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What the heck happened to land prices? |
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Kujila Maltz
lol
Join date: 6 Aug 2005
Posts: 444
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04-03-2007 22:43
I have been away from SecondLife for about six months or so. When I left, I had purchased my 512sq plot for L$1500. I sold it, and now I have returned to find that 512sq plots are going for an upwards of L$6500!!! What in the world happened to cause such a huge and horrible inflation? Supply and demand? Is this going to be the new "norm" ?
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Raymond Figtree
Gone, avi, gone
Join date: 17 May 2006
Posts: 6,256
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04-04-2007 01:02
What in the world happened to cause such a huge and horrible inflation? Supply and demand? Is this going to be the new "norm" ? 1) More people came into SL at a time when LL was not releasing sims at auction. With the added population came more land brokers buying to flip. And more land brokers bidding prices up at auction. After months of skyrocketing prices, LL tried to get prices back down by releasing 40 sims at once a couple of times. This worked for a few days but the brokers quickly brought the prices back up. The recent release of a new continent and a pretty steady flow of new sims to the auction page has lowered prices from a base of L$16 a meter at the peak of the market, to a base of L$11-12 a meter lately. 2) Yes. 3) Yes. _____________________
Read or listen to some Eckhart Tolle. You won't regret it.
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mcgeeb Gupte
Jolie Femme @}-,-'-,---
Join date: 17 Sep 2005
Posts: 1,152
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04-04-2007 01:08
Land Bots
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Raymond Figtree
Gone, avi, gone
Join date: 17 May 2006
Posts: 6,256
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04-04-2007 01:12
Land Bots Land bots certainly are making a huge impact when it comes to who specifically is profitting these days. But they have had a small impact on the price of land overall. They can buy low, but they can only sell as high as human buyers are willing to pay. _____________________
Read or listen to some Eckhart Tolle. You won't regret it.
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Elanthius Flagstaff
Registered User
Join date: 30 Apr 2006
Posts: 1,534
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04-04-2007 01:16
I think this picture says it all. Although these numbers are way under what most people are paying because they include all those L$1 transfers and secret private offers and whatnot.
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Flint Beika
Bandwidth starved kitty
Join date: 14 Jul 2006
Posts: 64
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04-04-2007 01:33
I find it intriguing in that graph that there was actually a decline leading up to November. Does anyone have any idea why that was?
The sudden increase (basically an 'instant' doubling in price is also strange. Did user numbers really jump that sharply over December? Was this dues to the sudden jump in business literature coverage, or was there some specific event? |
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Ace Albion
Registered User
Join date: 21 Oct 2005
Posts: 866
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04-04-2007 02:02
They stopped making mainland while they were churning out the hundreds of private islands we all rushed to order when they were forced to fess up and extend the (two day or something) deadline that they were putting up prices and tier.
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Ace's Spaces! at Deco (147, 148, 24)
ace.5pointstudio.com |
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Alazarin Mondrian
Teh Trippy Hippie Dragon
Join date: 4 Apr 2005
Posts: 1,549
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04-04-2007 02:29
between october 2006 and january 2007 the userbase (read: LL-trumpeted registrations) more than quadrupled. The land supply failed to keep up. Kujila, if only you'd held onto your little 512 while you were away.
Welcome to the all-new <cough, gag, splutter> post land-swooper, post landbot Second Life: "Your wallet, some other guy's camping-chair casino" :\ _____________________
My stuff on Meta-Life: http://tinyurl.com/ykq7nzt
http://www.myspace.com/alazarinmobius http://slurl.com/secondlife/Crescent/72/98/116 |
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Conifer Dada
Hiya m'dooks!
Join date: 6 Oct 2006
Posts: 3,716
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04-04-2007 07:40
My theory is that land bots might not necessarily drive up land prices if they always buy the cheapest land. Sometimes people are prepared to sell land at a loss (to offload tier or to raise money to buy a better plot (perhaps in their own sim for extra prims). So people who want a quick sale are encouraged not only to sell their land cheap but to sell it as THE cheapest to attract a bot. I did exactly this once - I put a plot on sale undercutting the lowest listed price and it was sold within a minute or so.
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Daisy Rimbaud
Registered User
Join date: 12 Oct 2006
Posts: 764
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04-04-2007 07:53
Maybe, but if you are a resident looking for land to actually use (shock!) your chances of finding a bargain are non-existent.
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Ricky Yates
(searching...)
