Stuff a land baron won't usually tell you.

This is a resident answer, put out purely for informational purposes. It's only here to promote understanding, and some of you might find it interesting.



1. You might notice that land barons get fidgety if you ask them to 'show you what's available' after a while. Especially if you are looking for a small parcel.

What's going on: On say, a 512 meter lot, a land baron is likely to make literally five cents a day off you, tops. Many residents, especially new ones, just stay a few months and quietly abandon the parcel without warning. By the time the land baron checks with you and then finds someone else for the parcel, there's a good chance the whole scenario is a money loser.

Spending 40 minutes helping you is something most land barons are willing to do, but realise he isn't doing this for money. Also realise he might have been logged in for 3 or 4 hours already.

Worst of all, don't 'confer with your partner' in IM for 20 minutes while the land baron stands there. It's impolite. Let him go on his way, and promise a clear 'yes or no' answer within several minutes... while he can get other business done.

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2. There are a lot of ripoffs in the land business. Most of them involve residents, not land barons.

We all know what it's like to skip the credit card bill, or the cable bill, or what~have~you. Everyone has done something somewhere. A land baron, particularly in a seller's market is particularly defenceless against nonpayment. Sure, he can kick you out or return your prims... but if you didn't pay a downpayment for the parcel, that's nothing compared to the constant financial losses incurred. For an estate the size of mine (50 regions, roughly), defaults / nonpayments amount to a few hundred USD a month in lost income; enough for a monthly payment on a new car.

For otherwise decent residents: if you skipped out on rent and did it accidentally, or had a problem ~ pay the parcel meter again (obviously), and then also drop the land baron a note, along with a direct payment of how much you missed paying. Also, if you are leaving, tell the poor sod. Otherwise he will spend time tracking you down to find out that no, you really did mean to ditch the parcel, and yes, he really did hold onto it for you while putting off paying residents who *would* have rented it, but now rented from someone else.

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3. Two gentle taps on the shoulder is enough to make the average resident leave an estate, no matter how 'at fault' they were.

Say there's a covenant against, oh, I don't know... palm trees. You see your neighbour's 1/4 sim spread, and... there's a palm tree in it. Oh noes! You dutifully report it to the land baron. He taps your neighbour gently on the shoulder and the tree is removed. A month later, you notice that neighbour's fence prim is sticking three millimeters into your parcel. You dutifully report it again.

Oddly, the neighbour with the 1/4 sim spread moves out a week later. Ahh, look at all that beautiful empty land next door with just some plants, how nice! But... what's this, the region is now insolvent? Hmmm... could that be a bad thing somehow?

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4. Your land baron may not know every detail, but has a pretty good idea of who your alts are, and your lover's alts are, without even wanting or trying to know.

Alex123 Midnight and Hawtgrrl420 Protagonist are shacked up and living the good SL life on the estate. Alex123 likes dog pets from a certain vendor, rides a big motorcycle around, and can't seem to spell between 6:30 and 8:30 SLT due to drinking a lot. He says he's from Boston, RL. Hawtgrrl420 wears a certain type of skin, prim hair and tattoo's. Her profile has a certain ascii art looking 'kiss' shape in it.

Next week, BigJohn456 Stravinsky appears, wanting a bit of land on the far side of the estate. He has a bulldog, a big Harley and can't seem to spell between 6:30 and 8:30 SLT. He says he's from New York, RL.

Two weeks later, MaryJane McLeod moves in, unknowingly, three doors down from BigJohn456. She has a certain ascii art 'kiss' shape in her profile and wears the same brands as Hawtgrrl420.

Your land baron doesn't say *anything* to anyone, but already has a new resident lined up for when Alex's and Hawtgrrl's parcel is found abandoned and wiped, two weeks after that.

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5. Your land baron knows who is being a turd with chat spy devices, and may have quietly tipped off the intended victim that someone is trying to spy on them.

It's kinda hard to look for someone's stray Sion Chicken or something without turning on script debugging, and scripted prim beacons. Yeah, we saw that the chat spy was named 'object' but hey, when the prim is *ridiculously small* and placed in a 'good hiding spot'.. duh. And gee, even if you are using an alt, it's not hard to know the short list of who might be chat spying on Hawtgrrl420 just after her big breakup.

Minor point: as a land baron we don't *want* to know these things. Our life is easier not knowing. We just want it all to go away.

