How to profit off land swoopers

Wow...my estimation of you and your business practices just went up 10 points.

I smell sour grapes. I don't know Sarah, but if what you are suggesting is true then it would be all over the forums. Get a *%f&^Hu%^Hc$*&^H^H^Hn% life.

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-Ham

Agreed.

I've had the pleasure of dealing with the person Anshe referenced (against the TOS I might add and has been appropriately AR'd). That being said, I can honestly say the person in question is a very reputable land dealer and have bought and sold from her several times and have always been completely satisfied with the transactions.

As for this 'gang' Anshe makes mention of, it's a conglomerate of land traders who's purpose is to discuss strategies and generally pass the time with freindly banter as we scour SL for bargains. Each individual in said 'gang' has their own strategies they use (some which not everyone involved agrees with), however it's rather rude to blame an entire group for the actions of a few of it's members. Their actions are each their own, and by far a blanket group 'policy'.

Yes, I'm in said SL Group as well, so I do have some insight into the goings on and can say many of the members in the group are quite honerable in their practices.

aww dont be mad because you claim a bug, when in essence its not a but at all, but human error on your agents part.

Let me clarify, Anshe is mad at ME, and I'll gladly give anyone in world a notecard of a very funny conversation in which she tries to bully me. Its quite amusing.

2nd, isnt it expressly AGAINST the TOS to mention a name? Ill report you for fun and hopefully watch you get a nice lil suspension.

Sarah's 'GANG', as Teddy described, is just a group of like minded individuals BS'ing to pass the time, and is not so much different than Anshe's Gang of seemingly lag infested individuals. On a side note, Anshe's n00b army hasnt mis-posted land for about a week now.

I think making people work 8 hours a day 6 days a week for US$100 a month is slave labor, but to each their own I suppose.

Well Anshe your welcome to see the forumn posts about how I've given back land and have a good reputation. I treat people with respect when I am given that respect. The reason I will not work with you is because you are a bully. You think you can take advatage of people and they will back down. And I dont feel I should argue ethics with a woman that openly hires cheap labor in countrys with lower work standards. All I have ever done to you is beat you to deals, and you did not like that. So you don't need to smear my name. Someone on your level should not be threatned by me. Again, the only reason I will not work with you is because you are a bully and I don't agree with the way you work with people, Your very low quotes, your excessive land mark ups, or your slave labor. The fact that you call yourself an "honest" land dealer is sick. I know many honest land dealers, and you are not one of them. So please, stop harassing me. I have no dealings with you.

AMen sister

I'm also in the land trading group mentioned, and the person being accused is not someone who would swoop land and not return it. The group in question is a group of independent land dealers who other than talking to one another, passing time, and offering land tips, are still competiting with one another in real estate. And every person has a different method of buying and selling land, and nobody else has any say in how they do.

I don't go to any deal that is listed for less than 1 L / sm, but when I do go to a land deal, if the person didn't mean to sell it, I will give the land back, and ask them if they actually meant to sell the land, and for how much. And if I like the price I'll buy it at the price they meant to sell it for. If they were looking to sell to a specific person, I'll tell them how to setup and sell land to that person without making it public.

As for stealing land, Anshe, that's a bunch of crock, and you know it. Your agents have to set the price, set the land for sale, and then CONFIRM the sale price before it even hits the public land list. It has absolutely nothing to do with packet loss. In other words, your agents have to give their consent to sell the land for the price they do. Maybe you should pay your agents (and train them) a little better so they're less inclined to make mistakes.

But, yes, you do live up to your reputation, Anshe, but apparantly, you don't know what it is.

what's a land swooper? how do they work? how to avoid?

How I got involved:

The Newsweek article has been posted on the mainpage of Secondlife.com ever since the story came out. I'm sure the number of users has doubled since that time. The reason I'm in the land game is because I was inspired of Anshe Chung's ability to create a living on this great platform.

From a distance I shadowed others in the business to see how they went about finding deals. I read some of the posts here on the message forums that gave me in detail explanations on how to find deals. And then I went into business from myself.

Creation of Plot Pals:

I've noticed that when a new land baron shows up everyone seems to tense up because everyone feels they are taking away from their leads. It certainly takes awhile before you gain friendships inside the industry. I created Plot Pals, the group in question for the purpose of us smaller Land Barons to chat about the industry, and other random items related to our Second Life. It's an invite only group, but we've added numerous individuals since our creation. Sarah does not claim ownership of the group, nor any of its members except for herself.

