Did Landbots chase the brokers out?

Seems to me like the real estate market is in a big rut. It's not just the sims that are coming to auction pretty steadily. It feels like there is no one buying. Either the brokers that used buy up the first page of the list are no longer taking the chance that they can resell the first page listings for higher or they are just plain no longer there.

Bots get the bargain plots. The larger profit margins are gone for the botless brokers. So there is little or no incentive to click the list hoping to make a few dollars here and there. It appears that the brokers that used to flip and keep the market prices rising slowly but steadily have thrown in the towel.

Meanwhile the few real end users of the land have plenty of new plots to choose from.

Am I right about all this? Any of it?

IMHO, it has to do with a lot of factors. One of those being the changes in rules applied to Gambling. Sure, lots of folks are still doing it, and lots of folks are still running with it... But many are choosing to be safe and stop now. Personal opinion of the notice from LL on gambling makes it clear that if you are doing it, then you should know the laws of your country. This means that if caught in the US, you are breaking Federal Law and likely will end up charged for it.

I watch the market fairly close. The land values started to turn the same day LL made the announcement related to Gambling.

Have you seen this site? http://www.sllandlist.com/

They note on their home page that average time to sell is increasing, and that logins numbers have been stagnant for a while. Just another piece of the puzzle. I think that you both have good points, about the bots and the gambling regulations.

I don't like where this is headed, and I'd rather not lose money. I've sold all my land other than what I need for my store, and am tiering down. Perhaps when prices crash next time, I'll pick up a small beach lot, to fit into my new tier limits.

Good maybe land will be less expensive and where it should be priced.

ok...number 1.. the slight price fall and LL's announcement on gambling was a coincidence in my opinion. The change in price we are seeing is purely due to supply and demand. There was a time there for a while that new land wasnt being released on any sort of scale and the land prices shot up, then LL started releasing a major stream of land and thus people bought up land. The demand has decreased therefor the people who are selling land have to make it more appealing.
The landbots didnt do anything that the land barons werent already doing, they just did it faster. In fact...landbots have been good in a way as they make it possible to sell awkwardly shaped and sized land...allbeit at a lesser price.
If people panic and "sell up" we will see a bit more of a drop in prices I think... but it wont change much for the landbarons and baby barons...as long as land is available...they will continue to buy, also...no sooner does one baron give up...but 2 arrive in their place.

I think land will probably start to hold position at about $10L per sqm. We might see it go under for a bit... but it will rise again soon enough.

Some other things to think about is the issues people are having with billings right now. Many of the heavier buyers aren't daring it, just in case they can't make their premium payments.

Also is the other issues that keep cropping up, such as a harder and harder time TPing anywhere, L purchases going stale, and bad lag in general have shaken buyers' faith in Linden Labs.

With the Landbots and other attached issues, well, this means that it's a good time to buy, if you want.. but who wants to?

The score is pretty sad indeed, yes I got out of the land market the same week Landbots came, it was time for a change. it wasnt just landbots though, for a month before the landbot, earnings where getting meager as new baby barons came in the profit margins got smaller and smaller. I remember my last big transaction deal was for 285k, my total profit of the deal, less than 15k, just wasnt worth it anymore to risk 1000 USD for 40 or 50 USD. The landbot was the nail in the coffin.
I still am amazed that SL who encourages entrepenuerism and business building allowed Landbots to stay and kill the biggest thriving market that added value to thier world. But then again, with the past record of fouling up working features, removing any forum that might project a negative image, and failing to provide adequate customer service. Its quite clear that they fall victim to thier own mismanagement, and have far bigger internal problems to deal with than to resolve issues that have to do with residents earning a living, but gee I sure am glad its only going to take 6 months to deactivate the rating system. Which was obviously flawed long ago

I'm sure this will be disputed, but here's how I see it.

It's got nothing to do with bots. Bots aren't a primary demand factor, people are, and bots work because people do *not* factor them into their decisionmaking process.

Winter in the northern hemisphere is over. It's time to go outside, for most folks.

Oh, they'll be back, in force, later. Next fall you won't be able to beat customers off with a stick, unless there is some major, world-changing event like new competition for Second Life.

We'll see the summer surge of younger people too. Who have less income but spend a LOT more on digital entertainment services.


Where's my stats?

Just my weather eye, knowing several hundred people modestly well and talking to thousands and thousands of people.