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6. It's no favour to a land baron to 'give the land back so he can sell it again.' Not in this market.

If you excitedly bought up 3/4 of a region at the beginning of high season (November to early January), be a peach and help find someone to take over some or all of it when you do your predictable exit in February or March.

Why do this? Because otherwise, his rates have to go up over the long term, to compensate for the mass abandonment financial damage. Even with new residents on a waiting list, it can still take 2 or 3 weeks to move them all in. When you are excitedly back into land again next November, you might wonder why rates went up. This is why.

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7. Your reputation is waaay more sticky than you think.

Land barons talk to each other, and a lot of traffic moves between certain estates.

If you've been a notable turd and 'burned bridges' in an estate or two already, or stiffed anyone financially, we've probably heard of you.

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8. If there's been problems in the past, a resident's general IP address is often known to the estate, and estate managers will be on the lookout for your alts too.

This is probably the most important one for consumers to know ~ it's also one I don't engage in personally, due to the horrific ethics issues (and few problems on my estate, so I haven't really been tested by fire on it).

If you go to a land baron's website, blog or other IP logging site while he is talking to you inworld ~ he's got you.

No, he can't nail down your exact IP, but he now knows that you are the one guy from Nowheresville, Virginia, that logged into his site at a specific time. You may not be the only Nowheresville Virginian, but you will be known to be the one generally active on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, for instance.

Generally a land baron won't care, and even the worst won't generally bother to do this with any regularity. But if you have been harassing the ladies, got kicked off the estate and are back with an alt... watch out.

The estate~friendly DJ at the party is usually going to tell the land baron that an IP from Nowheresville Virginia is showing up on their streaming site, and if the pattern of behaviour matches... stand by for scrutiny, and *everyone but you* may be warned at the event.

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9. Good residents can get away with a lot.

If you have been renting from an estate for two or three years, and have been generally a decent person, you are going to be *immensely* valued by the local land baron.

No matter how clear cut the rules, there's intense pressure to keep you happy, even if you are violating section 3, article A of the estate covenant's "rules for avian pets" or whatever.

Remember, you are paying the land baron, not the other way around.

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10. Attempts to change the estate by resident mass protest usually fail hard.

Generally there are 'phases' to estates. It's like a college dormitory in the more social ones.

Fall is exciting and new; by the holidays people are pairing off and having fun... by the time spring semester has begun in earnest a lot of people are sick and tired of each other.

With an average 'stay' time of about ten or twelve months for a typical SL user, don't expect an experienced land baron to alter things greatly and permanently for say, a dozen new, vocal residents. Most will either quit SL or start their own region *no matter what* a land baron does, and most of us know that.

True, a small percentage of residents stick, and stick close for years. We'll be tailoring our estates to keep these people happy, as best we can. But protests or fusses by anyone that hasn't been around for years are likely to be seen for what they are. Even if we please you, there's a good chance that next year a new crop of residents will demand the exact opposite.

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11. Much of what a land baron does, maybe 50%, is offline. Remember all those cool new things that were added to the estate, that are a lot of fun?

All that planning, all the designwork, emails, going back to square one, revisions... it's been done on the back end before you've even seen it.

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12. You want a land baron that is at least partially motivated by money.

As bad as this sounds, the alternatives are worse. Hobbyist land baron? Guess what happens to your land when they get bored. Power tripping land baron? You'd be better off if money was the motivating factor.

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13. You want a land baron that can manage their money. Watch their personal habits.

As stupid as it sounds, without naming names, there have been some *really bad ones* out there. Never be afraid to ask a land baron what their financial tier reserves are. Not 'investments' and not 'I'm rich in real life' and not 'the outlook is great, don't worry about it.'

If you've got a land baron that fails at basic money management issues in their personal real life... there's a pretty good chance that same philosophy bleeds into how the estate is handled, too.

You may not know about their real life, but small details are telling ~ did they just have to take care of a disconnected phone, or stuff like that? Watch for it.

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14. It's more important for a land baron to have certain annoying traits, than be personally likeable to you.

This kinda goes without saying. You don't want a wimp cop protecting you, you don't want a lawyer who won't argue or a surgeon that has shaky hands.

Same thing with land barons. You are better off with one that you might personally never hang out with, but does what he's supposed to be doing while you are out partying.

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I hope this is a bit of insight, and maybe helpful to some. If the shoe were on the other foot, and you had hundreds of people on your estate and 100,000+ fees to Linden Research annually, think how you might act, and react to, the typical decent resident.

