Auctions going up too high?

Wow, I just saw this auction:
http://secondlife.com/auctions/detail.php?id=0026196479
and it seems that many people are paying in the 100k for a 9k plot. And there are still a couple of hours remaining on the auction. Is it because of the lowering number of the plots appearing on the auctions.



Comments?

But it is a really nice plot.

Oh... I don't necessarily think it's "too high". Relatively on a numbers basis, yes. But then there's emotional content. People will pay what they want to pay, and especially with the anonymous function enabled on this one, it adds an extra layer of suspenseful intrigue. It certainly has rocketed up, but hopefully whoever wins this will be able to smile and say something like: "It cost me oodles, but dayum, it was worth it!"

That plot, I believe, is smack dab next to a telehub.

Yes, it's smack dab next to the new, long-awaited Bear telehub. It's funny it didn't appear with the other Chief parcels, I guess to let the anticipation build LOL.

I personally struggle to understand this obsession with telehubs. For example, right now, at Brownlee, I see loads of land still for sale, including some in Gogebic at pretty good prices, just a hop and skip from the telehub. Yes, it's all getting built up now but it still seems like you could have a better shake at sales now by buying there than spending a fortune for Bear. Plus, I could point out that the true bargain land shopper could be buying that parcel in Skegemog for only like $5/meter in-world, and be almost as close to the TH as Bear -- who can't fly a few more meters?

There's this belief that land right smack dab next to the TH is worth 10/L or more because avs like to fall out of telehubs and be sucked up into a rezzing building, where they will shop and shop until they beg for mercy, and the owner finally IMs them the code for how to leave the building

Well, seriously, do shoppers enjoy this? Every time I go to a TH and have all those people landing on my head, I get annoyed, and if anything, I press page up and straight arrow (a combo somebody taught me here on the forums) to get the heck out of there pronto.

Do people really enjoy this experience and shop more? I can only conclude that they do, that hijacked like that, they do buy, they make sales, they convince merchants that this must be the place to sell, and owners then jack up prices to suit this reality.

I personally have had good experience creating "strip malls" of sorts in areas very far from telehubs, where there are residential communities or leisure activities (not laggy clubs), so that people can actually have a pleasant experience walking into a building they can see rezzing, and not lag while they shop, with people landing on their head. It's like the reason why you need Chicago and not just New York. You need other hubs and satellites, it can't all be downtown. This game isn't so good at producing these because of the oligarchic control of the telehubs. Everyone who puts up a shop away from a telehub is striking a blow for freedom from these monster av-magnets, and helping to reduce the cost of that land around them.

But, to answer your question, yes, the bidding prices in general are going up on the auctions for lots of reasons: more people in the game means more demand, more people in the game means more wannabe barons, barons have to bid higher too and charge more in world, ordinary end-users begin to turn to the auctions themselves because of higher prices in-world, cost of Lindens going up, etc.

For what it's worth, auctions are ALWAYS going to drive the price too high: The economics underlying auctions assume that every item being sold is unique, as opposed to mass-produced, and that the buyer with the most specific, vested interest is the one that defines the price.

It's exactly the opposite when you look for a discount: You assume that all sellers are selling the same thing and you look for the lowest price point. The seller with the most specific, vested interest to sell quickly defines the price.

...so for Linden Land, where you can as easily argue that "they're all the same (once adjusted for mature/PG, water/dry, etc...)" or "each is unique", auctions are sure to shoot the prices thru the roof. Auctions are inherently a mechanism that creates inflation.

By nature anyone at an auction is willing to pay as much as the item is worth -- to them..

So you could say that an auction has gone to high - for you - , but it would be impossible for it to go 'too high', as it can only go as high as someone is willing to pay.

Siggy.