Land Market Cornered

I wonder what would happen if a Land Baron consortium pooled their funds and bought up every piece of land available in SL? Creating an unprecidented scarcity and drove the valuation higher in both the Land's retail asking price and the Linden Dollar. It would be the ultimate cornering of the market.

And even though Linden Labs could (if they wanted) to break that corner on the market, it would take them time to acquire the servers, implement them, and sell them. Then it begs the question, would LL continue to sell new land at an affordable price to SLers to break the Land Baron Corner on the market, or would LL add to the problem by charging the market rate for land and keeping prices high?


Land for Sale Today
-------------------------
Acres for Sale: 2,341 (x 4096 = 9,588,736/m2)
Land per m/2: L$ 6.04

Total Value of Land Forsale: L$57,915,965 (US$191,701)

Just recrunching my numbers, that is about 150/sims worth of available land in SL. Enough land to give EVERYBODY in SL a 26.91/m2 plot.

Seems to me like we have a Land Glut, right along with a L$ Dollar Glut.

I don't think people want to fill up every peice of land. There needs to be land available for sale so people have a choice. It is not a land glut. I also don't think demand would stay the same if people tried to raise the price of land. There should be an ideal price that will produce the most profit when you multiply the number of people willing to buy by the price things are selling at. If the land barons tried to corner the market, then they would eventually see that their profits decreased, and they would have to sell at lower prices or lose money to the huge teir taxes. You have to make at least a 20% profit a month before the teir fee or else you loose money. I don't think we have a land glut or a situation where the market is worth cornering. If it was something essential such as oil or food things might be different, but Second Life is a luxury good everyone can live without.

Must... Cause... Panic...

Good thing you're wrong as usual.

I'll tell you what would happen -- they would get clobbered and lose an assload of money.

I can guarantee you that LL would add as many servers as it took to drop land prices down to what they consider an "acceptable" level. They have done this before, back in the fall of 2004. Those were the days when land (and currency) prices spiked to an all-time high and people were going crazy buying, parcelling, and reselling land. The heyday of the land baron. In response, LL "...added a ton of new land in order to break the backs of the land barons" (direct quote from a Linden who shall reman nameless).

No reason to think they wouldn't do it again.

That figures.. Just like a Socialist Gov't who stomps out Capitalism because it interferes with their goal of creating a Utopia. Looks like they have also stepped up the L$ printing machine. More dollars to swim in...

Purchasing Power of the L$ in 2006 is about 75% less than what is was back in 2004. Its just terrible what the Lindens have done..

Sorry? L$ buys you more land now than then... so the purchasing power there has gone up.

In game, it's gained for land and lost or gained NOTHING for content.

But, in case you mean the L$ then it's lost just 20% since it started, or the $ has gained 25% (remember, it STARTED at 250, so use that as the base or you're being dishonest with your facts)


You want to check your numbers?

Right or wrong, there has been a definate decrease in land sales. It's either one of two reasons.. too much land on the market, or summer. Being that I've been seeing record number of people online at any given time, I'm leaning toward the prior at the moment.. but we won't know for sure for a couple months.

AC Tried several months ago with "Ocean Front" property on the mainland - likely to help drive "sales" of dreamland, and at least in my neighborhood it looks like it flopped pretty well. THe good part was all the land around us got bought up in one fell swoop and got re-priced to usurious levels which kept the sim pretty lag free and open for quite a while, until they decided it was time to stop the "program" and dropped the prices to less than what they paid - 4096sm plots went from ~$L36k to ~$L64k and then dropped down again to about $L20k iirc. So, if ya want to take a bath, be my guest

I have an idea ReserveBank Delusi--er, Division... How about you start your own metaverse and run it your way and in a few years we'll see how successful it is.

You can set whatever rules you'd like. Make it a perfectly pure capitalist society (though I doubt that would last as soon as you start getting trounced by others). Start with a set amount of money and never print any additional money. Make it a rule in your forums that if someone fails to post an attempt to induce panic at least once a week, he or she is suspended. You can even ask other exchanges that handle the L$ to start dealing with your Reserve Bank Dollars as well.

Whaddaya say...three years from this date we'll all log into your metaverse and see what a perfect society should be like.

Well I agree in part with RDB, there is a land glut. Of course there's been one for months and months, but it's only convenient for him to comment on it now that the L$ is strengthening again so he can't try to scare us into selling at silly prices.

Don't believe me? Open the map, make sure land for sale is checked... Just look at how many plots there are up for sale. Hit search and look for land for sale... See how many plots there are in the list?

This isn't necessarily a bad thing (except for RBD's land barony hopes and any real barons) because it gives people a chance to get into buying and owning land (and plenty do), and thus buying L$ and so forth... Oh dear, suddenly there's a demand that old RDB hadn't thought about.