Warm regards to all,

Des

I was a landlord in non-virtual life for eight years; that was plenty for me!

So in SL, I've sold land, but haven't taken on tenants. My hat is off to you, Desmond, and to the other Good rental agents/land barons, for doing this time-consuming work.

(Your first item, the one about prospective customers wanting you to "show" them parcels and stand around for long periods, waiting on them, struck a note---even as a seller only, not a provider of rental parcels, I've had people want me to Show my properties and stand there while they discuss it with their significant other. Eventually I will mention that once they buy, they have no further relationship with the seller, and I wish them well, and will respond to any questions they IM me, but I have to go do something else.

(People are funny!)

I do wish people would say that they're not renewing, the Hippo boxes have a feature now where people can indicate they're not renewing but generally so many people just sliently leave. I'm not going to bite them for moving on!

I appreciate your sharing this, Desmond. I still don't know how you handle so many sims so very well but I salute you.

A good thing about this post is that it counters the "all land barons are greedy SOB's who will take your money, then kick you out and resell the next day" posts. While undoubtedly there are some shady types, and I do feel badly for people who have had a really negative experience, those of us who have been in SL any amount of time know that "all land barons" do not have those extremely unethical practices, probably even *most* don't, but a new person to SL may read something like that and think, "Ack! Land baron = rip off."

It also shows that in addition to some shady land barons, there are also some shady renters/owners (sorry if I have the incorrect language since I've always been on mainland). The shoe can be on the other foot, so to speak.

I liked reading all the "whys" behind things. I think this post should be stickied or at least made strongly suggested reading for people preparing to live on an estate.

~ ~ ~

As a sidenote: Whenever I begin a new venture, I research and read up on it as much as possible. When I began SL, I purchased "Second Life: The Official Guide" (Copy 2007). I get to chapter 9 - "Who Are You" and came upon the entry about you and Caledon. It caught my attention due to my love of the Victorian era and one of the first places I headed to in SL was Caledon. I loved hearing how you began to where you are now (well at the time...then).

The first time I came across one of your posts on the forums I thought, "Oh, WOW!!!! This is the man from the book!" It's fun to think back to what (little) I knew about SL at the time and now to be reading posts and gaining advice from some of the first residents and "movers and shakers" of SL.

I do miss one thing all land barons including me have to deal with, scammers that get the parcel in their name by paying the 1 L$ reservation (wel maybe the popular ones like des don't have that problem) and then sell it on after whiping the tier/rent information and stating the land is tier free or some variation on that. often the land baron gets blammed and yelled at if they don't catch it in time, heck I probably been ARed a few times over that.

Why do you do that? It's the L$1 that tempts them into the scam. Can't you sell them for the first week's rent?

thanks for that... especially the alex and hawtgrrl humour... sadly you don't even have to be an estate manger to catch those most of the time.

Very enlightening post... I've been renting from an estate for the last few months, and it's been a good experience to date so far. I've got a small, waterfront lot that's in a decent sim with fairly few rules, and for the most part things have been great. One nice thing about it is that a neighboring parcel was gaming traffic with obvious 'bots-in-a-box at 650 meters', and I was able to get the situation handled by the sim manager in a day or so. A far cry from LL, who doesn't seem to care that everyone is gaming traffic again with traffic bots, and they're doing nothing about it. A asked around, was told to contact Jack Linden about it, which I did, and so far haven't received a response. On the other hand, a quick IM to the sim manager got me a return IM a few hrs later and the situation resolved within the next day or so. In the end, I'm starting to like estate over mainland because there's a much better chance of getting some service when it's needed.

and thats the KEY thing about renting, there is some available who will take care of things ASAP (at least on a good Estate there is).

Great Post! Desmond

I have a good mind to have a URL link into some of my SIM groups!

Great post Des, you deserve a beer for this one.

.d

I do not know why, but that just seems horrible! The "got" seems just 'mean'...lol almost scary

My original neighbor in my home sim was a woman who had a house at ground she would entertain a certain gentleman at. And since it was ground, I had trouble -not- camming in on them anytime I was in my garden re-arranging the decor. I'd spin to look left, and get poseball city blocking my view of my gazebo...

In time she rented the plot to some friends, and moved her house across the street for herself and her gentleman caller.

