Current Land Prices

With many PG Plots now at L$3 or less per sqm, and many Mature plots around L$5 or less per sqm, are land prices too high, too low, or just right? Should LL keep releasing land, and keep prices at historic lows, or should they have a target land price?

Discuss...

Landflood!!

Run for your lives!

Institute price controls because they usually acheive the intended results

er....back on topic!

The only real price control is the rate at which Linden Lab releases new sims/land. Should LL slow down their release? Keep the release rate the same? Increase the release rate?

land seems to trade best, based on past observation, when pg sells for three to five lindens a meters and mature sells for five to eight. i don't have mountains of data to back this up. it's just my observation.

it's funny how those so closely reflect the prices that ll applied to land pre 1.2 isn't it.

Land prices seem pretty darn low. Not that I'm complaining. However, I think its a strategic move on LL's part... they rather have the high re-occuring tier revenue than high upfront land costs.

The Lindens should take a rest and stop rolling out sims. It's not fair to people who buy and sell entire sims, or parts of sims, or even just plots here and there -- they can't sell even the best land at the best price because players are always motivated to go look for that fantastic fresh FPS of 12,000-14,000 over on that fresh-baked sim. Everyone stampedes over to the new sims, and only a trickle remain to pick over what's left on the old sims. It's a pernicious phenomenon that benefits only the Lindens, but if they keep only benefitting themselves in this fashion, they won't find enough high-end players and the mass of low-end players that they need to play this game with them to make a profit in the long-run.

There are loads, and loads, and loads of unsold parcels all over the game, most held by land barons but many also held by unhappy people unable to sell who are near grief-builds and lag-builds. The only way these parcels are going to come down in price from figures like 11-10-9-8 per meter is if the Lindens allow some of this excess land to be soaked out by ceasing their incessant production treadmill, even for just a short time.

Of course it's in their interest to have a few landowners pay them huge tier bills for unsold land on sims, so they don't have people living on those sims and creating more management work and trouble tickets. And it's in their interest to keep everyone in a hungry feeding frenzy to up their auctions. But come on, it's a game where people are supposed to buy land and live on servers, so alright already, let them do it.

I've noticed that with the economic changes, people seem to be actually buying and renting land more and building or buying houses and nesting more, rather than hanging out fruitlessly in laggy clubs where they can't even click on people. They were willing to do that before for the sake of contest money and ratings, but now that frenzy has ebbed a little and they are looking around and seeing if they can leave their wild club lives behind them and become more stable productive citizens of SL, owning or renting property and making goods for the nation of shop-keepers LOL. This is just my anecdotal take on things.

I think that if SL wants to encourage more stabilizing effects on the game, and less griefing and trouble tickets, they need to encourage the nesting instinct by making people buy more land and leaving less land unsold. When more people can stop flying around aimlessly alone or in packs, can stop their drifting towards griefing and lag-induce activity like particle smoking, and begin to think in terms of home-owning or community-building, it is better for society as a whole. Constantly rolling out new sims feeds land-baron greed and encourages just the mindless and inconsiderate buying and selling of land without any notion of how long-term, functioning and prosperous communities will be established on it.

It means that prices will drop down and perhaps the large land barons will howl, but maybe not, if a lot of their unsold land sitting there all over the place starts to move. They may reduce it in price at first to move it, and then start raising prices and land grows scarce, but this would have the ameliorative effect of getting all that unsold land sold, so that people can start to see what they have on each server and how to make each server better in terms of neighbourhoods. Right now, many players are motivated to get into a land rat race where they buy first land at 512, trade it up to barons or middle-men for $3500, move to the next fastest sim, move off that when it craps up with laggy builds, etc. etc.

It's especially annoying to buy on a fresh sim with fantastic FPS at 12000 and then see the Lindens move it on to a crappy server 3 weeks later and have its FPS go down to 1200. (I wouldn't expect FPS to stay at 12000 but 4000-5000 would be a nice range.)

I would like to see a cessation of the new sim production accompany a leveling out of the server allocation and a commitment to making all sims work their best, instead of sticking some sims with crappy old servers.

