee by doing this.
Someone who is willing to simply perform the business of matching buyers with sellers, where those buyers are overwhelmed by the Find / Land Sales tab (1600+ properties? Oh, come on!!!), and will do this without owning the land themselves, and for no fixed commission.

I am willing to do all this without any monetary reward, but that in itself brings problems. Two of the properties I recently did up with cabins and landscaping and put on the market for very decent prices were immediately snapped up by one of those "other people" and put back on the market at an extra L$2000 with my build and landscaping intact, my property picture still in place, and the description as I wrote it but with the offer of a free house REMOVED.

I am not going to give up the fight. I feel there is a place in Second Life for what I want to do with Real Estate. Sadly, with the prospect of RL profits always there, I am always going to be struggling against a negative view of what I do. I sold my last piece of For Sale land last night, and I'm not sure when I'll be stocking up again. *sigh*

Lisse, if you really think that the population is clamoring for prebuilt, predressed "value-add" lots, you've got another thing coming. Find a few people who want that. Great. It's going to remain a FEW people. Perhaps There transplants and TSO transplants. But for the most part, people who are attracted to (and stay in) SL, want to develop their own plots.

What you're talking about is not only land scanning and scamming, land barony and 1000% markups, but now a MIDDLEMAN to pay for the SERVICE of showing a gullible new user how to talk to Anshe! Good times!


Anshe, it makes me sick whenever I hear some silver spoon rich person, claiming whenever they do something dispicable, their victims are just jealous. (or "jeleous" as you repeatedly put it).

Having wads of money doesn't actually automatically make you better than us. It only means two things. 1) you have loads of money. 2) you're able to buy all of the land that Linden provides, and therefore, control the game.

Jealousy, -or- "jeleousy", would imply that we'd do the same thing if we had the same resources. Bullshit. Not in a million years.

Because I've actually got some scruples about me. Maybe if I was "privileged" this would be different. How dare you make "demands". You really, really figured that you were in charge here, didn't you?

If you're going to play with people like toys, expect them to dislike you, Anshe. It amazes me that you want to use folks as pawns for your amusement and profit, and then you're shocked when there's community backlash.

This isn't the free market. People aren't going, "I'm going to buy from Anshe because she terraforms better than the other land barons!" - No, People will go to whoever is ripping them off the least. Your services and value adds are the land scammers patting themselves on the back and trying to make themselves feel better about what they're doing: taking advantage of others through resources others don't have, and new users who don't know the system yet.

Proud? Not quite. Rich? Very. Getting any scripts stolen? Nope- cause I don't make them anymore. Too busy pressing CTRL-F all night. Works out quite nice.

This situation exists not just because of Anshe Chung and a few others who may engage in questionable tactics. It exists because the current system is amenable to abuse, enforcement is sporadic and often frustratingly inconsistent, and a concerned resident has to "hit the enforcers over the head" in order to get a response.

And still, here, today, enforcement was demonstrated as being somewhat whimsical.

The fact that this issue has created such strong feeling among the SL community is as much an indication of the failure of systems, policies, procedures, and responses, as it is of hostility toward those individual residents who abuse their privileges.

It's funny to hear all these people who don't sell land talk about it. Everyone who posted and anti-land baron post should go out and try it. It's fun. You have no idea what you are talking about until you try it. Everyone go buy 4096m of land and jack the price. It's wild wild fun.

Michi, I agree with you. If I find 5-10 people a month who want that, I'm happy. I firmly agree that the vast majority of land sales in SL should be of blank canvasses to people who want to build. If I can help the few who are here for the social life and not much more, I am happy.



I am talking about a middleman who will educate a gullible new user not to buy from [random land baron name]. Who will help them buy from a resident who has owned and loved their land but is moving on to something bigger and better. And who will provide this service for little or no money.

Mentors and Live Help personnel don't get financially rewarded for the help they offer (apart from formal classes, where the payment comes from LL, not the gullible newbie). I'm attempting to be a Mentor with a specialized area - land sales. Just as Toy is an Instructor with a specialized area - Water! If someone wants to tip me for helping them, or pay me to help them build after they've found land, that's cool. If not, I'll smile, go on my merry way and know I've made a new friend.

I agree Donovan - the system is broken and much can be done by LL to fix things, including updating the Client as was suggested earlier.

In the meantime, I wish to caution people against broad generalizations, and in particular say that Lisse has done much to help educate new users regarding land issues, has offered Land 101 classes and her vision is worthy of consideration.

I believe there are many residents who would be willing to take advantage of her business opportunity - and yes I feel she does offer a service!

If her honest effort is offered in the spirit of helping, of community, of adding value to another's SL, at affordable prices - she's offering a service. If in her dealings she puts a smile on another's face, and both parties enter into the transaction willingly, then I say Excellent!