A few weeks later a new neighbor pops up beside her. I, being a kitty, about land and profile check him. Wow... profile says he's the husband of so-and-so, and then names my other neighbor. 1st life tab has a photo of them together. Her 1st life tab had a photo of her...
- His profile is full of wonderfully gushy stuff about how much he loves his wife and the wonderful things they do together.
- Her profile makes no mention of being married in RL.
- But he was NOT her gentleman caller... O.o

A day later I log in to find the people she'd rented her old plot to wandering around wondering where their stuff went. The land is listed under the name of some random land baron, and likewise her house plot that had moved across the street. Hubby's land is still there beside it in his name. It takes a month before it goes to someone else...

Oops...

Sure I could do that but with the way the avarage person looks for land to rent they hardly view past the first page in the landsale search wich means that unless you are a wel known estate you won't get any renters, I have tried the 1st week sale in the past and it just did not work.

I most say that in the last months there has been a sharp decline in random new residents, most are word of mouth or existing residents expanding, this includes the scammers, I now just get 1 per month at most while a year ago it was 1 per week at least.

I thought this thread would be about MAINLAND land barons. I forgot LL's allowing of landbots and them flooding the market and devaluing Mainland prices for all land owners killed most of them.

Desmond, once again you confirm my opinion of you. Sage observations and advice communicated clearly and with a sense of humour that makes your posts a pleasure to read.

Great post, Des. My little dramahz are nothing compared to yours of course, due to sheer size of land mass, lol. I do wonder about chat spys, though. How do the avs gain access, to be allowed to rez the chat spy on another person's parcel? When Virtual Ability first took over Cape Able, we found 14 chat spys here and there around the sim. Found them in the top scripts, returned them all, to an avatar who had been hired to do some building work on the sim in the past. Was very strange. As for alts, I have a resident that seems to like to play the alt game, I guess I am supposed to play along, when I meet someone new around the sim, and she tells me she's a 'friend' of so and so. Ummm yeah, right. I know it's another alt of that person, her speech patterns alone would tip it off. It's annoying as heck, but I don't say anything, if it pleases her to think she pulled one over on me, whateva. I don't have any other issues with her, so I don't care, I just don't enjoy the cutesy little act, it makes me feel like she thinks I'm stupid. Anyway, thanks for the post, did something happen to annoy you into making it?

Much of this applies to "stuff a Mainland landlord won't usually tell you", too. Not that I do much of that these days: tenant drama is not my forte, it turns out. But one part struck me as odd:
I get that it would be vastly preferable if tenants found their own replacements--and believe it or not, I've had that happen even on the Mainland, back when cheap rental units were scarce, and I was very grateful. But I certainly didn't expect it.

I guess it's different on Estates in that, in theory, there's something a tenant could sell to the next occupant. But practically speaking, the land baron or landlord really should be in a better position to find somebody to place in a parcel than would the typical tenant. If a tenant has a backlog of friends looking for housing, they should consider going into land barony, no?

This, and the one about getting fidgety when asked to show what's available, touch on something that's fundamentally screwed-up about SL land: there's no such thing as a "realtor", and the Search mechanisms for Land are next to useless, especially for rentals. There are a bunch of reasons why SL "real estate" is so primitive, but a solution would be a significant service, if only there were a way to monetize it.

I have had a few people chew up a LOT of time asking for help with something I've sold. Sometimes it's because I've screwed up... and they get it fixed and for free... but sometimes it's because they want a completely different product (Flight Feather is not a speed booster) or they think complaining about a product is a fun way to break the ice. I can imagine how bad this could get for a landlord.

My head is spinning just reading this. I'm still working out the who is/was with whom. May take me awhile, but I'll get it...lol.

It reminds me of this quote from Sir Walter Scott:

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive.”

In a nutshell, the woman's rl husband came and showed up next door. She never said anything about her being married irl in her profile, but his did - to her. And he was not the gentleman caller that she had been ... entertaining.

The next day, everything was gone from her plot, and the husband's disappeared about a month later.

Great post, Desmond!! I agree and have dealt with all of the same situations you describe. And I too can't stand showing properties - my solution was to hire sales agents who genuinely enjoy it and have the necessary patience. They get paid a commission based on the tier fee of the lot they sell...it works out great for all involved.

If I may, I'd like to add a few more things to the list:

1. You will win 10,000 brownie points from me just by reading. We have help signs on each sim and a help FAQ on our website. If you contact our support staff or myself and it's clear that you read these materials and tried to help yourself first, we will really appreciate that.