Every time the Lindens roll out a new sim, they devalue the land of everybody who owns land on the other sims instantly, because a new sim is equated with fresh and fast FPS and good-looking land. Only the most experienced player realizes they should be buying on older sims in established areas without wildcard ugly builds and lag.

No it's not. It's a simulated world in which residents are supposed to be able to do anything they please, within reason and capability.



Hank, I think there's more to it than that. The relevant factors that affect land prices include not only land releases but growth in L$ money supply from initial grants to new residents, from traffic (probably negligible), from stipends and from stipend bonuses. And, as Prokofy correctly points out, they also include residents' perception of where economic/enjoyment value lies: in hanging out at rating parties or in owning/renting land. This is in part a corollary of stipend bonuses changing.

I don't really have an opinion as to whether land prices are too high or too low, but I know that the process of managing various economic factors -- the two most important here probably being the L$/US$ exchange rate and the price of land -- is a pretty delicate thing. Much depends on which piece of the equation the Lindens most want to stabilize. If it's the exchange rate (which it seems to be), then they have to make sure money supply and new land grows in some consistent proportion to growth in the population.

LL has stated they have a target of US$4/L$1,000, and the rate has been pretty stable right around that level since the economic changes of last month. Given that, I'd be surprised if they were contemplating big changes in how they release land, unless there's been some change in how many new users are signing up since then.

Yes, I have abuse reborted Governor Linden. Seems he still keep griefing though.

i think LL is releasing land at a good rate. the current market price for land is around 3-5 L$/m2 for PG and 6-10 L$ for mature. i think the L$ value of land will go down slowly as the value of the L$ goes up against the USD, which will make it even more because saved stipends will actually have substantial buying power.

a good measure of if the land rates are fare and equitable is if land traders are frustrated. this is definitely the case. i am frustrated. it's tough for me to win auctions as profitable margins because often end users are confident enough to bid in the auction and because with a stable land price, all land traders have a similar bidding limit and it becomes a matter of who is willing to take a greater risk or maintaina lower margin. but i'm not complaining. this is what makes land trading fun for me - the rush of finding the deal.

LL is adding land based on population size, not land consumption. this is their claim, anyway. when they keep this constant, land value is pretty predictable and people can get a good idea of what LL secretly believes is a good target value for land.

you'll rarely find land traders with wits complaining, because they understand that their game is a risk and LL has no obligation to maintain profitability in the land market. only those who think land trading is a get rich quick scheme or a sure thing and have some sense of entitlement will come to the forum seeking hand me out target values and complain about land not selling (hint for them - don't bid up up land stupid).

in response to prokofy's frustrations,
it's not LL's obligation that regular players are able to sell their land. land buyers are seeking to build their on fanatasy and a fresh new sim is way more inspiring. that is why one observes a price difference between old sims and new sims. a new sim is empty - it's fps is in the thousands. a developed sim is full, it's fps is in the hundred. a new sim is pristine. a developed sim has pink and blue castles. this is a reality and players should not buy land thinking tey will be able to resell it at the same value or a profit. buying land is like buying a car. it takes wits to make money buying and selling used cars.

really good post jauani

I feel as if they are releasing land at too quick a pace. An element of over-crowding needs to be introduced to this world. It is really getting bad to travel through so many sims and see one or two big lots, a couple small lots, and a whole lot of open space. Put a freeze on releasing new land for a specific period of time and then come up with a formula to determine when future land is released. Once you get people packed in a little tighter it will be easy for you urban planners to get your hooks into zoning. That'll make you happy!

Jauani, unlike you, I'm not a land-trader at root. I don't constantly buy and sell land to try to make a profit. I sometimes buy land for people if they request it. I buy it mainly to develop it into communities, keep it, resell it after awhile when it is developed with houses, etc. (but not at gouging land baron prices), or rent it out. So, sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm not a frustrated, wannabee, whining newbie stupid land baronlet thinking I'm entitled to get rich quick. I personally do not believe it is possible to do anything in this game but get a bit ahead or break even, or more likely throw good money after bad, and if people are able to make money, it's because they do not view it as a game or a world where they would like to live and be, they view it as something to exploit.

