Price of the new continent is going thru the ROOF!!!

Hi all,

Just notice the bid price has gone above the $3500 mark for the first 8 lots of SIMS. Now I wonder who's bidding up the price... $3500 is already over the recent average.

$5000 high is going to be broken soon. Poor newcomers

Zen

I guess we can safely say eliminating first land will be increasing land prices for the time being...

Yes, this is not what I was expecting. Very interesting...

At those prices it will effectively push many landflippers out of business. I just wonder how much more the economy can take before it collapses under it's own bloat and greed. I hope that time is nearing. Until then I will be saving my money and waiting.

Isn't it really interesting to see this economical and social experiment develop and run amok? The pure market force is not to be trusted alone as it seems. There's a reason why usually there are regulations to prevent total chaos in the real world.

Maybe (sadly) SL needs some of these regulations, too?

Very possibly, Tanya. However every time there's been a call for any form of land market and/or business regulation in SL it's been met with howls of protest by the 'wild-west uber-free market' posse. They shout the loudest, wave the stars'n'stripes and predictably LL takes their agenda onboard :\

Looking at the prices being paid for those new mainland sims, I simply can't understand why anyone bothers. Surely it would be alot cheaper to club together with a few friends (best to work with RL friends in this case) and buy an island sim. If LL's long-term plan is to kill off the mainland and hand over land ownership to 'barons' they're certainly going about it the right way.

Again parallels to the real world can be drawn where big lobbies control the politics more and mroe instead of the will of the masses. Just think if copy/content control, digital rights management and trusted computing discussions.

Secondlife to me is not only a game. I play within it without paying much attention to the problems that arise when it comes to "limited" resources such as land - or rather: computing power. Yet I cannot help notice the experimental nature of the whole SL economy.

Hmmm.... interesting.
We have:
- market and politics controlled by lobbies more and more
- a big and expanding 3-d virtual environment
- more and more control put onto people to keep them "safe"

... now.... there is a SciFi genre featuring these elements strongly. We only needs some more rebels against the society we are slowly steering towards.
Oh... and the possibility to mind-control our interaction within secondlife.

Who would have thought 10 years ago, that we would now be so close to what has been called "Cyberpunk"?

Okay, that was my contribution to thread-hijacking today. I hope you enjoy it.

I'm not surprised to see the prices going up. When the First Land cancellation was announced, I figured the reactions would fall into a few categories...

I suspect many who had been considering going premium but haven't yet, will now make up their minds and stay basic / free. They can spend their US$10 per month on L$ and get a much better deal than stipends.

Among those who had upgraded to premium and have been looking for first land, some will probably cancel their accounts in disgust, dismay, or discouragement. Or if not cancel, will just let their accounts run out, revert to basic, and never buy land.

Some of those premiums though, will still want land, and will want to take advantage of their 'free' 512m tier. That group, without the possibility of First Land, will bite the bullet and find their 512m at market price. Depending on how many fall into this category, there could be quite a few who, instead of searching for First Land, will start searching for 512 wherever they can find it, and look for the best deal they can get.

And this, to my mind, means that demand for 512m plots may be going up somewhat. The question is, how much demand will there be - what ratio of recent premiums will 'bite the bullet' and what ratio will leave.

I've found watching the SL economy and land market to be quite interesting, in the 2 months I've been around. Not a land barron myself, and not interested in becoming one. For what it's worth, I never got first land myself, was too impatient so I paid full price for my own land. Nonetheless, I found the announcement and the way it was handled left me feeling surprised and dismayed.

-Atashi

Atashi, with the closure of the first land program there is no longer any point in 512 sq m plots except for the few premium accounts who do not wish to spend any more on their SL (and fair play to them). I fully expect to see most 512 sq m parcels on sale today coalesced into 1024 sq m plots very soon

I'd say that most premium members don't want to spend more... that's a pretty big market for 512s...

