How to Get Rich Quick

I can't speak for the rest of the community but I wouldn't rent from someone called "2fast4u"...

...It seems unstable and unprofessional, or worse, like maybe there's a REASON you have to sell yourself so short to attract tennants. I would be worried that your "too good to be true" prices, as well as maybe your land, would be gone next week.

How is rent collected in SL?

Very interesting perspective. I suppose with all of the scams around I cannot blame anyone for being suspicious.

Do you shop at places like Wal-Mart? Don't thise prices seem too good to be true? I bet there are a lot of people that buy from Wal-Mart anyway. Granted, renting land is different..but so what? If I'm offering something below market, that is my choice - I may not make $0.01 but why is that anyone's business but my own?

To your point about the land being gone next week...as long as I honor any agreements we may have, what I do with the land once the agreement expires is my business. I think that is what you're referring to -- not honoring agreements.

Also..the reason I am below market is because I am trying to make the SL experience more accessible to new citizens...a community service of sorts. Why? Because I can and because I want to do that. Unprofessional? Unstable? Time will tell. I have had cheap apartments for rent for the past 4 months and my guests are not complaining

Thanks for the feedback!

Not really. There are still very few competitors, per capita. I plan on capturing market share by undercutting current prices.

Unlike the clothing or casino industries where there is probably a 1:1 ratio.

If its such a good idea LOL shouldnt be telling us.

Might encourage your soon to be biggest competitor

i think the prefab market is just OK

I have been a long standing prefab builder and have made considerable profit on them, but everyone else is right, its a lot of money and time and it does not yeild the same profits as many other industries

Some specifics:
Many of you know between my friends and I we own most of Deimos, I am the primary tier doner, i donate 125+25 tier on an alt a month to tier (1/2ish of the region). This is because I use around 6000 prims (about 5x than anyone else in the group) so I pay in proportion to that to the group land costs. This is because I have to display my prefabs (they sell WAY better displayed in full size where people can walk through them).

In deimos I also have a clothing store that takes up about 20x20 meters of land and no more than maybe 300 prims.

Here is where it gets kinda haha funny - My clothing and acessory store alone brings in enough money each month to pay the tier.

I'm honestly not sure my prefab bussiness could support itself, but it is what I really enjoy doing so it doesnt bother me at all. Also I am kind of a niche market as most of my stuff is mid-century modern and has no privacy which isnt always that popular, although recently I have sold out and done a few more conventional houses like an italian villa, tropical beach houses, and a rustic cabin.

Also consider the fact some of SL's most talented builders dont make and sell prefabs. I honestly dont see it as the big quick cash industry as you do and I know I am not alone in that. When considering all the work that goes just into one house and the side expenses of just land to build, display, and sell prefabs on the profit margins are severly limited. Especially if you are planning on subcontracting builders, if they are good enough to rock the prefab industry then they would probably prefer to go solo than with a middle man.

So my advice? Do prefabs if that is what you love, but if you are purely profit driven there are much more lucrative markets out there. Mens clothing for example is a goldmine, i only have about 10 shirts, one pair of pants, and a few suits I have made and people consider me a top mens designer (scary eh?) To be a top woemns designer you need your own two island mega store.

I personally would love to see more quality prefab makers enter the market, I'm sure SL would be a much more beautiful place if we had more quality reasonably priced prefab makers.

I agree with Barney, and with Damanios. (Sorry if I mispelled that wrong, I'm not looking at that post right now - but definitely I know his fabulous houses!)

I agree that you wouldn't likely get terrific builders to quit what they are doing on their own and go to work for you. You might get somebody terrific and creative to OVERSEE the more drudge work aspects as done by other people (which would be a good "job" to have in SL for many, incidentally).

(However I would disagree with the blanket statement that the most talented builders aren't doing prefabs. Not everyone, after all, wants to do custom work, not even for outside organizations.)

The major expense of prefabs is the land on which to display them, as Barney points out. You don't HAVE to have land on which to display them, but I figure it would be fairly crippling not to - and your customers wouldn't be nearly as happy, since they wouldn't be able to see the whole product before they buy it. It's a lot harder to display 15 houses than it is to display hundreds of clothing items in a vendor.

Secondly, the time factor. It takes a great deal of time to build a house. (Heck, it takes forever just to texture one!)

Thirdly, people need more clothes and shoes than they need houses. Though people do like a change of houses (which is, fortunately, much easier to do than irl!), they aren't apt to change their houses every day.

And as pointed out earlier, a lot of people don't even own land. But they DO own bodies, and they WILL want clothes, skins, and animations for them!

And I feel as Damanios does - that some of the things on the list of things you have to do to build and sell houses are so terrific to do that I'd do them if I weren't getting paid for them!

Apparently the idea is that someone could make a big business, and streamline it, etc., so that it could be maximinally profitable with minimal effort. Doubtless that could be done. But I still don't think it will ever replace individual artists, or necessarily even "dominate the market."

coco

So, in a few words, are you FOR or AGAINST other builders participating in the prefab structures market with you?

Shaun, I'm all for it. I don't make a living from what I make in SL, neither does Barnesworth and I don't have any secrets. If someone asks me what my experiences have been in sl, more than likely I'll share. There are other ways to make money in sl that don't require the time, effort and land required to make prefabs. But it's what i enjoy so I do it.

So contrary to what you're implying, we're not just feeding you a bunch of hoey so you'll stay out of the market. It's really not that imortant to me.

You edited that post. What for? Did you want to take the P out of your own post?

So, in a few words, are you FOR or AGAINST other builders participating in the prefab structures market with you?

i think the prefab market is just OK
my advice? Do prefabs if that is what you love, but if you are purely profit driven there are much more lucrative markets out there. Mens clothing for example is a goldmine, i only have about 10 shirts, one pair of pants, and a few suits I have made and people consider me a top mens designer (scary eh?) To be a top woemns designer you need your own two island mega store.

I'm rich in knowledge. And I'm passing it along for free.

I would also add that "houses" aren't something that once someone provides, no one else need to try providing them. It's not like, you know, Windows Operating System or something, or even Kleenex Tissues.

I don't think it can ever be like that, anymore than the idea that if one person provides a fine line of clothes, no one else ever need to would ever hold true.