All your comments are simply off the mark. And they are so typical of the feted and inner, Jauani, that they can never just explicate a topic, they always have to instruct, bully, hector, put down, shame, and demean in the process. Look at what you wrote -- you essentially calling me a greedy grubbing whiney wannabee land baronlet -- you implied it any way -- when I am nothing of the kind. And if you didn't mean to make a personal attack, well, you made a blanket statement that anyone who thinks land should have some resale value is hopelessly naive and stupid -- and that frankly is just a debatable point.

I lose money developing sometimes in order to get it right, and because I want to learn and experiment. I see all around me other people trading land, and even some of the big ones say privately that they are overloaded on tier and just breaking even. It's a game! It's not all that different than Atlantic City!.

You want to make yourself out to be cooler-than-thou by showing you have the healthy self-reflectiveness to say "It's good when I'm frustrated, I'm self-aware and hip." But hey, that doesn't impress me, because it's silly. Your self-interest should drive a market, and the aggregate of a lot of self-interests should drive markets, and there is never a need to apologize and to try to be hip about it. It's OK to be frustrated, to complain, and to get the attention of the Gods. They constantly undermine and devalue our work. We need to fire them and find new Gods.

What I'm looking at in-world is not MY plots, which are selling and renting at a pretty good pace, I'm looking at YOUR plots, and those of many other HUGE land traders. I see them sitting their for WEEKS. I see good land on mature fast sims SITTING THERE marked at 7.5-8-9-10 and NOT SELLING FOR WEEKS. That I find frustrating for the game as a whole, not for me as a personal greedy whiner. Obviously as an individual, I could care less of Budda Bergman or Anshe Chung or Carl Altman or Bob Bravo or Jauani Wu sell land next to my pretty rental land -- in fact, it's better for me as an individual if your over-priced land never sells but remains as pretty meadows with loads of Field of Dreams endlessly rezzing and unrezzing on them because then my customers are happy that they aren't crowded : )

But seriously, what the Linden does is devalues people's investments on the previous sims. That means people who want to stay put, after spending, say $100 US on a piece of land, find their land devalued, and can't sell it even for what they paid, because there is always a freshly-baked sim. I don't mean people who are traders, I mean people who are residents. That bothers me for the game as a whole and for its future. It's because new sims=fresh fast fps, and the server allocation does not seem to be equitable -- I know this is debated hotly elsewhere. Of course a sim starts at 12,000 or more, and quickly falls down to 4000 or less because people get on it, duh. But that's not what I mean. I mean that fresh fast sims go from a routine 4000 down to a 500 or a 37 because of laggy clubs, stupid malls, and bad server allocation, and they frustrate and anger loads and loads of people in the process. You just grin and say it's ok to bake new sims and keep people hooked on fresh-baked sims. I think they have to realize they are creating a monster.

I think that the smart, wittier, savvy player understands perhaps better than you do with your fresh pristine fast FPS fantasies that the real buys in this game are on the older sims where there are secured views and predictable neighbours and nice builds. That's why I was willing to bid up on Boardman, and on Winnipeg 001. I get it. Believe me. And frankly, it is not a sign of idiocy and hopeless newbie cluelessness to say that people should consider that their land should be sold for at least its original value. You can't have a normal land market if a used land becomes valueless. In RL, a secure view, good neighbours, classier shopping districts, good schools, nice architectures add value to a pristine meadow. Something roughly approximate can happen in SL.

And for that to happen, they have to let some of the good, prime land SITTING THERE start to get sold. It's ABSOLUTELY IDIOTIC to base sim production not on raw numbers of people who buy land, but on raw numbers of people who come into the game. ABSOLUTELY INSANE. Because more than fifty percent of those people just fly around and and go to clubs and malls and never buy because land is too expensive, they are afraid, and because ugly builds and laggy clubs and malls torture them -- even as they help perpetuate them by their endless consumerist flying and buying.