Land Owner Rights:

Land owners have certain rights that Linden Labs has granted them. They have the ability to control who can be on their land. They have the ability to control what they build on the land (maintaining they stay within the prim limit and land boundaries), and they have the ability to sell the land for whatever price they want.

The Lag/Mistake Theory:

The lag theory that Anshe uses is null and void. There is no way that a person can make the same mistake more than once. They put the price into the amount field, they forgo setting the buyer and instead sell to anyone, they check the radio box to place the parcel for sale, then they confirm the sell price and the buyer. There are plenty of steps there to stop setting the wrong price. Lag is not the issue.


Solutions:

Of course, the first solution would be for Linden Labs to stop the sale of all land. This would end all land ownership disputes because everything would be owned by Linden Labs rather than being co-owned. This would end the businesses of all Land Barons including Anshe Chung. This solution is unlikely because the land market is among SL's biggest. It's where Linden Labs makes the majority of its moolah. The price of the Linden would drop further if this event occurred.

The second solution would be to keep land owners from pricing below what they paid for the land. This would eliminate entirely the ability to price the land below market value. Of course land prices would see a sudden increase and would never have the ability to stabilize with the price of Linden.

The third solution would to keep the land market as is and let the owners accept responsibility for their own actions.

Just an FYI, if you have plots for sale and you join them without delisting them, the new bigger joined plot will be marked for sale at the single plot price. Unless this has changed, but I know I have gotten burned on it before. So there still are ways to make mistakes and not mean to have land set for sale set for sale at a really low price.

LL, please consider a "buyers remorse" button. It should give 15 minutes to back out of any sale. Isnt that reasonable? If I signed papers for a mortgage but didnt walk out of the business office, I could grab the papers and shred them into tiny pieces.

Thanks. X

EDIT: should be "sellers remorse" not buyers remorse. doh!

My issue with that is other Land Barons coming in an negotiating prices after the land sells.


Scenario

Baron 2: You sold this land for cheap @ 3.9sqm, revoke the sale and I'll give you 4.2sqm
Owner: $$$
Baron 1: Ugh

Good Point.

I still think it is necessary. It eliminates the newbie error but creates another possible unethical scenario.

X

A solution that I think would work is to replace the confirm screen with a red alert screen.

That's nonsense. I was recently making a land trade with a new player. We were trading equal sized lots within the same sim, and I was giving her L$1000 for the trouble. Even though I clearly explained what to do she got confused and didn't restrict the sale to me. Sarah was there in a flash and bought the land. She asked if the listing was a mistake and returned the land via a restricted sale without even being asked. I could not speak more highly of her behavior.

Thank you for this. After she posted about me, I got alot of im's in world supporting me or telling me how she has wronged them and said things to the effect of "buyer beware". My reponse to everyone is I'm not worried because I've worked with enough people inworld who know how I do business. I just wont do anything to help her out. I treat people with respect as long as I'm given respect and she as we can all see, does not treat people in a respectful manner.

Have swapped land with her a couple of times and never had a problem. I have also sold small plots below market to make a lower tier and had people ask if I had really meant to sell. So it is like the real world, not everyone is a scam artist.

Another problem about returning mispriced land is that I have seen people who purchased a plot and blew their tier. Returning the land would have still cost them $35 US. That does create a very difficult situation for both the buyer and seller and no one really wins. Not as big of an issue for the larger traders, but for someone with limited resources, it is hard to resolve.

Of course, I have also seen people brag about buying mispriced land with not remorse, so it is helpful to know who you are dealing with.

Here is a fun game to play with the swoopers, and it is more ethical.

Buy a plot of 16m land and price it for $32L

Price of land - $64L

Price to sell - $32L

Loss on land - 9-10 cents US

Watching four people trying to rez at the same time on one 16m plot then arguing over less than a dime. - Priceless!

It's easy to make a mistake when you're a newbie, with the way that the dialog is set up. I was trading land with a neighbor a while back, and he set the plot to sell for $1 to pass it to me. He had no idea that it was going to show up imediately, or that anyone was going to tp in and grab it.

Fortunately the first person who got there was Weedy, and she gave it back to him.

