Wholesale Land - Whats the best way?

In the most recent town hall, Philip once again mentioned the desire of LL to wholesale land to resellers. If SL continues it's rate of growth, the auctioning of so many small parcels will become cumbersome to LL. Rather than begin with my opinions, I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject. I will chime in later.

Some relevant questions to consider:
What should the minimum purchase size be?
What discount should be applied to such purchases?
Should the purchasor be expected to fully terraform / texture the sims?
Should there be an option to return a certain % of the land to Linden owned (for infrastructure) ?
Should there be a waiver in the tier fees for a certain amount of time to prepare the sim for sale?
How do we deal with telehubs and placement?
How does the mature / PG land get distributed?
How do we devise a fair system for distribution of the wholesale land?

As I said in a previous thread on the subject, I am thrilled at this idea. And think it is a logical step for LL. The biggest obstacle IMO is not the actual details, as I beleive a fair system can be thought out and modified as needed, easily. The biggest obstacle I have seen is public perception of the land reseller.

/me sits on hands

Another question to ponder...if there's a wholesale market, should there also be commercial real estate brokers?

And if so...Should they be certified? How? By whom? Should there be a fee for certification? Any requirements for land development?

I've said this before - there is no such thing as a wholesale land market!

I'm not sure I understand... we already have commercial real estate brokers. I think "wholesale" may be a misnomer. Anyone should be allowed to buy land directly from the Lindens. Think of it more like the Jeffersonian system - where the government originally layed out a grid of sections, and people could buy whole sections at a set price.

Then it would be up to developers (or groups, co-ops, intentional communities, etc.) to split the parcels and make useable neighborhoods out of them.

I think there should be a couple of different options for resellable sims:

1. Fully configurable, like the islands, and placed like the islands.

2. Preconfigured, complete, like the current mainland sims. Lindens would establish the overall landscaping, including public rights-of-way and telehubs. The way I think this could work is if LL gets ahead of the game on laying out the continents. When buying land, you could pull up a "future land" map that shows the general land mass of sims that don't exist yet, but could be placed in the next couple of months. 6 or so would be marked available for purchase at "wholesale" prices, and for each that was bought, another would be added to the pool. If there's a run on them, just backorder for a couple weeks!

In either case, you could ask for a general location on the grid. In any case where more than one person wants the same spot it would be first-come first-serve, but there would always be alternative locations to choose.

Like Ananda said, I agree with having choices available. It is clear that a singular method leaves little room for flexibility, especially in these times of growth when we are testing things out actively and seeing how society in SL, including land ownership, works. I would not be surprised if in the future, we had several major continents offset from the "mainland", each with a different approach to resellable sims. It would not be that unlike the real world and how real estate operates differently (and not only technically, but cultural differences and soforth) in different countries.

To respond to a few of Schwanson's questions:

Minimum purchase size: 1/4 sim. This could be option 3. There would always be a couple of sims on the "future map" divided into 1/4s for purchase at the same set price as the other whole sims.

Waiver of tier fees (grace period)? Absolutely not! No special perks for resellers vs. other groups.

I do not belive with the many behaviours that I have seen in world and in foruim that we are suitable over all for this idea. I do not trust that honourable and trustworthy and human people will own these huge tracts of land and sell and trade them with any fairness. All that would happen I think is more greedy shallow and selfish people will invest more and more money to dominate the land and ask ever more unfair prices.

It is a fair idea, however we are not fair people, generally. I will stick to the Lindens, right or wrong as they may be often, there is more hope they will learn and improve than i can find for trusting the kind of players who so far have dominated land trading.

Actually, it would be EXTREMELY unprofitable to be unfair, either with selling or with prices. If you're picking favorites, you're going to be swallowed by other budding agents by sheer volume, hence you taking a major loss. If you are unfair with your prices, the market will crush you by sheer choices (even if only 3 or 4 barons are doing this, they're going to be openly competing against each other for money... a cartel is unlikely, as they currently don't know each other aside from SL, hence preventing price collusion), and you will also take a loss.

The best way for a land baron doing Ananda's model is go the Wal-mart route: grim efficiency, but fair, low pricing across the board, and a way to sell product very quickly.

Wholesale Sim buying is a good idea for LLab, and hence, for SL. Do we really want the Lindens to set aside a few hours a day to parcel sims out? It's gotta be a grinding job anyway.

LF

Make two categories (free to join either way): Developers or WHolesale. Developers would, conceivably, make the land "better" than just a blank slate, selling it then. Wholesalers would be selling slightly above margin in order to make a profit.

No fees. No certification. Regulation isn't necessary, UNLESS there is identifiable price-fixing. Which will be identified soon enough, thus opening the door for criticism and up-and-comers knocking the cartel out.

