How come there's never any First Land available?

As a new Premium subscriber, I've been a little disappointed at the fact that there is almost never any First Land available. I go to the Search window, then Land Sales, select "First Land", uncheck both boxes and hit Search. But every time I try it, I always get a "None found." message.

Hey, call me crazy, but I'm a really impatient guy. I'm tempted to buy one of the more expensive L$5000+ plots of 512 square meter plots of land if I can't get a First Land offer sooner or later...

1.6 Million Residents. Most within the last 3 months.

First land comes in, but is gone in seconds of posting.

If you're looking to make a couple bucks (@6-8USD profit is average) then you should wait. If you're looking for land you really want to keep, I advise simply shopping for that.

Keep in mind that you pay more for Tier over 512m and factor that into your monthly budget. Also, I highly recommend you have enough L$ on hand to buy the amount of land you want (at current prices of @7L$ per sq m) plus 20% that amount held in reserve.

Reasoning is that sometimes the land you would rather have is bigger than you want (or can afford in Tier), but you can parcel that land and sell the land off after your purchase. You can Abandon it as well, but that's a last resort to avoid next month's Tier fees. Remember, Tiering up is instant. Own 1 sq m over your Tier for even 1 second, and you pay the full month at the higher Tier.

Good luck

~Jessy

Perhaps this also has something to do with it?

Even before SL suddenly got a lot of publicity and soared above 1 million accounts, I have suspected that someone, likely more than one person, is gaming the system and stealing First Land. It appears from the referenced Linden Answers post that someone now has proof of that. We'll see if the Lindens do anything about it, othr than sticking their heads in the sand.

Even without the possibility of someone cheating the system and buying First LAnd inappropriately, the sheer volume of new players lately would imply that at least some of that flood is actually paying for Premium memberships, and is going to be buying First Land. Even if it's only 1% of the 750,000 recent new accounts that went Premium, that would be 7,000 people who all want First Land. And growing each day.

I've been watching the land sales list over the last few months, and ISTM that First Land parcels flood onto the scene for several days every fortnight or so. Then there will be a shortage (just the odd reclaimed 512 parcel listed as First Land) for a couple of weeks before it happens again. I'd recommend only searching for First Land after establishing Guy Linden is online (search the people list). No Guy Linden online? Little chance any First Land parcels will be made available so pointless wasting your time searching for them.

It's been awhile since I bought First land but I still like to watch whats going on out there. The number of new players has certainly made an impact but it seems to me that First land is being released at a slower rate. Instead of whole sims I see half or even quarter coming up at a time with the rest of the sim coming up over the next day or so. It goes so quickly its often a matter of being in the right place at the right time and keeping a VERY close watch. If you see a partial sim of first land you can bet that the rest will be coming up soon. Would never have thought of doing the Guy Linden search.

You might also try selecting "all" rather than "First land" in the search window and put 512 as size.

I came across a rather surprising 'First Land' exploit back in February which I reported and demonstrated to the Lindens. I was assured at the time that it would be fixed. A few months later I discovered that this particular exploit had in fact not been fixed and reported it a second time. It looks like it has still not been patched. I will not explain how it works on the forums. All I will say is that the person Dragon Keen referred to in this thread has most likely discovered the same exploit. Suffice to say that I resisted the temptation to avail myself of unlimited amounts of 'First Land'.

Given the current trends in SL, I would not be at all surprised if there aren't several 'First Land' thieves quietly snapping up 'First Land' as it comes onto the market. Look for the patterns of activity.

Glad to find this thread. I have been looking every log on since Oct for First Land myself. Very frustrating to say the least! Thanks for any all and advice!

I said this a few days ago but I'll repost here, the post I can't seem to find...

It does make financial sense to do this scheme.

You get a prepaid card, say 10 of them that has 15 bucks on it.

Get verified upon signup, 250L. Get a premium account for a month. Pay 9.95 or roughly 2786L. Get 1200L in stipends for the month. Buy first land at 512. Sell at 4kL. Cash out extra Lindens on the card to funnel to another account. (All the while deeding these lands to a main group, to sell off.)

Total paid L = 3298
Total L made = 5200
Total profit = 1902 or roughly 6 bucks.

Do this for all 10 cards for the day is 60 bucks. Do it for 7 days a week, and that works out to roughly 420 a week pure profit. That's more than most people make at an average job.


On a note to combat this, there is an idea I have.

For the first 45 days you purchase first land, it cannot be resold except as first land again, it cannot be deeded to a group for 45 days either.