2. If you need help, do not IM me with a one line message saying "Hi", "I need help", or "I have a question." THOSE IMS ARE THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE IN SL. In fact I no longer even reply to them. The proper way to contact any land baron, clothing maker, or other SL business person, is this:
Joe Secondlifer: Hi, I live on your sim Xyz, plot #34, and my next door neighbor Rudy McRedlines has ban lines up. Can you address this please?
Notice all the pertinent info is included: Sim, lot #, problem avatar if any. I can address this issue immediately without needing to contact Joe for more details.

3. It is not an emergency. The only two situations that border on emergencies in SL are:
* Griefers
* Offline or severely lagged sims
When alerted to these situations, we will act immediately. However, anything else, please expect and receive a prompt and reasonable solution/reply - i.e. within 24 hours.

4. I am a human being. This is my RL income source, however I do have a social life and I work on other non-land-related projects in SL. I am not on-duty 24/7 - so if I don't respond, please read the notecard in my Emerald autoreply. Chances are it will answer your question, or at least direct you to someone who can help.

5. Get involved in your community. Solace Beach Estates (and Caledon, and many other land companies) have events, social groups, and more. If you just have a little plot of land to get it on with your honey, you are missing out on all SL has to offer. Attending events gives you the opportunity to meet your neighbors and other interesting SLers. Oh yes, and the estate staff, too. We want to get to know you...and it will benefit you immensely. "Oh, that's so-and-so, they're really nice, I'm going to help them first." "Oh hey, this person is really friendly, wonder if they'd want an event hosting job." Several of my current staff members were tenants first, became friends, and later I hired them!

Thanks everyone... to be honest I fully expected to see a hostile backlash in following posts, not appreciation!

But it needed sayin'.

There are probably a few land barons uncomfortable in their seats reading it, especially with regard to how well we know the 'problem residents' that float from estate to estate, and the methods occasionally employed to deal with it.

I personally don't have any IP~capturing website or shoutcast stream, so... I'm not one of them. But I have heard tipoffs from people who, with incredibly high accuracy, have noted that PeeWee Predator or Stalker Creepface have come back around to cause trouble, so in that sense I guess in that sense I'm not completely pure either.



There are websites like steamlander.com, or group chat where it's understood that you can offer property without being yelled at to get off group chat; it's not that bad. Considering that I'll get, say, four to six rent defaults *per day* (and this is Caledon, which has some of the most reliable residents on the grid) ~ it's simply a matter of keeping up. Getting back to 'showing properties' ~ I'd be showing properties for more hours a day than running the estate is worth, if it weren't for resident to resident land rights sales.

Also ~ this particular scenario applies a lot more to the 'damaging' resident. What happens is this. Someone gets VERY excited about being here, then decides that the path to happiness is to BUY OUT ALL THE NEIGHBOURZ ~ with predictable results. "Hey, where did the cool community go?" You bought them out, sir ~ they are gone!

At about ninety days along in this process, the penny drops and the person realises: "Hey, this didn't work" ~ but usually this sort of thing happens with a younger, more fleeting, excitable person without a lot of focus. I've had some come in and literally pay 600 for a small parcel to another resident in the process of scooping up all the land they wanted ~ that's 600 US Dollars, not $L 600. It's just plain mind boggling.

After blowing through truly remarkable amounts of cash, and finding that they obliterated the area instead of making it 'better' the natural tendency is to just plain abandon it. Which they do, usually without any warning.

It can take me a number of weeks to restore an area, all the while carrying all the tier of the abandoned spots as I do so. On average, it takes me an hour to answer a new resident's questions, show them the parcel meter, get them comfy and so forth... per parcel. So if someone abandons say, twelve parcels... yeah. Ouch.

At any rate, this is the kind of scenario where it *would* be decent if someone helped fill the crater they made. It's been a while since this particular sort of thing has happened, though, but it was worth a mention.



Mmmm..... maaaaaybeee... grins

But I don't spill information like that. Just not classy.

This ---^

Great post Desmond
I think Im pretty fortunate, as are you , that I have many long term residents, and those that do move on to pastures new are very considerate of what they leave behind. I dont expect them to do anything, but a polite "Im leaving" is always appreciated. They also tend to clear up the parcel before they go..a real bonus

Many who leave also return..which is SO lovely too. I do have two estate directors, who if im honest ,do most of the day to day work .