I could be totally wrong, but my biz hasn't been suffering and this is one of the key factors I consider.

I.e.:
- don't overextend in the winter months,
- don't expect the cash-rush of the young, summer crowd to hold,
- expect short term user churn in June and Sept/Oct when demographics swap.


From Farmer Des' Almanac:
Daylight long shines, land price declines.

I'm willing to bet that landbots are responsible for cutting off the low-risk/high reward bottom segment of the land market from the average human speculator. This may have led to only the best land dealers surviving - that is, people who can accurately evaluate the value of marginal land, actually create land value, provide value-added services etc. As obstacles to business pile up, more and more players ought to drop out of the game.

In any case though, the backbone of the land market is demand for land to actually use. While a competitive marketplace may cut down on actual transactions, all other things being equal, sales-to-end-users should remain at the same level, or possibly increase as the tighter marketplace curbs speculation-based inflation.

All anyone has to do is look at the sobering number of people actually spending money in world on the economic statistics page. The number is pretty dismal. In March it was only 264,346 people.

Also mainland has proven to be more trouble than it is worth. Most of it is ugly, laggy and carries a risk that someone will move in and ruin your dream. I sold off all of my mainland holdings and right now am waiting to see if anymore poor policy changes are dropped on us before I decide to take the plunge and buy a private island. I'm mostly waiting to see if customer service improves, because if it doesn't then I will not reward LL by giving them any more money.

Dont you think thats a significant fraction , even a significant majority of the truley active accounts.

If thats is indeed closer to the real number of active unique accounts rather than the big 5 million lie then yes those numbers would be great. However I wonder how many of that number are people just cashing out, are premium accounts vs. basic, etc...

I think the constant problems with the grid and vanishing customer service have played a very big role in people not investing much into SL anymore. There is certainly enough blame to spread around, but the brunt of it needs to be placed in the lap of LL. They are responsible for the grid problems, the allowing of land bots to be used (if indeed those have caused an upset in the market), and the dismal customer service.

I agree that it is a combination of all of the above. Plus the buzz is dying and there are less newbies in the pipeline (which could be a good thing--no reason to have them join us until the performance issues are addressed). My point on the land bots is just that they are taking away the incentive for small time brokers like myself. It is truly a waste of time for me to click the land search page. I won't find any bargains that would bring me enough profit to make it worth it. Once upon a time, one good find would almost cover my tier. Those fun days are over.

The fun days died for me when we started having more than 5000 people on at a time.

I don't believe the landbots are the issue in the current dearth of land agents, but simply the fact that the land supply has caught up and is staying ahead of demand. When land was scarce, one could buy land at market prices on day and sell it for a nice profit--STILL AT MARKET PRICE--a few days later; thus one could turn over one's investment several times in one tier period. This sort of incentive created many land agents. As prices fell from over L$20/m2 to L$10/m2, the smart agents stopped buying land with any expectation of quick appreciation; speculation was punished rather than rewarded. As land prices stabilize, some will get back in, looking for bargains. Bargains are still out there; the only thing bots have taken off the table is the bottom of the market. However, bots can't evaluate factors such as location, neighbors, view, etc. as easily as humans do, so the current crop of land agents are buying land at market value in general but undervalued for the sector it represents.

My business may have been lessened, but I haven't been chased out of land entirely. Alot of the fun is gone. Land was like an easter egg hunt. The mixed, estate and mainland, listings were tangled together, hiding the eggs, but if you searched and put some time and effort into it, you really came out head.

While I don't think bots cause the volitility of the market as it is now (that was LL) this land dump of mainland can't continue forever. Alot of 'barrons' and 'baby barrons' have already left the biz. However, it has been a relatively soft landing. However, once the mainland dumping slows or stops, then the bots will be in a position to take control. That is when you will see the carnage. Transitioning a purely competitive market into a limited monopoly doesn't happen over night. However, when the dumping ends, the prices will start rising, and there will be no escaping the botmaster's control over the market. The dump has protected buyers. It won't forever.

Thankfully, I am making money beyond selling mainland now. Renting land on my private island and fully terraform sim (or 81% of it), pay my tier and give me money. My new club which SHOULD finally open April 24th (things are finally coming together on that). Will hopefully give me more money as well. And I have 2 other projects in the works. However, I feel the land market in SL is headed for disaster when the dumping ceases, mostly due to the botmasters' power of the market. Hopefully, by that time, I won't to give a darn, although I will be saddened though. End of an era, raise a glass, that sort of thing.

