Did Landbots chase the brokers out?
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Raymond Figtree
Gone, avi, gone
Join date: 17 May 2006
Posts: 6,256
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04-17-2007 12:01
From: Mikyo Tarski 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. A lot of these "foolish" speculators made quite a nice profit.
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Darien Caldwell
Registered User
Join date: 12 Oct 2006
Posts: 3,127
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04-17-2007 12:27
I think the landbots will end up turning a lot of people toward estate land, as the bots won't be there to cause outrageous increases in price. I only *wish* a bot would come buy one of my estate plots, so I could reclaim it and put it back for sale, and hope it bought it again... 
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Joy Iddinja
Registered User
Join date: 15 Sep 2006
Posts: 344
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04-17-2007 13:00
From: Darien Caldwell I think the landbots will end up turning a lot of people toward estate land, as the bots won't be there to cause outrageous increases in price. This is true, but not unexpected. I wish I could get folks to understand that what is happening in SL land with bots is not merely an innovative tech coming in, such as when land scanners became the vogue, but a complete overhaul of the SL real estate market. Literally, a purely competitive market is being transformed to a limited economy (oligarchy). When this happens, entry into the market becomes too expensive, if not impossible (not just the price of land but the time and money involved in ensure you have the fastest computer, internet connection, and most importantly, bots). In SL the only alternative to buying land is to renting it. I'm waiting for a stable mortgage system to come into the game, but other than that, land ownership will likely become rare. Old timers who were sentimental enough to hang onto their first land and the additional 512 they bought off their neighbor when he sold, will be viewed as visionaries. It is sad, as the limited monopoly exists to give a small group a disproportionally massive percentage of the wealth in any given market. RL corporations like this as it demonstrates to them that they can safely enter the market, without having to worry about regulations that protect the common person or the small business owner, and gives them a small group of folks (botmasters) who they know think somewhat like them, to do business with. LL wants to court these people. That is why they allowed the bots to continue, why they were gung ho on libSL, why they are removing first land programs and decreasing stipends. They want to show the advertisers and the business interests they represent, that they are laize faire capitolists, with not a social capitolist pixel in their avatar skins. SL is changing.
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tristan Eliot
Say What?!
Join date: 30 Oct 2005
Posts: 494
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04-17-2007 13:07
From: Joy Iddinja This is true, but not unexpected. I wish I could get folks to understand that what is happening in SL land with bots is not merely an innovative tech coming in, such as when land scanners became the vogue, but a complete overhaul of the SL real estate market. Literally, a purely competitive market is being transformed to a limited economy (oligarchy). When this happens, entry into the market becomes too expensive, if not impossible (not just the price of land but the time and money involved in ensure you have the fastest computer, internet connection, and most importantly, bots). In SL the only alternative to buying land is to renting it. I'm waiting for a stable mortgage system to come into the game, but other than that, land ownership will likely become rare. Old timers who were sentimental enough to hang onto their first land and the additional 512 they bought off their neighbor when he sold, will be viewed as visionaries.
It is sad, as the limited monopoly exists to give a small group a disproportionally massive percentage of the wealth in any given market. RL corporations like this as it demonstrates to them that they can safely enter the market, without having to worry about regulations that protect the common person or the small business owner, and gives them a small group of folks (botmasters) who they know think somewhat like them, to do business with. LL wants to court these people. That is why they allowed the bots to continue, why they were gung ho on libSL, why they are removing first land programs and decreasing stipends. They want to show the advertisers and the business interests they represent, that they are laize faire capitolists, with not a social capitolist pixel in their avatar skins.
SL is changing. I made a proposal in feature suggestions to help the issue but there has been little support of it. Actually there are a few proposals in the SL Issue Tracker that are being ignored which is surprising with the amount of complaints that go on in the forums about land bots. So it leaves me to believe that people only want the bots gone so they can fill the bots place rather than see a better system go into place. /13/b5/176889/1.html
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Mikyo Tarski
Registered User
Join date: 27 May 2006
Posts: 29
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04-17-2007 13:21
From: Raymond Figtree A lot of these "foolish" speculators made quite a nice profit. Yes. The good news is that some people won the lottery. The bad news ... it wasn't you. As always, a handfull of wiseguys feed off of uninformed.