And how many of those landless premium accounts left high and dry by LL's decision are going to want to stick around? I wouldn't be surprised if many of them simply cancel their subscription / membership out of disgust.

Eh, there'll be plenty of new users to fill their spots...

I already know of a few because now they will never be able to afford it. I would too if I weren't already neck deep in land that thankfully was purchased before all the rampant greed and LL's shift in policy favoring the land barons.

What the land barons don't realize is that by increasing the price of mainland that much it will just drive customers to us private islands owners. C'mon, who wants expensive laggy land?

I find it suspicious that first land was cancelled at exactly the same time as the new sims on the new continent were put up for auction. As evidenced by the current bidding war, LL are going to sell these sims over the current market value and I believe the abolishment of first land and the release of numerous new sims is not coincidental.

It's not coincidental... from the Blog:

"Our hope is that through much higher levels of mainland expansion, market forces will act to bring resale prices down over time, for example the new continent being brought up to the east."

For the "time being" maybe. But, heavens, it's only been 24 hours since the end of the FL program! Right now it's like the RL Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889. That kind of frantic buying climate won't last forever. IMHO things will slow down and level out.

The timing probably isn't coincidental, but I think the reasoning is different. As they stated on the blog: "Our hope is that through much higher levels of mainland expansion, market forces will act to bring resale prices down over time, for example the new continent being brought up to the east". In other words, they know they now need to start releasing a lot more land in order to make land affordable in the absence of first land, and they waited until they were in a position to do so. (Edit - just noticed Rockwell already made this point.)

I hope the people currently bidding very high prices on the new mainland sims heeded those words, for their sake. I'd say they're gambling pretty heavily.

It is a Shame I found buying my first land to be a major adventure! I agree that just buying lindens is the way to go now!

My 2 cents
I believe it's not the land barrons who drive prices up . Land barrons exists now and also existed in the past when prices were at 2 and 3l/meter.
That is a proof that the problem is not caused by land barrons.
SL history shows that there are up and downs in the market of land. Prices were going high, then down after a market crash and so on and so on. Land barrons and buyers existed through all this.

I couldn't agree more.

I think current auction prices may be a market blip. That land is going for over 14L/M.

Question is, will the resale market bear up to selling that land at over 14M/L? I seriously wonder if it will. To me, this seems like a majorly risky land speculation on the part of some, particularly when LL states openly that they hope to bring land prices down.

Don't buy land at inflated prices, don't feed the insanity, and wait.


edit - Gah, I didn't read carefully enought, restated what others said better. )

When I became 'premiun', I couldn't find any first land so I bought and sold small plots, gradually working up to 512. It wasn't difficult and all the profit was made 'in world'. Only after that did I break my rule by buying an adjacent 512 with RL money, justified by the fact that it adjoined a future Linden highway.

I'm rather a newcomer to SL, and was wondering if people could explain this to me? Why are the new mainland sims going for so much?

- mainland sim, auctioning for ~$3500+; tier $195/month
- private island: initial cost ~$1700; monthly fees $295/month

Is it because as a land broker, when you sell mainland, it is completely not your problem any more? Or, if you kept it, the ongoing monthly fees would be less? Conversely, with a private island, even after you "sell" a parcel to someone else, you are still the official owner, and still responsible for the higher monthly fees?

Then again, if you wanted a whole Sim to yourself, paying the current auction premium, wouldn't it take almost a year and half of the lower monthly fees to "break even" from the inflated mainland initial cost? That seems like a pretty long time, IF you wanted a whole sim, rather than being a land broker.

Is there a difference between the servers LL is using for the two types of land?

Are there other major factors?

Just trying to understand this all. Thanks.

I suspect the sims are being bought for division and resale at a higher price for the most part. "Land Baron" does not care about initial cost versus Island cost as long as resale value exceeds initial cost. I suspect that with First Land gone, they are gambling on lots of people wanting land and paying more L/M for smaller plots.

I wouldn't invest my money that way right now.