Why haven't we seen land development/investment groups yet?

So, I'll assume that most folks that pay a certain amount of tier don't use 100% of it; that is, they end up having to pay $US 25, but don't use the full 4096 for whatever reason.

On the other side of the coin, we have people, or small groups of people, who go around the world, mostly doing sell/resell work on land plots to interested parties, usually taking a 5 or 10% profit margin.

Why hasn't anyone combined these two ideas?

For instance: Let's say we have a group, the Faboo Virtual Realty Co. A few folks are the officers (who are in charge of utilizing the land donations, land development, land reselling, etc.). The rest of the folks are regular members, who donate their "extra" tier into the group.

Now let's say that the group, as a whole, has around 8000 sq. meters to use because of these land investments. Now they go around and buy a few plots, maybe develop them, and sell them off. The group would then split the profits according to the proportion of tier donated; so if someone donated 40% of the total land tier in the group, he or she would receive 40% of the profits from land sales.

This has two advantages:

The group officers would be the folks who love buying and selling land, and maybe a builder or two who loves to build but doesn't have any extra land.

The members would be people who are interested in generating a few extra lindens a month off of land that they wouldn't be using anyhow.

It's a win-win situation, eh?

Discuss.

LF

That IS happening.

In the form that I described? ANshe + 5 alts doesn't count as a group.

LF

I have had something like this for months, but I don't know if you paid attention.

There is a lot of difficulty in getting people to donate tier. Most people don't "get it". They are afraid of it, even though it costs them nothing, they already pay for it, and they should put it to use to gain access to land and get greater purchasing power. They can come and go as they like, they are free, just give notice to avoid undertiering the group and threatening it with Linden seizure.

Trying to work out formulas like "you gave 40 percent of the tier so you get 40 percent of the tier price" isn't so workable, for one, because when you make a sale inside a group, the sale amount distributes equally to every member of the group, giving more to officers and less to members, using some arcane Linden formula I guess. It's annoying, and you have to constantly remember to take the land OUT of the group for the sale, thereby losing its 10 percent advantage. It's easier with larger-volume land groups and smaller, less frequent sales. Sometimes, you just let a sale of say, a cheap 512, go through and give everyone their $100 bonus, what the heck, if they are donating tier, God bless them. Other times, you have to put the land to the individual to make the sale, then figure out, ok, who gets what, but then it is manually and opens itself up to squabbles.

When the Lindens can refine the land group tools better, this might become workable. First, they have to remove the "treacherous officer" problem by making a separate category of "investing officers" who invest either money for the purchase, i.e. by making the purchase for the group, or tier in the group. Of course, they could pull their tier at any time, and that is the risk for these groups -- a big, expensive, annoying risk I might add from personal experience.

Another thing they need to do is precisely what you suggest, to be able to set percentages of sales, and things like ticket costs or admissions costs, so that it doesn't just automatically distribute like that to every single person, regardless if they paid a dime in tier or purchase price.

The group tools are really hugely annoying and inconvenient and you constantly sense the hand of some socialist utopian hippie commune idealogue at work here. They think everything should be equal always, and that everyone should get the same slice, and that everyone should just be nice and get along, so they don't build in protections for that one treacherous one who seizes land others pay for in Lindens or tier, and sells it out from under the others. There's also that ridiculous "recall" function which is never used to remove tyrants legitimately, and is always used to further the tyrannical goals of the griefer. It's a huge pain in the ass.

Still, I persist in trying to make groups, trying to put officers in who help with tier, purchase price, building, or advertising, and try to get members to donate tier. I think it's a great thing to leverage the game possibilities and have access to more land in a rational way to keep it from getting so crapped up with lag and blight.

Money from grouped land that is sold is split equally among all group members and officers, regardless of tier donation.

I am constantly sitting on unused tier and would gladly give tier to paying groups. The rate will be $1 L per m2 per week.

i have always thought this was a good idea, but like Prokofy said.. most people do not understand how it works and are unsure/afraid to go into this sort of group agreement. With 1.6 coming and being able to sell the houses with the land, it shoudl open up the business a bit more.

I love what the gigas group have done in Miens... its truly beautiful... and their rent is a lot cheaper than a teir thing if you paid for it, it would be great to see their project take off and possible spread over several sims on the mainland!

Are you high?

1 L$/m^2 per week?

The reason this isnt done is because of the amazingly inept group system. There is no way to change the income distribution; so everyone gets a "fair share" of any profit that goes to the group regardless of the deal between parties. I think you'd find that if they ever changed it so you could control your own money quite a few groups like this would spring up overnight.

Yeah, that's a bit odd as that is $8000 for 1024 / month or $16

Can't you get 1024 for $9.99 / month?