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Wildefire Walcott
Heartbreaking
Join date: 8 Nov 2005
Posts: 2,156
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04-17-2007 14:27
From: cHex Losangeles 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. Yep. The landbots always relist for a profit. They don't do weird things like buy a sim and sell it at a loss like I've seen several people do lately (I'm convinced not everyone takes tier into account when they buy a sim on auction). If prices are going down it's because people aren't selling land fast enough, and that can only mean it's because people aren't buying. You may well be right that the small prospectors- the ones who buy up land in a freshly flipped sim only to relist it within a few seconds- are backing away, but that's only because no one needs their land.
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cHex Losangeles
Registered User
Join date: 24 Nov 2006
Posts: 370
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04-17-2007 19:30
From: Joy Iddinja I wish I could get folks to understand that what is happening in SL land with bots is not merely an innovative tech coming in, such as when land scanners became the vogue, but a complete overhaul of the SL real estate market. Good luck with that. Consider some of the ways money may be made in the SL real estate market: 1. Purchase a private sim, develop it (or not), subdivide it, and rent it out for a profit. 2. Purchase a mainland sim at auction. Subdivide it, develop it (or not), and resell the parcels for a profit. 3. Purchase a parcel at market prices. Improve it. Resell it for more than you paid. 4. Purchase a parcel at below-market prices. Resell it for more than you paid. 5. Locate a parcel that is priced at or above average market prices, but is worth more than it is being offered for, due to such things as parcel size or proximity to water, roads, etc. Purchase it and resell it for more than you paid. 6. Purchase a parcel at about market prices. Wait for prices to go up. Sell for a profit. Landbots are only a factor in #4. For every other way listed here to make money in real estate, landbots are useless. You'd have a very hard time convincing me this is a "total overhaul" of the SL real estate market.
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cHex Losangeles
Registered User
Join date: 24 Nov 2006
Posts: 370
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04-17-2007 19:34
From: Wildefire Walcott If prices are going down it's because people aren't selling land fast enough, and that can only mean it's because people aren't buying.
You may well be right that the small prospectors- the ones who buy up land in a freshly flipped sim only to relist it within a few seconds- are backing away, but that's only because no one needs their land. My argument is that prices are going down because LL is releasing so much land so fast. Plenty of end users are buying land all the time, and have been since land cost twice as much per square meter. This means method #6 above is unwise at this time; all other methods remain viable.
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Joy Iddinja
Registered User
Join date: 15 Sep 2006
Posts: 344
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04-17-2007 22:22
From: cHex Losangeles Good luck with that. Consider some of the ways money may be made in the SL real estate market:
1. Purchase a private sim, develop it (or not), subdivide it, and rent it out for a profit.
2. Purchase a mainland sim at auction. Subdivide it, develop it (or not), and resell the parcels for a profit.
3. Purchase a parcel at market prices. Improve it. Resell it for more than you paid.
4. Purchase a parcel at below-market prices. Resell it for more than you paid.
5. Locate a parcel that is priced at or above average market prices, but is worth more than it is being offered for, due to such things as parcel size or proximity to water, roads, etc. Purchase it and resell it for more than you paid.