Join date: 28 Jan 2007
Posts: 809
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04-04-2007 08:00
I think this picture says it all. Although these numbers are way under what most people are paying because they include all those L$1 transfers and secret private offers and whatnot. |
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Ike Fairweather
Off Tha Chain
Join date: 1 Feb 2007
Posts: 387
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04-04-2007 08:07
I have been away from SecondLife for about six months or so. When I left, I had purchased my 512sq plot for L$1500. I sold it, and now I have returned to find that 512sq plots are going for an upwards of L$6500!!! What in the world happened to cause such a huge and horrible inflation? Supply and demand? Is this going to be the new "norm" ? Blame the realtors and landbots for that. I actually watched 2 people buy land, removed the current sign and put their sign on it and upped it 5000L. I know its about making money, but these 2 are landsharks. One lists a 512 lot for $9000L. So, I guess you need to get use to it. |
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Brenda Connolly
Un United Avatar
Join date: 10 Jan 2007
Posts: 25,000
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04-04-2007 08:44
I bought my parcelfor 8500 from an individual, msot of the sim is owned by a business and there is no covenant. i wanted another 512 to get some more prims and do some landscaping. The surrounding area is wide open so I IMed the business that owns the area asking if they would sell me a piece. I went form a low of 8K up to 10K as my allowable price range. They said 14K, no lower for 512. I don't begrudge making profit, but come on!
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Don't you ever try to look behind my eyes. You don't want to know what they have seen.
http://brenda-connolly.blogspot.com |
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tristan Eliot
Say What?!
Join date: 30 Oct 2005
Posts: 494
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04-04-2007 08:51
I have been away from SecondLife for about six months or so. When I left, I had purchased my 512sq plot for L$1500. I sold it, and now I have returned to find that 512sq plots are going for an upwards of L$6500!!! What in the world happened to cause such a huge and horrible inflation? Supply and demand? Is this going to be the new "norm" ? Well it is an issue of supply and demand really. There has been a huge influx of new speculators creating demand for land to flip. LL supplies the sims erratically and cannot keep up with the demand of all the new profiteers and the end users lose. |
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Elanthius Flagstaff
Registered User
Join date: 30 Apr 2006
Posts: 1,534
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04-04-2007 08:51
Maybe, but if you are a resident looking for land to actually use (shock!) your chances of finding a bargain are non-existent. Your chances of finding a bargain are non-existant but your chances of finding land that suits your needs are near 100%. Then it all just comes down to who blinks first the seller or the buyer. |
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Angel Slocombe
Registered User
Join date: 20 Dec 2006
Posts: 52
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04-04-2007 08:54
LOL I just bought 1024 on the new continent for 14k. Some people are taking the Michael though. I tend not to hang out on the mainland much but I've been looking for a piece of land of my own and didn't want to be restricted on how i used it by covenants and so was kinda forced to search the mainland, I was rather disgusted by the huge amounts of land for sale, some of which I watched as it got bought and flipped for a higher price within minutes.
Do people play this game to be creative anymore or just to make money? USE the land don't just sell it, make it beautiful, make it different, make it special. |
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Darkness Anubis
Registered User
Join date: 14 Jun 2004
Posts: 1,628
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04-04-2007 09:03
Really this isn't new. Back in 2004 when the first snow sims were released average price for a 512 was 8500L. A few months later you couldn't give one of those away for 2000L. Its all about availability and whats popular. If there is a land shortage, in general or in a sim, the prices tend to be higher. It wasn't that long ago that it was common to see the last available 512 in a sim set to 50,000L and the seller if they were willing to wait would get thier price. The biggest issue, as in all businesses, is supply and demand.
Short supply + High demand = high prices _____________________
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Colette Meiji
Registered User
Join date: 25 Mar 2005
Posts: 15,556
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04-04-2007 09:05
Your chances of finding a bargain are non-existant but your chances of finding land that suits your needs are near 100%. Then it all just comes down to who blinks first the seller or the buyer. Chances of finding a bargain are non existant thanks to landbots - The chances youd find land to suit your need were always 100%. You USED to be able to get bargains. |
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Alazarin Mondrian
Teh Trippy Hippie Dragon
Join date: 4 Apr 2005
Posts: 1,549
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04-04-2007 09:13
If landbots are what's keeping people from buying land they want to use at a decent price, then I see a market for single-user single-purchase landbots. You get your landbot and plug in the parameters for the type of land you want, how much you want and the price range you're willing to pay, set it in motion and sit back with a nice cuppa tea while it does the hustling for you.