By basing their sim production triggers on raw subscriber numbers, the Lindens are perpetruated the insane stampede to fresh sims away from ugly builds and laggy malls and clubs, only to lather, rinse, repeat on each fresh sim. It temporarily feeds them a lot of auction money. It is a bad recipe for a long-term game with a million subscribers. It is an evil method, and one that should be blown out of the water by concerted, collective, coordinated player action.

This is a really important thread. Please feel free to attack the Linden policy or the suggestions of others. But please don't attack other people on this thread. If you feel the need to tell them that you think they are bad people then do it throgh IM.

prok, stop looking for offense. i wasn't attacking you. only my last paragraph was directed towards you. your entire post is nonsensical. i'll try to respnd but let's keep in mind that my arguement is based n 5 months of success as a small time land baron, and yours is based on dillusions and assumptions.

here is the first instance of your dillusions and assumptions. i know a great deal of players who love playing SL and making money doing it. but you will argue they are all feted/inner/core.

it is pretty ridiculous for anyone on this forum can do is call me typical of the "feted and inner". you oviously have no idea what role i have played in the past year of discussions on this forum and inworld.
i didn't intend to imply you were a wannabee land baronlet or anything f the sort. if you had any level of reading comprehension you could clearly see only my last paragraph was directed towards you and the message of that paragraph was that expecting LL to prop your land value is unrealistic. players must prop their own land value by producing compelling environments. very much like upkeeping your own house or neighbourhood!

exactly. land traders will rarely speak openly about their frustrations because making money in land arbitrage is a calculated risk, not a salaried occupation with health benefits. it is a game. it is ones own risk to buy land for its value. it is ones own risk to let it ride on roulette. land has limited intrinsic value.
i didn't bring this up to impress you. i brought it up as a way to gauge the land market. if land traders are having a tough time competing, then land prices are likely at a good level for players.
as for me, SL is a game. part of my SL game is trading land. it is an enjoyable challenge. if my self interest was solely USD do you think i would bother logging in? absolutely not!

thanks for the concern but it's totally unnecessary. after so many months, we are all still trading land and not complaining. one might assume we have a sustainable business model and we don't require prokofy fighting on our behalf.

land for a regular player should not be considered an investment but a consumption. that is why i used cars as an anology. most players do not buy land for investment. for that they by mutual funds. most players buy land to play with. like a dvd player. perhaps you could resell it for the same value if you kept it all nice and so did your neighbours. perhaps you'll release it public after 6 months.

my solution for maintiainging the value of my land is to own the entire region, so when ii control all the content - aesthics and lag. this is why your project in ravenglass is so compelling, why people rent land from me or schwanson, this is why your proposal for midge was succesfully pitched. because the entire region falls under one control and players can have faith in that.


nothing is secure in SL unless you own the land. buying the view is the only guarantee.


it's very naive to believe that LL would not change their quota of land per capita if the conumption level went down. it is absolutely idiotic to not match population growth because the last time that happened land value spiked to 20 L$/m2. nobody liked that except for Alby

Wu, I blame you and you alone for making me read Prokofy's post in it's entirety. Where's my mad libs?

Dear Haney,

Unfortunately, your IM mail here on the forum is set up with a message that says you do not receive messages and don't wish to receive messages, so I am forced to write an open letter.

Sure, it's an important thread that these celebrate older players are posting and contributing to, and sure, your comments warning everyone to refrain from personal attacks are just doing your job. But let me give you a clue: before I penned a note, Jauani sophisticatedly, with impunity, called me "a land trader without wits... a "complainer" a person who seeks "entitlement" a person who "seeks to get rich quick" a poor used car dealer, a frustrated wannabee, and worse, just implied I was stupid. He can attempt to get away with that kind of subtle punch by feigning to be talking in general, not directing a comment at me personally, but I don't think that should be allowed to stand, and I should have to bear the brunt of the Linden reprobation implied in getting a warning like this right after my post, as if I'm the only one who has to "refrain from personal attacks".