6. Purchase a parcel at about market prices. Wait for prices to go up. Sell for a profit.
Landbots are only a factor in #4. For every other way listed here to make money in real estate, landbots are useless. You'd have a very hard time convincing me this is a "total overhaul" of the SL real estate market. #1 and #2 require a high start up cost that hinder access the market for many, if not most = Limited Monopoly. I'm sure you can pull a handful of folks out of your hat who have started in SL these past few months who are now flipping new sims, but very few. Limited Monopoly isn't a Pure Monopoly. It's limited. It restricts entry and fair competition to a wealthy few, not a single person. With the right amount of money I could enter the softdrink business and make a brand. But I don't have billions of dollars to enter the market there either. #3 is a a myth. Fixing up mainland doesn't increase its value. I have never heard of anyone, outside of a private island owner, who did this and made a profit (and to own a private island, you must have at least $2k US, so we are back to the high start up cost = Limited Monopoly. Mainland has an innate value based on where it is (location on the grid, and sometimes whether it is near or far from a specific landmark, such as the railroads), eviron type (snow, green, waterland, PG, Mature, etc), what the general sim performance is (laggy or not), and most importantly, how it was 'baked' in the terraforming process (flat, mountainy, mostly underwater, etc.). Beautifying does very little to the value of the land in SL. Everyone has their dreams or uses for land and VERY FEW give a hoot about what was there before, or how the land was sculpted (at least in the case of +4/-4 terraformable land). Terraforming very rarely helps because terraformablity is so limited on mainland, and even when it does increase value, it is only a matter of 50-100 Lindens per 512 of land.
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Cristalle Karami
Lady of the House
Join date: 4 Dec 2006
Posts: 6,222
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04-17-2007 22:53
From: Joy Iddinja #1 and #2 require a high start up cost that hinder access the market for many, if not most = Limited Monopoly. I'm sure you can pull a handful of folks out of your hat who have started in SL these past few months who are now flipping new sims, but very few. Limited Monopoly isn't a Pure Monopoly. It's limited. It restricts entry and fair competition to a wealthy few, not a single person. With the right amount of money I could enter the softdrink business and make a brand. But I don't have billions of dollars to enter the market there either.
#3 is a a myth. Fixing up mainland doesn't increase its value. I have never heard of anyone, outside of a private island owner, who did this and made a profit (and to own a private island, you must have at least $2k US, so we are back to the high start up cost = Limited Monopoly. Mainland has an innate value based on where it is (location on the grid, and sometimes whether it is near or far from a specific landmark, such as the railroads), eviron type (snow, green, waterland, PG, Mature, etc), what the general sim performance is (laggy or not), and most importantly, how it was 'baked' in the terraforming process (flat, mountainy, mostly underwater, etc.). Beautifying does very little to the value of the land in SL. Everyone has their dreams or uses for land and VERY FEW give a hoot about what was there before, or how the land was sculpted (at least in the case of +4/-4 terraformable land). Terraforming very rarely helps because terraformablity is so limited on mainland, and even when it does increase value, it is only a matter of 50-100 Lindens per 512 of land. #3 could mean that the land comes with a transferable prefab house and landscaping. Granted, a lot or all of it could be free, but it saves time if the building is right. Saves time for the uncreative, which is, quite frankly, many of us.
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Watermelon Tokyo
Square
Join date: 20 Nov 2006
Posts: 93
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04-18-2007 02:05
From: Darien Caldwell I think the landbots will end up turning a lot of people toward estate land, as the bots won't be there to cause outrageous increases in price. I only *wish* a bot would come buy one of my estate plots, so I could reclaim it and put it back for sale, and hope it bought it again...  I would think that things like ad farms and laggy camp sites are more likely to drive people to estate lands. Worst case scenario, landbots only influence initial buying price. Once you get there, your neighbours are far more important that who sold you the land!
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Rockwell Ginsberg
Boss
Join date: 3 Oct 2006
Posts: 560
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04-18-2007 06:00
From: Raymond Figtree 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? I've thrown in the towel vis-a-vis mainland trading. I've got three Kush islands and a publicly traded company (on the World Stock Exchange) to manage now. The only mainland I still own is my personal land in Da Boom. Yes, bots killed the mainland game for me. Or maybe it was LL throwing so much supply at the market. Either way, I'm happy to focus on the Kush estate, and creating value for Kush residents and Kush shareholders alike. Shameless plug: the Kush Islands ticker symbol is "HOT" and we're paying monthly dividends of roughly 0.075L/share from profit generated by the Kush estate. We just added Kush III and have several beautiful waterfront lots left! Send me an IM if you're interested in any of this. Hope you're all well! See you in-world!