No worries, it may get back to those numbers again for you when we all pack up and leave to the competition, maybe even less

Easter weekend was bad for anyone trying to rely on getting money to or from SL, seeing as it looks like the whole billing system was down. Add to that, a lot of people (here at least) took the whole of easter week off to go off on holiday, and yes the sun is shining more.

Mostly, though, I've looked at the mainland map for weeks and seen so much yellow I had to turn off the monitor for fear of it burning in. All that land hoping to sell, sitting there, eating tier.

Lower prices, people will start buying again. We're always being told that it's just "market forces" right? So sell cheaper and watch the land get hoovered up. Hoovered up by the other guy's bots, sure, but it'll sell

No real drop in my house sales, so they must be putting them out somewhere, that's even considering the increasing number of cheap knockoffs of my stuff I'm seeing- it's all people owning/renting land with houses on!

Mainland, IMO (as a relative newbie to this), despite all its problems, still has value to those who want to buy land, and have realised that they will never truly *own* Island land (unless rich enough to buy their own island

I think less experienced people will still buy plots on the new sims, if they are priced right. But, as Ace says, I wonder if residents who've been here a little while are put off by all the yellow on the map - for example, I was offered land on the next door sim before it went on general sale, but had to turn it down partly cos of Tier, and partly because there was so much other land for sale around it, there was no saying what would have turned up in the next days or weeks.

I suspect another factor that puts off potential buyers in the newer sims is the proliferation of these ugly, useless (who ever reads them?) Ad Fields.

There has been land for sale in another adjacent sim for weeks, at a good price, but not selling IMO because just across the road are absolutely *hundreds* of these visual pollution Ad prims. Who on earth would want to build a house with *that* as a view?

Can you tell I don't like (or see the point of) Ad Farms? Sorry, rant over But I suspect they also have a big bearing on whether land will sell or not.

The reason your houses are still selling is that they are the best in SL. I LOVE my Ace Domi house!

Yes, prices dropped another half a point overnight. Cheap auctions today. But I don't see us going lower than L$9.5 for all you folks who are waiting for it to get to 7-8 per meter. IMHO.

The value of ad farms is they make a small profit for the spam farmers who have no problem defacing the mainland. Everyone else hates them and no one clicks on them. They are a true blight on the mainland and proof that greed is ugly.

The only other folks who benefit from them are estate owners who rent ad-free sims out to people.

There are a few spiffy sites that track quite a bit of information on land sales.

First there is the most awesome work done by Melina Loonie... Yes, we all recall her from the Landbaron Merlin issue in Bietschhorn...

http://cosyhome.org/cgi-bin/auc_statistics/auction-stats.html

Thank you Melina!


Also, something I found last night while trolling around...

http://www.sllandlist.com/


And of course, there are the statistics on the second life web pages.

Cheers
Anjin

You can say that again. I sold my old lot I lived on in 512 sections. Well, the 6th section was scraps left over that showed up as 512 since I was about to subdivide it mantually. I price it at $5250 and the landbot snatched it up instantly. Well, that scrap turned out to be a 336 sq m lot and 176 sq m lot. You can't even get a house on it because it is strips. The landbot owns have the 336 sq m lot priced at $7850 and the 176 sq m lot listed at $4850. All I can say is.... good luck landbot.

Nothing to do with bots. It's a classic bubble crash caused by foolish speculators. A few months ago prices were rising faster than a missile on it's way to Moscow. Crowds of speculators expected prices to continue going up forever and ever, so they bought and bought and bought. All the reasonable buyers decided to wait. Now prices are slowly, but surely, sliding back down toward a reasonable level. All of the 'get rich quick' crowd is ready to bail out. Get a clue, folks. It's 'buy LOW, sell HIGH' not the other way round.

I'm not a land dealer, but as a premium account with a small landholding on the mainland I've followed the land market out of curiosity mostly. From what I can see Landbots are a tool and are here to stay. We're likely to see a scenario in the near future where the larger land dealers use their own landbots to do the buying and then transfer the land to their smiling friendly land baron accounts for resale to the general public.

The land market in SL is bound to have shakeouts from time time as circumstances change and the arrival of the Landbots was one of the major changes. The land barons who survive will be the ones who incorporate Landbots into their buying system. It may not be popular with the general public or the smaller and 'ethical' land dealers, but that seems to be the direction it's heading in.