His was the kind of subtle, deadly, reputation-destroying monstrous personal attack that you routinely let stand on this message board, and which I push back against routinely here with robust, hyperbolic, and strenuous language. I have to -- because your warnings are never perceived to be directed at older players who have mastered the racket of bullet-proof posts, but at players like me who fight back.

It's so often the case that older players can get away with the hectoring, bullying, sophisticated, deadly, soul-destroying tone on the forums, disguise it as a world-weary feted and jaded comment, and those who get indignant and wave their fists to fight back in this unfair fight are then labeled as personal attackers. I see it happen over and over again, and I'm wise to it.

This type of post that Jauani and others do routinely paralyzes new initiative, intimidates, hectors, and bullies other players, and destroys the business of anybody outside their own inner circle -- I have come to see in time that this is the chief effect they wish, to ensure themselves monopolies. I used to think that the impunity with which the older and feted attacked others was merely about class warfare, or generation warfare, or just plain perniciousness. But I have come to see that it is about economic warfare, and that is more serious.

So we simply refuse to live in a world where that is the case and we fight back. I count at least two posts in the last two days of two younger players being accused of fraud, completely without basis, which are allowed to stand, which are allowed to destroy reputations and businesses, merely because the posters who made these specious and ridiculous comments are older and feted. If you could open up your private messages, I will draw this to your attention.

When Jauani Wu, who I consider a colleague in the game whom I talk to regularly and share knowledge and information with, disses me in that fashion, calling me stupid, whiney, and a land trader, and showing off his insider insights on the forums, I push back. He can hide behind clever language disguised not to look like a personal attack and get under Haney's radar. But if people like me don't push back against these feted older players with enormous resources, you won't have a million people in your game. But maybe I should stop worrying whether you game succeeds -- I'm starting to lose interest.

I don't care if you ban me. I really, really don't. I'm fed up with the impunity with which these older players bully everyone on the forums. You can't run a world this way -- at least a world that inspires to be something grander than the Geek Chic that Second Life established itself to be in two years.

Oh Prok, what bunk. If you want to read all of that into Jau's post, go ahead but it is your own interpretation. I read that post just as you did.

Prok, I find many of your posts very interesting, if a little long, and sometimes I agree, sometimes not. I am neither feted nor inner, nor beta.

I read these forums all the time as a quick distraction from work. When someone disagrees, that makes them feted and inner? When someone raises an objection, does that make them "trying to stomp down dissention"?

If all you want to do is talk to a mirror, why be in the forums to begin with?

I am NOT trying to attack you.

Jauani, stop making veiled subtle soul-killing attacks.



Oh, now I don't have reading comprehension in addition to being a whining moron? Geez.
You're good at this. I have chapter on verse on the cynicism with which some people exploit the game, and of course I realize some of them enjoy it, and I enjoy it most nights myself, it's fun playing store, but I do see it as containing some deadly evils that really need to be resisted strenuously.

And yes, I will argue that those who seem to find everything a day at the beach are feted and inner, and therefore their game experience is completely different than those outside the gates of the feted and inner.


No, you aren't typical of the feted and inner, and I'm aware of your important social contribution to the public interest blah blah but don't think you can get away with dissing me and calling me a whiner and stupid. It can't stand.



Of course you implied it, because you wrote it. Just because only the last paragraph had my name on it doesn't mean I didn't see your slam in the previous paragraph. And even here, you continue to imply I'm stupid, now lacking in reader comprehension, and also unrealistic in my expectations, like a spoiled kid or something, which is just plain silly. It's a goddamn game. I don't expect it to do anything except entertain. And frankly, I don't need the Lindens to make my land value or prop it. What I do expect as a high-paying customer is that they stop perniciously *destroying* my land value. And that's what they do each time they roll out a new sim and get the stampede to make the malls or get the clueless to buy new land in what they *think* erroneously will be fresh and clean and perty when it fact it will be crapped up within 30 days. So yeah, I do produce compelling environments, which in my book, isn't Bedazzle or Neverland, but just a sim that doesn't lag and have ugly clubs everywhere around it. It's not easy. Try doing that instead of selling land and you'll see.