That would require 2 months of premium and cancel out the profit from land barons.

ETA: I decided to ask of the above idea from a Linden, thread here:
/13/d7/151278/1.html#post1345041

P.S. That's exactly what they want you to do. They make a profit off you by not only buying all new first land, but keeping it high.

Seola, that is one possible scenario though anyone going down that path would find their margin somewhat eroded by tier payments and a sluggish land market. Furthermore, prepaid credit cards are only available in certain countries and I believe there is a purchase charge made on each card. However that is quite different from the 'First Land' exploit I discovered and one that I suspect the 'First Land' thieves are using.

Firstly, there is no tier for first land or any 512 owned by a premium account. They give you 512 free.

Secondly, prepaid credit cards are available to anyone with an internet connection that generally only charge 1-2USD per card (often times you don't get a card but access to numbers that work with banks) and with 15 cards, that's a max of 30 bucks for that profit.

Either way, irregardless, the scenario I mentioned isn't to stop a certain country, it's to stop it from happening all the way around.

Yes, I'm well aware that the first 512 sq m of land is tier-free for a premium account. I'm on a premium-account myself. But the account used to flip the land is quite likely to be saddled with a bill for the tier of the accumulated land while it's sitting around waiting to be resold.

Actually, the turn around on that land is fairly quick anyways. Within a few short moments, the land turned over, it was put up for 4k, it sells, sure some have it at 6.. but I just sat and observed for about 20 minutes and as fast as it was put up, it was taken down, and that could easily keep the land baron group or person under the first tier.

Aside from that, if you are making more than 1200 a month, you certainly can be okay with even 75 bucks tier.

Land prices are rising on the mainland with the influx of new residents. Shouldn't first land prices rise as well? Lindens could base first land prices on an the ave price per m^2 less some discount, bumping them periodically. This would deter the cheaters looking to make an easy buck, and still give new premium accounts access to cheapish land.

The alternative is to flood the market with massive amounts of new land, which will eventually kill all mainland land values.

There are firstland but it is gone rather quick. I joined around 3 weeks ago and every now and then I check if there is firstland available. I am lucky enough to catch a lot of 5 firstlands available last week and did a quick selection and bought mine . Those land are gone within half hour.

Heh, you prolly know more about the land market, Seola. It's something I've not bothered with. Just something that rustles away in the background of my SL experience.

Oh I don't play in it, that's for sure, but I've seen it and I wish I could find the post that explains it in detail like I did.

It's more a mathmatics sort of thing for why I get it, not actually knowing about the land.

I managed to buy some First Land this week. I camped SL for about 10 hours over a couple of days spamming search until some showed up. Just a few minutes ago I saw there were again about a dozel plots for sale; actually new plots were being created even as earlier ones were being snatched up. It was difficult getting into the zones where First Land was available, due to the numbers of newbies looking over the selection. I would guess the plots were selling within about 5-16 minutes of being made available.

Sadly, it was common to see a farm of matching "for sale" signs next to the new swathes of First Land...the last batch of First Land.

You'll get more choices if you search both L$512 and 512m2. It seems some of the better plots of First Land are reclaimed land from more settled regions.

This is precisely what happened to me last night - heck even the age is similar LOL
I couldn't get into the area for a couple of minutes but kept trying. I found a plot that looked nice so grabbed it quick. There were another 5 plots for sale.
Within a minute a call went out saying a plot was for sale. I found the caller. He was next door so asked him what he was asking. He said 3000$ if I wanted it. It is adjoining my plot. Within 5 minutes, there were no other first land plots for sale in my sim. In 10 minutes the next plot had a new owner and was for sale at 6000$!!

.. but I don't care .. cos Bilbo has a new home

That would discourage a lot of people from buying FL, because they may not be sure they want to upgrade to premium if they're going to be tied in to it... I only upgraded and bought FL because (a) a friend of mine had and wanted me to join him in a group in the parcel next door, and (b) he argued that if I changed my mind I could recover the premium upgrade fee by selling my land.

Now I'm normally against "IP locking" accounts, or using IP or MAC address for cross-referencing accounts, but for this *specific* case only:

How about limiting first land purchases BY COMPUTER to once per month, or once per 60 or 90 days?

They can resell it, but not at profit, if they choose not to keep it.. You have to go premium to get first land in the first place, plus you get stipends. If you aren't sure about first land and going premium, and don't want to hold out on a few dollars (by the time all is said and done), then that's called a bad choice. You don't have to get first land within a set period of time so you can play unverified, then verified free for years before making that choice.