It's not an ideal solution, but if landbots are here to stay I see it as the only way to level up the playing field for regular players. In the long run such a program could also bring the regular land prices down as the bot-runners will lose their advantage over regular players. _____________________
My stuff on Meta-Life: http://tinyurl.com/ykq7nzt
http://www.myspace.com/alazarinmobius http://slurl.com/secondlife/Crescent/72/98/116 |
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Seet Carroll
Registered User
Join date: 6 Jan 2006
Posts: 12
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04-04-2007 09:27
Really this isn't new. Back in 2004 when the first snow sims were released average price for a 512 was 8500L. A few months later you couldn't give one of those away for 2000L. Its all about availability and whats popular. If there is a land shortage, in general or in a sim, the prices tend to be higher. It wasn't that long ago that it was common to see the last available 512 in a sim set to 50,000L and the seller if they were willing to wait would get thier price. The biggest issue, as in all businesses, is supply and demand. Short supply + High demand = high prices Yes, but at the moment half of the eastern continent is up for sale (with new sims still being auctioned), and many, many plots on the old and south one too, and the price is still going up. It seems like there are millions of wannabe land barons around: first the land is grabbed by the bots, then it is sold back and forth between real estate businesses, each raising the price a little bit to make a profit, and a few days later you have 512sqm for 8000L or more. It is crazy. I wonder what would happen if every non-speculator would stop buying land for one or two weeks. Maybe the land business wouldn't even notice, they are so busy selling to each other. |
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Darkness Anubis
Registered User
Join date: 14 Jun 2004
Posts: 1,628
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04-04-2007 09:31
Yes, but at the moment half of the eastern continent is up for sale (with new sims still being auctioned), and many, many plots on the old and south one too, and the price is still going up. It seems like there are millions of wannabe land barons around: first the land is grabbed by the bots, then it is sold back and forth between real estate businesses, each raising the price a little bit to make a profit, and a few days later you have 512sqm for 8000L or more. It is crazy. I wonder what would happen if every non-speculator would stop buying land for one or two weeks. Maybe the land business wouldn't even notice, they are so busy selling to each other. Unfortunately, speculator selling to speculator is not a new phenomena. Thats been around forever too. Nor are land bots really new. The method for doing it was different but the effect was the same. The only real difference is in scale. Back then there were a few hundred sims not a few thousand. LL had to beg people to log in a specific times to test load on SL and was happy if they got 4000 concurrent log ins. Now the grid is bigger, the concurrent logins is bigger, so of course it seems a more obvious situation. It was however always there. _____________________
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Desmond Shang
Guvnah of Caledon
Join date: 14 Mar 2005
Posts: 5,250
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04-04-2007 09:53
As much as I am not a fan of land bots, I honestly don't see how they raise prices. They can't. They can snap up the bottom of the market, that's it.
Theoretically if you could control the entire market then yes it's possible, but you would need what, 2000+ sims to even try? Maybe more like 4000? Only to lose your position the next time servers are rolled out again. This is *not* a free market. A land bot can't force anyone to buy anything... at least, not yet... _____________________
 Steampunk Victorian, Well-Mannered Caledon! |
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tristan Eliot
Say What?!
Join date: 30 Oct 2005
Posts: 494
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04-04-2007 09:55
A land bot can't force anyone to buy anything... at least, not yet... That feature is planned for the Land Bot 2.0  |
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Daisy Rimbaud
Registered User
Join date: 12 Oct 2006
Posts: 764
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04-04-2007 10:04
Your chances of finding a bargain are non-existant but your chances of finding land that suits your needs are near 100%. Then it all just comes down to who blinks first the seller or the buyer. Ah, but what suits my needs is a bargain. Therefore the chance of finding land that suits my needs is near 0%. Nor do I want a single-use landbot to snap up a piece of land for me. I want to go to the land, pace it out, imagine what my build would look like there. In other words, behave as I would if I was buying land in RL. |
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Maximillian Desoto
Max's Landfall Bar & Dock
Join date: 26 Apr 2006
Posts: 323
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04-04-2007 12:45
As much as I am not a fan of land bots, I honestly don't see how they raise prices. They can't. They can snap up the bottom of the market, that's it. Yes, but when the bottom of the market is snapped up, the bottom has to rise a little higher. If a landbot isn't making any purchases at 12L$/sq. m, the landbot owner raises the price to 12.1. And then raises the resale price accordingly. A vicious circle... Max |