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Raymond Figtree
Gone, avi, gone
Join date: 17 May 2006
Posts: 6,256
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04-18-2007 06:58
From: Rockwell Ginsberg I've thrown in the towel vis-a-vis mainland trading. I've got three Kush islands and a publicly traded company (on the World Stock Exchange) to manage now. The only mainland I still own is my personal land in Da Boom. Yes, bots killed the mainland game for me. Or maybe it was LL throwing so much supply at the market. Either way, I'm happy to focus on the Kush estate, and creating value for Kush residents and Kush shareholders alike. Shameless plug: the Kush Islands ticker symbol is "HOT" and we're paying monthly dividends of roughly 0.075L/share from profit generated by the Kush estate. We just added Kush III and have several beautiful waterfront lots left! Send me an IM if you're interested in any of this.
Hope you're all well! See you in-world! Aha! A mainland broker leaves due to bots killing the mainland game. I knew it had to be the case for at least a few because 1) I was one of them, and I left because the bots ate all the deals 2) There are a lot of other pre-bot brokers like Rockwell who I never see listing land anymore. I know other factors play into the market as a whole, but before the bots, a savvy broker could make money no matter where the base of the market was. Now they can't. So they leave. Hence the title of my OP. Also, I think I may now know what the target base price is for LL regarding land: L$10 per meter. Notice the base went below that last night and they did not drop more sims to the auction queue. Coincidence? Waiting till after the down time to list?
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Dirk Talamasca
As Seen On TV
Join date: 5 Oct 2005
Posts: 58
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04-18-2007 08:48
Simply mark your land for sale at an outrageous price that the landbot will shun and which no one else in their right mind would pay. State the actual price in the about land title and parcel description and ask the buyer to contact you directly if interested. Place a sign on the property stating the actual price and also informing the potential buyer to contact you.
It may be an inconvenience to you not to be able to sell the land instantly to anyone but you don't have to use this method if that is the case.
With the actual price listed in the about land description, the land can be sorted in a search alphanumerically.
5k - 512sqm 10K - 1024 sqm 20K -2048 sqm
etc etc..
This method would serve to kill off some of the land listings that start their listings with a 0 or an exclamation point as well.
It renders searching by price useless with regards to the search tool but search in SL needs a complete and total overhaul anyway. This may serve as a push in the right direction. It will certainly render the landbot useless.
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Dirk Talamasca
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Lord Berchot
Retired Sideshow Geek
Join date: 29 Dec 2006
Posts: 125
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My 2 cents
04-18-2007 09:06
I'm small time. I only own 1/2 a region mainland and an island personally but I manage 6 full regions worth and one island for a couple differant landowners.
My biggest issue is with the avatar limits. One region where between myself and one other we own well over half of it, is tottaly unusable because a club moved into a 2048 in the very corner and filled with 50 camping chairs keeps the sim at full occupancy constantly. No one can get in. All the tenants I had have moved out, I don't blame them, they could never get home. But this one little 2048 should not be allowed to use the entire avatar allowence for the whole region. If SL is gonna fix the land market they need to change the limits or reserve 2 avatars per 1024 at all times. Or even limit the number by the % of the region the parcel occupies. Own 1/4 of the region, get 1/4 of the avatar allowance. NOT allow 1 little parcel to drain an entire region. Buying and developing land as a rental has become a greater gamble than playing the slots in Vegas. I won't be tiering up anymore simply because it's to great a gamble when one little lot can render an entire sim useless.
I only buy land in 4096 strips or better (like I said, I'm small time) and have found a few good deals, developed the land, put in sidewalks, trees, fountains, a few Daminis and a couple of Aces houses. (everyone loves the Rio BTW!). I am an end user and content provider, not a cut and resell speculator. I've even managed to kill 2 ad farms and donate a little land to the arbor foundation. But everywhere I go I see the same 2 or 3 names snapping up all the land, cutting it into little pieces and dramaticaly raising the price. I used to buy 512's and 1024's (up until last week in fact). I fixed them up, stuck out a xferable house and a car, then priced the land with a reasonable markup. Had no problem turning a profit. Now I'm at full tier with rental land and can't do this anymore and my issue is rentals have dropped drastically. I have very competative rates, beautifull landscaped communities, large empty areas between houses and lots of trees etc. Yet since easter weekend rentals have been dropping rapidly. So now I can't do development and sales without tiering up to a full region tier. Rentals aren't making a profit anymore and the only thing still going well is my love bed and prefab castle sales!