If LL doesn't want to even lock by comp to get alt fees, they certainly won't put in place for first land to help resis.

That's the point, you have to go premium. So the cost of the first land is $10.00 less the L$938 you get to keep after paying your L$512 over the first month. So at an exchange rate of L$270 per dollar, if you get less than L$1763 for your first land you're losing money.
Please don't equate "unverified" and "basic" like that. When I got my first account you had to pay $10 even for a basic account, so I haven't even benefitted from the "free basic accounts" let alone the "unverified griefer alt accounts". So... I signed up and waited six months, but I doubt I would have upgraded to premium if I was going to be locked in for two months or abandon the land... the *risk* from buying land on the open market is lower!

And "abandoning the land" doesn't just mean losing the L$512, if you're the kind of person who's going to make the kind of commitment to SL that LL wants to promote with the First Land program, abandoning it is a real psychological hurdle.

I'm one of the strongest critics of unverified alts, and the idea that "locking by computer" is an acceptable alternative to verification is one of the reasons I'm opposed to it. There's too many people using shared computers.

On the other hand, having to wait a month or two before buying first land if you're sharing a computer isn't the same kind of hardship as not being able to get online at all... and the alternatives seem to be to make buying First Land too much of a hassle to bother with, or forcing you to camp on the Land Sales page to find some.

I've made a somewhat lengthier proposal in the other thread.

As a new premium member I've also been daily checking for first land with no joy.
Is a possible solution that genuine interested parties join a waiting line run by Linden.
You pay your money up front, join the queue & as the first land becomes available Linden gives the top of the queue first refusal.
If you know you are on a list & where you are on the list there is at least some light at the end of the tunnel. No more daily searches, unless you want to buy bigger or more expensive land.
is this too simple or can anyone see any flaws in this logic?
M

After a few days, my bit of first land is completely surrounded by enormous garish 'for sale' and 'for rent' signs. Unless you intend to use your first land to set up a little shop or intend to sell it pretty quickly, it seems pointless buying it.

Setting up a home in an area which is completely covered by yellow/pink/blue/green flourescent boxes as big as a house is frustrating at best. I learned quite a bit about building by playing with the freebie house I picked up so it's not a total loss but I'm considering just turning it into a little shop and finding a bit of land on an island somewhere to live on.

And currently they are getting quite a bit more. I've already argued this with you in the feature suggestions. I'll point it out here again for reference. 90% of 512m out there is at least 4kL. Don't believe me, look at the blog from today, there were posts about FL up for 4500. After stipend, paying premium and selling at 4kL, you make a 2 dollar profit at 275L. Your math was wrong in the other thread, and I won't dredge up all the basics, but anyways, gets you your money back, and allows for two months tier for land baroning groups which removes the profit from them.



And this walk back in history is because? I was making a statement based on the current situation and status. People can and ARE waiting as unverifieds to give a reason to use thier cards, and those who are verified are waiting to pay premium. So they lose you, big deal honestly. Once word would get out about the new system if they were to put it in place, people would just have to accept it. There are many, many, MANY more people out there who want first land, than those who don't want to deal with any restrictions. It's risk versus reward. So they lose you and your 10 bucks, they could stand to gain hundreds more premium accounts for basically the same cost with or without you. Many people I've talked to are waiting to go premium to when they buy first land.



As I've said in the other thread that you addressed the exact same way, you're reaching on the psychological part. Also, you haven't even read what I've posted. I never said ONCE about abandoning land to get out. I said clearly, that you can only sell it for 512 as ANOTHER first land if you are under that 45 days. Quit bringing up shaky arguments (at best) that I'm not even talking about. I'm pretty sure that if you lose 1.50USD on land, and maybe 6 bucks at best for premium, you won't need therapy, and if you do... then you should be there anyways.



As the same proposal as I've pointed out:

IP lock on land, LL doesn't have the resources for, your argument was that it's used for abusers. Locking out a few computers in severe cases is a lot different than scanning the computer's ID card each and every time land is purchased. LL can't even handle the current load on them now, let alone this very resource consuming check each time land changes hands.

Argent, you keep bringing up how YOU wouldn't like it, how it's so horrible and YOU wouldn't have went premium. Just because of 1 or two people that wouldn't, there's a thousand more waiting on it, waiting to become premium if they can ever find first land.

If you have any sense of business, even though this directly would upset you, you'd realize that selling 500 first lands with premium accounts is a lot better than even 100 who won't buy it because of restrictions.