They are pixels with dollhouses. It's a 3-D monopoly. But people live and move and have their being in it, and I respect that, and I want to help them have communities and have a better experience. I want to live in the communities myself and not have every tiny idiotic provincial mind that can grab 2172 square meters subject me to their idiotic provincial stupid fucking concept of a club.



But there's loads of unsold land. And people are frustrated. And consumers aren't buying. And consumers are afraid of buying the unsold land. And so forth and so on. Come on Jauani, could you look beyond the end of your own nose?



I do take you at your world. I don't see you as rapaciously grabbing server pixels and reselling them, as some do, and frankly, I can't really fault them for doing that because the system is set up to encourage them to do this with impunity.



There you go again with your uber sophistication. Aren't you cool with your sustainable business model? I checked the other night, Jauani, and World Weary was already taken as a new av name. And P.S., I don't fight on your behalf, I fight on behalf of consumers, including myself, who see overpriced unsold land all over sims, always in danger of being crapped up, and new sims coming out like hot cakes, getting crapped up within 30 days. Now why should anybody sit still for that????



At one level, you're correct, given that it's a risky game and it's like those little tin markers you put on Monopoly and knock off with one role of the dice. But it does aspire to be a world where people live and move and have their being, and you can only make it that if you treat it with more consideration and put more value in it, and if you find some way for the general public to hire new Gods unless these Gods we have stop devaluing our lives, our being, and our land by rolling out new sims all the time. And I'm not kidding. When I say people will hire new Gods, I mean they will find other games that provide way more security for investment and way more security for players' virtual habitations, and they will do this simply by taking a plan such as the one developed by Anshe and making that be the game, instead of the Geek Chic Tekkie Wiki that the Lindens are running.



I could have a 500 page dissertaion on why every word you've just written is not true. You have to own 4 sims, no 16 sims, no 32 sims to control aesthetics and lag. You just haven't attempted this, so you can't know what it is like.




You can't buy the view, Jauani. The view is on the next sim. Buy 4 sims, buy 16, hell, by 32, and run it like Anshe says, maybe then...



Well good. I think at first, some of the excess baron land would get sold, for one, so that people could understand what they are living on. If the price goes up it slows purchases for awhile, but then it has to come down. You have to stop this socialism, and gut it out past the Alby's of the world making their $20. You all shit in your pants in August because prices went up when you should have toughed it out and forced these Lindens to stop making new sims until they adequately get the existing server space populated and served.

Did you ever think that some day, the ebay guy's money is going to run out, and they can't keep getting new servers, and that new sims will start to be put on to servers that don't work so well?

I remember not too long ago that it seemed jauani was constantly fencing with Cris Midnight over on his site; now fire-chick seems to have been absorbed into the inner elite. Now Prokofy is constantly talking about the "feted core", but has become a more-than-modest landholder himself. Based on current trends, I predict that constantly arguing with Cris Midnight is the surest path towards the coveted Club Membership. I predict that regardless of land prices, Malachi Petunia will become the next Inner Core inductee (after Prokofy), and Korg Stygian following that. Malachi will become Feted before the 1.6 release, and Korg shortly thereafter.

I, meanwhile am going to go brush up on fashion knowledge and try to find ways to deride Cris's sense of style, in hopes of garnering a membership (and key to the executive washroom) by September.

Oh, and land? Seems a bit on the low side lately, I think this is about as cheap as LL wants to see it get. Regardless of what I think they should do, I predict that they will slow down the land releases for a bit until Mature land raises back up to $10/m.

Typical hypocracy.

Typical personal attack, and typical bad spelling; "hypocrisy". KTX.

Thanks for the spelling correction. There is not enough room in the threads to correct yours.

You attack others with regularity, but yet you scream bloody murder if someone looks at you sideways. That's hypocrisy.

Someone wants attention.....looks like he got it too