Not sure what happened, to much land for sale, to many changes to the market, the abilty for anyone to "buy" estate land now (which I won't touch, my island is purely rentals.) it just isn't as profitable as it was a month ago. No reason to buy land if you can't use it. Between the camping clubs and the drop in rentals I may actually have to put money INTO the game this month. =)
I don't think the land bots really affect the market that much, it's what the developers and residents do with the land in the end that matters.
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Meade Paravane
Hedgehog
Join date: 21 Nov 2006
Posts: 4,845
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04-18-2007 09:22
From: Lord Berchot My biggest issue is with the avatar limits. One region where between myself and one other we own well over half of it, is tottaly unusable because a club moved into a 2048 in the very corner and filled with 50 camping chairs keeps the sim at full occupancy constantly. No one can get in. Read Torley's comments at the end of https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-63 then talk to the casino owner. If they don't cut down the number of camping chairs, AR them. Filling a mainland sim with camping chairs is against the TOS and LL will remove them if you follow the process.
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Yiffy Yaffle
Purple SpiritWolf Mystic
Join date: 22 Oct 2004
Posts: 2,802
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04-18-2007 09:29
mainland land is too high priced. i never bother with it anymore. I remember back when it was like 1024 for 1.5k... Now i look at it and see prices like 35K for that amount. O.o What the heck happened there? makes me glad that i live in a private estate.
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Colette Meiji
Registered User
Join date: 25 Mar 2005
Posts: 15,556
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04-18-2007 10:04
Mainland sims shouldnt be auctioned.
They should be sold first come, first serve for a price approximate to Private islands.
When you buy one sim you need to get back in line to get another.
The recent teir inequity should be eventually brought to a more realisitc difference, based on relative value of a private island vs. owning a whole mainland sim.
This would flatten out prices. Its simply irresponible for LL to fuel rampant speculation. If their sims have the value they claim they do they should build in plenty of proffit into the pricing and leave it at that.
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Lord Berchot
Retired Sideshow Geek
Join date: 29 Dec 2006
Posts: 125
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04-18-2007 10:22
From: Meade Paravane Read Torley's comments at the end of https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-63 then talk to the casino owner. If they don't cut down the number of camping chairs, AR them. Filling a mainland sim with camping chairs is against the TOS and LL will remove them if you follow the process. Great post and info. Thank you so much. I have spoken with the owner. He seemed genuine when he claimed he was unaware of the limits and would remove some chairs. However this was a week ago and as of this morning right before the shut down the region was full as always and all 40 were on his lot. As much as I hate to I will follow the advice given and file a report. I do hate to be a "Narc" but there's no reason my investment in land should go to waste, or the landowner I manage the other part for either.
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Darien Caldwell
Registered User
Join date: 12 Oct 2006
Posts: 3,127
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04-18-2007 12:32
From: Watermelon Tokyo I would think that things like ad farms and laggy camp sites are more likely to drive people to estate lands. Worst case scenario, landbots only influence initial buying price. Once you get there, your neighbours are far more important that who sold you the land! Thats certainly always been true. I guess I should have said this would add yet another reason. 
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Variable Swindlehurst
Registered User
Join date: 18 Apr 2007
Posts: 17
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04-18-2007 13:55
Just out of curiosity here: When people discuss the price land is going for, are they referring to what it's listed for or what it's actually selling for?
And if it's the latter, where can this information be found apart from one's own personal experience?
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Rockwell Ginsberg
Boss
Join date: 3 Oct 2006
Posts: 560
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04-18-2007 14:20
They are generally referring to the cheapest land listed for sale by L$ per sq m.
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Raymond Figtree
Gone, avi, gone
Join date: 17 May 2006
Posts: 6,256
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04-18-2007 18:00
From: Variable Swindlehurst Just out of curiosity here: When people discuss the price land is going for, are they referring to what it's listed for or what it's actually selling for?
And if it's the latter, where can this information be found apart from one's own personal experience? Seach>land sales (select For sales-Mainland)
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