Survey: Who would want live in a zoned sim managed by Anshe?

Hi Anshe, I would definitely not mind living in a sim managed by you. But, I would like to have control over my land

What about building five or six nice white houses and gardens, and letting people select which one they want on their plot. Then people who like the whole look of it can move in.

I'm still having trouble wrapping my mind around the idea that you have to take over tier, though. I guess I don't expect that the people who come in and agree to keep a sim zoned, who are highly motivated to have a sim zoned, are going to be the people that will suddenly screw you and build a laggy club on you. But you have the experience in dealing with volumes, so maybe you are right to assume that people will do their worst, even after promises.

If there were someone who were managing/owning a sim and renting it out, AND passing along their VERY NOTICEABLE tier savings (for owning an entire sim) to the renters with say only a 10%-20% markup from the tier that they themselves are paying, I would probably be very interested. Such a proposition could also be made self-managing, by creating a different group for each sim that is being managed this way, and promoting one of the residents to act as a superintendant and manage things like trash cleanup or zoning enforcement.

One of the biggest problems in trying to manage such an endeavor for-profit, is the inherent mistrust that your business activities will generate among others. You could be a very honest, forthright business person, but the fact that you are acting for-profit will always tend to itch at the necks of your prospective customers. Example: "Why am I paying the same amount of tier to her as I'd pay to Linden Labs? She isn't paying nearly that much for the land, she's getting nearly a %50 discount for owning a sim entire. And the moment I leave, the land is still hers; I can't reclaim any of the rent or sell it on to a friend or other person." A system that encourages personal ownership, or something close to it, of the property will be much more likely to meet with success.

I'll give you a business idea, free of charge, because I think that you're one of the few businesspeople in SL who has the venture capital and integrity to carry it off.

On anshechung.com, set up a new service. Set up a forum in there where people can sign up and look for potential other group members to go in on a sim together. Example: "Looking for people who want to re-create an ancient roman villa", or "looking for a group who just wants to live in a relatively lag-fee, club-free, mall-free sim." Set up an easy-to-read setup guide, FAQ, explaining how the 65,000 m of land all has to be accounted for before you can step in. Once a group has "critical mass", enough members to populate the sim and enough tier ready to donate, they wait for a sim to come up at auction and decide if it meets their requirements. If it does, they ask you to step in and bid on it for them, up to a certain amount. Whatever the final bidding price is, you tack on your management fee of perhaps $50 or $100, or say 5% or 10%. The group members divide up the final price according to the sized parcels they want, and pay you for them. You then set up the sim according to their wishes, promote 1-3 of them to group officers, and leave the group.

The idea is discussed in slightly more detail here.

If you serve as broker for these people instead of landlord, you'll not only reduce the amount of time and energy you have to spend on each sim, you'll gain their respect and gratitude aside from their money. Granted, you will be earning a one-time fee instead of continuing rent, but I have a feeling that "Anshe Chung" the avatar is reaching a point where her puppetmistress doesn't have enough hours in the day to keep up with the various business dealings required of her.

By setting it up as a self-serve kind of idea, all you have to advertise is the service itself. You will not have to advertise for the various groups in your website's forums looking for more members in order to bid on a sim. That job is for the interested group members to do. If they want you to bid on a sim for them, they have to gather enough members first.

If you are serving as real-estate broker for reasonable prices, you can also reduce the amount of competition on the auction block. If you are bidding for a group instead of against them, the overall price of the sim is likely to be lower.

Jauani, you know me. I'm not a complete idiot. The auction system is a big reason why there are so many islands, but they are not the same thing. An island can only be owned whole, undivisible, by a single account. What I want to see is wholesale sims. Or to put it more bluntly, I want to see an end to the auctions as the main method of distributing land.

What you are asking for is Linden staff spend more time, do more work and for less money. Basically you want Linden Lab provide service for free that in game entrepreneurs provide for money.

There is reason for island sims to be cheap and there is reasons for island sims to be undivisable at same time. Low price and single owner are tied together because of lower workload one owner creates as compared to many owners. At least at this stage of Second Life's evolution.

Subdividing sims, selling small parcels, billing many people, dealing with billing failures with many people, landscaping a sim (as opposed to just selling copies of same 4 identical island sims), claiming holding and reselling land that goes public and playing police cop cost time. And time is money.

For this reason asking Linden Lab to sell you lovely desert sims for 980$ and bill 20 people in your group separately is like ask them to half their tier fees. Or it is like asking owner of your little grocery store to sell you apples for wholesale prices.

Who asked you to put your time in SL? No one. Who asked you to work for us? No one. How many apartments and houses now sit vacant for less?

Anshe,

Would you be willing to rent-to-own? For instance, say a group wanted to purchase a whole sim but didn't have the money. Could they pay full-tier plus commission, while they slowly purchased parcels of the land for themselves? That would be a profoundly valuable service.

~Ulrika~

How many apartments and houses now sit vacant for less?

I'm in. Sounds like a great idea.

Honestly, I don't believe in people deciding how much my time is worth or what my margin should be. This is something that should be decided by the market.

Now people pay their tier to Linden Lab. You have problem with Linden Lab make too much profit? So if people pay the same amount of money to me, but get one better service, why should they bother how much I earn or what my tier savings are? It is my business decide what price my cost, risk and time result in.......

What you are asking for is Linden staff spend more time, do more work and for less money. Basically you want Linden Lab provide service for free that in game entrepreneurs provide for money.

There is reason for island sims to be cheap and there is reasons for island sims to be undivisable at same time. Low price and single owner are tied together because of lower workload one owner creates as compared to many owners. At least at this stage of Second Life's evolution.

Subdividing sims, selling small parcels, billing many people, dealing with billing failures with many people, landscaping a sim (as opposed to just selling copies of same 4 identical island sims), claiming holding and reselling land that goes public and playing police cop cost time. And time is money.

For this reason asking Linden Lab to sell you lovely desert sims for 980$ and bill 20 people in your group separately is like ask them to half their tier fees. Or it is like asking owner of your little grocery store to sell you apples for wholesale prices.

Thanks, I also received your message There is one other person who contacted me sofar, totalling about 6000sqm or 1/10th of sim. So, need some more. I think with 1/2 sims worth of "preorders" I think I could start.

And what happens if your mouse twitches and everything gets returned?

Just wondering. Can't wait to see you 'Chung' up another virgin parcel, lol.