Interesting hypothesis.... here's how I see it playing out:

1) LL cheers! "Look at all this tier revenue!" and releases more land.
2) Land barons cheer, "Look how much more I can sell land for!"
3) Indifferent land owners cheer, "I can sell my land finally, yay"
4) Landless Citizens mope, "Man land is too expensive."
5) Land barons mope, unable to sell land fast enough to cover their bloated tier fees.
6) Desperate to reclaim something, land owners begin undercutting each other to get some $ back for their investment and land prices begin plummeting.
7) Many posts on the forums throughout.
things stabilize after a while and people adapt and carry on.
9) RBD finds a new way to stir up trouble and the cycle repeats.

well your not also taking into effect the number of 512sqm plots for sale at L$999999999

there *IS* a lot of land out there..... but also a lot of it is some person for some reason unknown to me decides to set their land for sale at such a price no one will buy it.

Sort the list by L$/sqm higest to lowest.... that should give you a reasonable representation to how much land in the list is not *really* for sale.

i just looked.... rough guess is maybe 8-10% of the land is listed at a price that its not really for sale.

the land IS selling... the following numbers are a little off because of a bug with the date in my script but....

Plots Bought: 31
SQM Bought: 50,560
$ Spent: $191,776

Plots Sold: 40
SQM Sold: 63,664
$ Earned: $281,138

Just as an experiment, I suggest RBD use his own money to buy up all the remaining land, in the name of science of course.

If he's right, he can sell all the $L he hasbeen accumulationg for 170 per USD and make a nice profit.

But if he can't and can't make tier, we can all post here SELL SELL SELL and maybe pick up some good land deals.

After all, SL is all about making money.

Well, if it wasn't, you wouldn't need Linden Dollars or the LindenX, now would you? lol

The Master of Puppets are pulling your strings, twisting your mind, and smashing your dreams.

That silly game of bowling costs as much as SL does, yet I don't hear too many people wearing those funny shoes complain about how bowling is all about making money.

If you're here to make money alone, by all means do so, and I wish you the best of luck.

But somehow I don't think you should quit your day job just yet.

I didn't catch that.... You said something about Bowlers not being in it for the money??

$2.7 Million Prize Fund Largest In WIBC Tournament History
Bowling Newsline

GREENDALE, Wis. - The prize fund for the Women's International Bowling Congress Championship Tournament has reached an estimated $2.7 million - the largest in WIBC history.

Yup, most of the bowlers at harry's bowling and geasy spoon emporium aren't in it for the money. Perhaps i need to bowl with a better crowd.

I'm not denying there's land there allegedly for sale, but at silly prices. Nor am I saying land isn't selling. Neither of those are prevent there being a land glut. Are those numbers, however approximate daily? Because there are for sale, as non-first land at the moment some 5898 plots. If we chop 10% for land that's not really for sale, that's still 5300 plots actually up for sale (and that's not counting first land and land for auction). We're also not looking to see how many plots and sqm are added each day... Sadly the economic stats page don't let us see this easily. Looking back at those stats at midnight yesterday there were 6201 plots, the day before 6141. So there was (for 24h at least) an increase in the land for sale, however many we chop out. Today it looks like there might be a decrease (or a problem with their counting either on the website or in world). Despite this potential decrease I'll still say there's a glut. Without ANY new land being added (unlikely), there's still months worth of land already supplied out there, hence a glut.

In all honesty, I've dreamed of winning the lottery and dumping a few million into SL to see what could/would happen. Would I buy it all, then immediately release it, bogging down the LL auction queue? Would I buy it all and then set it to sell for L$1 to anyone? Would I see how much L$ can be purchased at once on the LindeX before it breaks?

If you had $10 million, and you had to spend it on SL, what would you do?

Corner the Lindex and currency market and play Fed. Reserve.

Buy 250,000 Starax wands and scream buffalo.

I did a forum search and a seach in the game too, and for some reason I just couldnt find this so called Master of Puppets. Maybe you could clear that up for us.

Now, if you mean Linden Labs is pulling the strings for their own nefarious reasons, I suggest this link.

https://secondlife.com/account/cancel.php

Of course, you may be referring to the vile orbital mind control lasers too, your posts are not exactly clear who you think the enemy is. If that's the case, try this link. It's the Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie website, An Effective, Low-Cost Solution To Combating Mind-Control.

http://zapatopi.net/afdb/

Hope this helps. And remember, shiny side points out!

fallacy! Why?

You cannot own something that can be added to by the touch of a button.
You would say to yourself 'I am buying land'... you are not buying land.

You are buying a specifically created version of land... which does NOT have a finate amount.

You cannot hold a monopoly on something that is infinite!

Just an observation...