I wish we had Taxes

I know this is probably a pointless rant, but I maybe someone will read it and rethink their in world goals.

I have made a little money on selling land in the past. I sold only a few of plots and made maybe L$5000. This was in game version 1.1, when we had taxes.

I sold that land and a twinge of greed began flowing through me. I had this grand scheme to make even more money selling land, so I bought up a lot of land I thought was in an ideal locations. I set my price and waited. And waited. Each week, no one bought my land and my land taxes chipped away at my L$ balance at a steady pace. After a few weeks, I decided it was a failed venture and I released the land to save my tax dollars.

Now, with land tiering, based on US$, there is no consequence to holding all the land your RL pocketbook can afford. Its your land, you can do what you want with it, I understand that, but there is no longer any in world motivation to use a good business sense. Its just depressing for me to see those trying to get rich quick selling over-priced land to those gullible enough to buy it.

I have no problem with land sales in general, you ought to make back what you put into a plot, since we are no longer reimbursed when we release. Your even entitled to make a fair profit off the sale for the time you invested living and working there. No problem.

I am just a bit disgusted with "some" land barons out there right now. I remember the joy of finding a nice piece of public land to settle on, now that is such a rarity, the game landscape has definately changed. It does not take any skill to claim and sell land, what are you doing with the money you earn anyway, buying more land?

Ugh, Im upset and beginning to ramble. I just wish that you had to make your way a bit more in world with what you have, in world. Its sad that you can just spend US$ and get a leg up if you cant produce in world with L$.

Hear hear!

Nice post, not rambly at all.

I for one would like to see a cap on the cost of land per m^2 that can be set for resale. The way things currently work atm it appears that newbies are getting gouged before they know better, or seeing the costs and getting upset - a bad thing, IMNSHO. I see no valid reason why people should be able to try and sell something that hasn't been worked on by them for ludicrous rates, especially when it's such a technically limited resource.

C'mon Lindens, do the new guys a favour and cap land costs - 2$/M^2, anyone?

I'd like to see the default price in the box changed from $10000 to $1/m2. I think I've seen a lot lot of plots just left at the default value even if they're pretty tiny. Plus it gives the impression that high prices should be the norm.

Another alternative: allow users to auction their land using the same system as Linden-released land; and make that the *only* way of selling to the general public.

If you want to release your land to Public, fine; if you want to sell your land to a specific person at an agreed-upon price, also fine. But if you want to sell to any and all takers, you cannot set an arbitrary price; you must accept what the market will bear.

The reason isn't done is someone with good timing could buy your entire large chunk of land you want to sell for a lot of money, for just $1. If they time it right. It is better to start high when first clicked so you at least get some money if someone swoops in.

BTW, public land isn't $1/sq m everywhere. I know that at least Aqua is still holding onto the rule of double cost for land, so it's $2/sq m in that location...

Hmm, I never really knew that was a problem I guess. It may not have to be $1/m2 but I think it should be some sliding value based on the land size. (with adjustments for Tan/Aqua) Just to cut down on the weird sales like 480m2 for $10k.

Perhaps default it to 2x or 3x the claim clost rather than a flat $10k.

I say Nay to taxes.

And Nay to auctions being the only way to sell land, that would just end up badly.

I like Cienna's idea, I don't get why it would start at 1$ though? I think more along the lines of whatever sqm your plot is thats the default value thats in there, like if you have a 106sqm plot, and put it for sale, defaultly the price is 106$, or maybe 2x as said so you gain some profit.

Another idea I had is to limit the amount you can sell it for so you can't set the price above the amount that the person with the highest bank account has, say the richest person has 100k, then no one could sell their land above 100k.

However as pointed out, the government doesn't restrict how much people can sell houses/land for in RL. But of course you don't see people selling houses/land for 1 sextillion dollars in RL either.

I think the main thing is eventualy land barons will see that its pretty much pointless to have land for sale at prices NO ONE in their RIGHT MIND would buy or even be ABLE to buy. Right now its just mocking, I think some of these people aren't even intending to sell the property, just put the price on there cuse they can.

-Land barons
-Overpriced land
-Old unused land
-Lack of large parcels anywhere
-Unwanted neighbors
-Newbies complaining about not having a place to live.

These are all issues that can be resolved simply by opening up more buildable land in the game than is currently desired (desire being indicated by the total amount of land allocation people have as members or have tiered for). This world (named Agni, apparently ) is forever expandable, unlike planet Earth.

I think the way that all the "sale pending" land was grabbed up so fast yesterday proves that demand still outstrips supply, and no doubt there are a lot of people who still wish they could get a bit more land, or land in a better spot, or in a contiguous piece. There needs to be a bit of elbow room, especially if this is to be a welcoming world for new people.

No to taxes, yes to more land.

I'm all for more land, but that will not solve the problem of land left by players who can't/don't play anymore and have plots that are a problem. Thats however another topic.

I guess requesting new tax is a bit rash. I was up early this morning and had an unpleasant experience in world and just felt like venting. There is an underlying probem however. The answer is not new taxes.

As Ananda just said, the answer is more land. It may be fanciful to imagine a time when available land is plentiful, but that time did once exist. I do wish more servers would come online.

I was encouraged awhile ago while in game, a friend IM me and told me he was able to win an auction of 512m of land for L$137. This is well below the L$1 public land goes for, so thats a good thing.

I guess the bottom line is, Buyer Beware. Shop for good deals on land. As long as there is demand for high priced land, it will continue to be high priced, shop around and get a good deal.

I was going to say it but then Ananda said it...

The best solution is for the Lindens to balance out the equation by adding land. Lots of it. As much as they did back in June would probably do the trick. It isn't enough to have exactly enough land for everyone because 1) we do not live in a Borg cube and 2) it doesn't allow for ANY frictional non-occupation.

Balance the new sims between public land and auction land. Open up the public sims two at a time, staggering it so that people in different time zones all get a crack. That includes times like 2AM PST for people who don't live in the USA, and for night-owls who do.

And please implement blind auctions or something, this last-45-seconds exponential curve business is ridiculous.

Also let us auction our own land!

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As another famous Texan once said: "Read my lips, No New Taxes" - and look where it got him