LF

I think that resellable whole sims (or half sims, or quarter sims) may be a good idea to quench the thirst of those who simply must buy as much as possible in order to resell it. However, I think that they should never be the only way new land is released. I'd like to see something like the following ratios on a new release of 40 Sims:

1) 20 Sims sold as whole Sims
2) 10 Sims sold as half Sims
3) 5 Sims sold as quarter Sims
4) 2 Sims sold with parcel size averaging 4096, and a quarter reserved as First Land
5) 2 Sims sold with parcel sized averaging 2048, and a quarter reserved as First Land
6) 1 Sim sold with parcels varying from 512 to 1536, and a quarter reserved as First Land

I'd also like to see an auction registration system in place where for any particular new land release, a resident can sign up to bid for auctions either in categories 1-3 OR categories 4-6 but not both categories. A resident's current or target land tier would make their choice of which way to sign up fairly clear.

As far as resellable, but non-terraformed and non-textured Sims go, they should only be sold as whole Sims, should be "clumped together" in one area of the map (perhaps expansion to the northwest?) and would be the best candidates for fixed price sales. I can see resale prices for land in those Sims being extremely competitive as the owners strive to provide the nicest living environments. These could also have the PG/M rating set by the original purchaser, too.

I would like to see licensing for Real Estate Agents (not brokers), but I see this as an entirely different field and something that can be done without Linden intervention. There was a thread a while back in which I and others set out some possible licensing criteria and as soon as my life settles down a little, I will be pursuing this further. (Yes, Billy - really!) I firmly believe there is a place for people to help others through the minefield of buying and selling land, without necessarily owning the land themselves as middle men (in other words, commission-based, not through markup). So far I haven't developed the idea further than this.

I spent the best part of two hours talking about better ways to release and sell land with Haney a couple of weeks back, and have been thinking about it ever since - and I still haven't come up with the magic answer. The current mess we're in (and yes, it is a mess and will remain that way while auction land goes to such a small number of individuals) may be more due to the individual personalities and practices of auction regulars, not the system itself. And we cannot regulate human nature.

What I find very odd is that LL keeps talking about developing, yet you can't really sell everything in a parcel in one woosh.

For example, If I build a house, a patio, a sidewalk, a dock, etc and try to sell the whole parcel the buyer has to buy it all seperately or I have to participate in some very time consuming and simply not worth it pyrotechnics to get it to the player.

I mean if I'm just making 10% there is no way I can visit every parcel twie I sell to players.

Lindens - the reason people don't land develop in SL is because it's not technically feasible.

Right now, however much land is available at auction is all of the new land available. However, if you want to buy 20 private sims you just place your order (with a very fat credit card). Maybe that is how it should be with the mainland too. You pay $1000 to buy a sim, and $200/month tier fees to support it. Unlike private sims, you can parcel and sell it however you choose. This would permanently institute land speculators to SL, however land scarcity would be determined by how many people are around to actually buy the land in order for the speculators to make a profit as opposed to who wants to play the auction game. It sounds like an interesting idea to me.



1 sim max, 1/4 sim min.

none

Haven't thought that one through.

Sounds like a great idea.

Generally I would say no. However, I wish the Lindens would at least give an hour grace period on tier fees to do trades.

Another one I haven't considered.

If you are buying a whole sim or the land hasn't been terraformed you just state your preference.

As the top of my post says, I'm suggesting a fixed price per sim or part. Pay for as much as you like.

I think brokers should have to buy entire sims, no exceptions. I also believe a 10-12% discount would be ok. Land tier fees. Consider it overhead just like an office a receptionist and the coffee machine. It has to be paid. So is there a positive side to all this? Will it mean that we can do away with the prehistoic for sale sign and just point ppl to the very white area on their maps. Or the find menu to find land. I dont know that this is progress but LL seems pretty hell bent on seeing this threw. So is there anything positive that will result from a hand ful of ppl controling all the land in SL? Seriously.

Blaze I completly agree! I would love to see the entire parcel buildings and all being able to be sold all at once.

Not disagreeing with you at all, but in order for this to work, there would need to be a clear and undisputable definition of broker.

Okay, so it's someone who buys land at auction for resale in-world. What about the person who buys a lot or two, intending to settle, but then for whatever reason sells up?

So maybe we change it to 'immediate resale'. Oh, but then the brokers can just hold off on setting it for sale a few days, and avoid the label.

Should it go by the number/amount of land bid on/won over a certain period? Well, no because you would have become a broker by this definition while you were trying to get the land you wanted for Christmas. Clearly wrong! And many, many people bid on a large number of parcels on a particular day, hoping to win just one or two of them. If they win them all, and then are faced with reselling the ones they don't need, are they suddenly a broker?

I could go on, but I think you see my point. If you can come up with a clear cut definition of what constitutes a broker, I'd be interested to see it!

Philip has said that adding this ability has been moved up the priority list.

nods Lisse
Cat

How about:

"person(s) purchasing land with the intention to profitably onsell the land within the immediate future"

I agree with LF here... the free market is the way to go. Economically, as little regulation as possible is a good thing. Regulation stifles innovation.

~Jaq