Grabbing land when someone made an honest mistake like that *is* unethical, and any nasty tricks that other people come up with to torment those sorts of swoopers is just dandy with me.

As to a solution, LL *should* do something about it. Before P2P teleporting became possilble land swooping anywhere other than near a telehub was impossible. I see two simple things that LL could do...

1) Put a 45 minute delay on the all listings. This would give people a bit of grace time if they just clicked the wrong button. If they really meant to sell it, then it'd still be there 45 minutes later. That's not a very big burden on *anyone*.

2) Add a step before listing asking if the person setting it for sale wants to have it listed, and explain that anyone in SL can see that listing and come to buy the land. This would help a couple of things. If it's a private transaction, then it will never even show up to be at risk of being swooped.

It would also have the added benefit of allowing someone to decide to give the first chance at buying the land to the people who live in the same area, who are actually part of the local comunity who see the signs, instead of it beeing grabbed up aotomaticly by whatever land trader happens to decide that they could squeeze a bit more value out of the land by marking it up and reselling it.

Yeah, that would be bad...imagine land barons having to compete to give the average seller a better price.

Oh, wait, that's not bad at all.

True, however this would also make a certain other huge landbaroness (one who offers 2.xL/m on something I'd offer 4.xL/m for) suffer. And really, how often would this be used? It's not like there's a list of 'recently completed' land sales to look up.

I personally think it's a idea that has potential.

Make land sales public record that has a related L$ sink for those looking up the sale history of a parcel. This would accomplish several things:

Keep the inflation of land in check (oh wait you paid 0.75L$/sq.m and you want me to buy it at 10L$/sq.m ????)
Increase the buyers knowledge (and in turn barons/esses would not necessarily have new suckers to feed their business)
Increase the haggle market

I realize that keeping track of the sales history would be difficult because you could join and divide land but if there was a average per 16/ sq. meter, it might be doable.

Really I don't have a problem with others using their purchasing power to gain an advantage. But having a business model that relies on cheats, scams and taking advantage of the unskilled in order to make a buck will earn you my ire and comtempt.

-Ham

Personally, I disagree with this proposal based on the fact that it could throw the market into a freefall. There are alot of reasons why people sell land for cheap, and many of which have nothing to do with the economy. Cheap land is usually a result of people either a) leaving SL or b) those needing to sell the land due to upcoming teir dates. Basing pricing off figures like this devalue the overall land market. Say the land next to yours was sold from a friend to a friend for 2.0L/m, and you selling your lot next to them for 6L/m. Are you willing to sell yours for that low because your neighbour made a private deal? I doubt it.

And lets not forget the variances a fluctuating enconomy is going to affect land prices as well. I'm not going to give you a discount on land that cost me more to buy now than what I bought it for later.

Nice idea and I understand where your coming from, but ultimately it's impractical

good ideas.

X

Meaning "Don't mess with a good thing when its my good thing"???

All reasons that you give for not making sales history public only protect the land dealers that deal underhandedly. If I give my land to my friend for 0$, nothing in what I'm saying keeps him from trying to sell it for $20 sq/m, and nothing keeps you from buying it at that price if that is what you want to pay for the land.

Might it head off some sales and cause buyers to think twice before clicking that buy button?...oh wait...never mind. You are right, that would be a bad thing.

--Ham

Lots of things *could* happen with any change, that doesn't mean we shouldn't make them.

Fact is that people will pay what the land is worth to them regardless of what the previous owner paid for it. Having a history would be a good thing and attaching a sink to it is a great idea.

so your in business in real life, and you sell a product -- we'll call a widget to stay in the economic books lingo

you pay $1 for the widget. You resell said widgets at $10 to run a successful business.

Along comes Joe Customer, he wants to buy a widget, and asks you how much you pay for them. DO YOU REALLY TELL HIM? OK so say you DO actually tell him. Well Joe Customers no f'ing idiot. He says "You buy them for $1, I'll pay you $2 for a widget"

Now consider you have a sign on your widget that says "I buy this for $1 and sell for $10"

How many do you think will sell??

I buy land I dont want ANYONE knowing what I paid for it. THen the OBVIOUS reasoning comes in that everyone will haggle, no one will buy if you got a 512 for 2000 trying to sell for $4000, they'll say "well shit you only paid $2000 for this sell to me cheaper"

then all business goes downhill