Wow! Low auction prices now.

Some other odd stuff - the same person who won Rollie in the auctions won 2 other sims the same day, neither of which have been paid for.

Rollie is currently owned by an av only 6 days old, who only took ownership of it an hour ago.

Sorry, I thought you were only taking back the 'throwaway account' part, not the whole thing.

Does anyone know this guy who bought all that land and want to ask him what he's thinking?

The land market is making no sense to me right now. I'm glad I only play a little here and there for pocket change. Anyone think we'll get another 20 dumped on us at once this weekend? I mean, the only ones up right now are set to close in 14 hours.

I was referring to the throwaway part, but it would a bit strange for somebody to use a well established account to win all that land with the intention of never paying for it IMHO.

I'm beginning to think somebody made a monstrous miscalculation at some point, and rather than taking the loss is just defaulting on the payment.

As for the land market, I'm expecting at least another 16 in one go soon., maybe 20.

Oh, and somebody just bought that 65536sqm.

Bought or taken out of a group?

It's entirely possible that the noob was bidding up the price and got caught with the bag. I think we have dealt with enough noobs and permanoobs to know that some folks just don't understand the land market, and don't take the time to think through their purchases.

Bought. He put the entire thing back up at 11.4. I was there when he bought it.

I don't think there was anything brilliant or sinister at play here. Just an inexperienced bidder who bid off more than he could chew.

When are those 20 sims dropping? The auction list looks pretty sad. Anyone seen a correllation between the length of time between auction list dumps and how many sims they drop at one time?

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Post moved

Tier simply isn't a problem for any land trader with a well-defined business model. It's only a problem for the people who see L$ signs in their eyes and dive into the market with no real consideration of their risks and costs.

Stephen I have moved the debate on this to a seperate thread and have edited out the previous post, hope you do not mind, the link is here.

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The comment I would make about land is that it is difficult to plan a decent business model around new land retailing for 12 to 14 $L per square meter when wholesale land costs around $2,800 to $3,000 per sim.

If you work it out that’s 65536 times say $L13 (the retail prices I see) which equals $L 851,968

$3,000 plus one months tier equals $3,195 which at 270:1 equals $L 862,650

Potential profit equals around $L10,600 Lindens or $40 for $3,000 US of risk capital


When Linden Labs first started auctioning Sims the retail price was around $1,000. Anshe Chung purchased 30 of them to the right bottom of the old continent. Those days (sadly) have gone.

Regards John

I'm surprised to see this post from you John. It ignores a number of key points. It does not cost a minimum of USD195 in tier for every sim it only costs that much if you trade one sim a month. If you can flip 20 then you are only paying USD10 in tier per sim.

Your exchange rates are slightly wrong. You can get L$266/USD with a fee of 3.5%.

I agree you are risking $3000 to make $185 (or similar, not these exact figures of course). But if you can find me a RW investment where I can make 5% in a week with such a small capital outlay I'd really like to hear about. Also the risk is not all or nothing. If I buy a sim for $3000 today there's a high chance it will be worth $2800 or maybe $2500 tomorrow. But the possibility of it dropping to $2000 or even $0 is pretty small in the short time frame we are considering.

All in all I would say it is a high risk investment, very high indeed. But the risk to return ratio is not unreasonable at all. Certainly you need to pick your price point. You can't pay 11.2/sqm when the bottom of the market is at 11.5 like some people have lately but it's been historically common to buy land at auction 1-1.5/sqm under the bottom of the market.

Well put Elanthius - as an example, I'm expecting to trade at least 20 sims this billing month, which reduces the cost impact of the tier by a factor of 20. Or 10 if we assume I had to double up on my tier to hold that much land relative to the tier I would need for 1 sim a month.

And I also don't calculate my profit/loss on every sim, I do it on a monthly basis. I did actually buy a sim the other night with the intent of selling it at cost, which I did very successfully, making a US$9 profit on the entire thing. However, in any non-monopolistic business your own profits are not always the only concern.

$9? Sweet!

Okay Elanthius I do not care to trade $3,000 in a market without more or less instant escrow for a projected return of 5% per trade.

In all fairness I could take that $3,000 (sterling equal say around £1,550) and trade that via Contracts For Difference on the London or New York markets.

Gearing would give me up to 20 times that total, say £30,000, and you can nearly always make a few bob on the top 15 LSE stocks by market cap or the Dow 30.

Its even greater on Forex.

That is on inter day movement ONLY, no "overnighters" Also no commission or stamp duty and I would pay market spreads only

Here is the link for your interest

http://www.cmcmarkets.co.uk/

This business is totally reputable, and authorised by the FSA.

Why on earth would I want to trade illiquid sims when I can trade vod, emg, barc, bat gsk, tsco, cat aa ip jpm (etc etc etc) with instant execution, world wide liquidity, and instat stop losses. (all the FT350 Forex SP500 Dow, and most other world markets plus forex and soft and hard commodities)

What I am talking about HERE is a viable good revenue business stream OR a good passive investment

PS CFD trading is not for inexperianced investors. But neither are Sims, I know what I prefer, sorry to be blunt

Yep, going to retire to the Bahamas on that!

Well, I pretty much didn't understand a thing you just wrote. But if you can turn $3000 into $60,000 daily then I tip my hat to you.

I wish I could !!!!

But the point is I "could" possibly make 5% on each trade using $3k as capital, pay no tier and cap any losses Mr E.

Instant

But I honestly do not want to sit in front of a computer screen all day waiting for the "trade" moment to occur

No new sims in the auction queue. You know what that means...No new sims in the auction queue.

Maybe this means LL is going to dump another 16 or 20 at the same time. I am watching very closely. I think we all should.

Nice call.