Real life estate agent makes a move in SL

http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/22/technology/fastforward_secondlife.fortune/index.htm?cnn=yes

Insert arbitrary question here to justify this thread.

Interesting.



Cute (and almost certainly wrong) quote from them.

I think the masses have far more to worry about from a large, potentially well-funded company like Coldwell, than from individuals. One that actually _could_ afford to buy servers closer to the rate that LL is capable of bringing them online, thereby controlling the market.

On the other hand:



Perhaps they will limit themselves to rental properties, with covenants. On mainland, I see no other way for them to maintain banality.

I DO see that they would have a market, if they were willing to run with tighter margins than most land barons / renters.

Elanthius, you have amongst the best rental rates I've seen on the market (for restriction-free Mainland rentals), but probably still have a healthy margin. Coldwell may be able to work on a larger scale, and beat that, and add the benefits versus loss of freedom of "covenanted" mainland rental property.

Could this be the end of the land baron as we know it?

"Coldwell Banker has bought extensive tracts of property on the central "mainland" of Second Life. (Most companies own "islands" scattered all over.) It subdivided this digital land into 520 individual houses and living units, half of which it will sell and half it will rent."


Does this explain all the extra sims on the new continent and why they are already parceled?

Serious question. How long do you think it'd be before those no mod houses get ditched by the people who actually bought the land instead of renting? I'm assuming here that they have included a "can't ditch the no mod house" clause in their rented parcels, or I'd expect those to get ditched soon enough too..

I've never been attracted to a parcel with someone else's house on it. I suspect they will get ditched rather quickly. It sorta sucks the whole "Your World, Your Imagination" out of SL. Maybe it is time for a slogan change?

Well, if the word went round the more creative of us who want our houses, to avoid Coldwellville and buy elsewhere, they'd end up with a lot of empty plots. Could drive their prices down or inspire them to reintroduce originality

They could but would it even be worth their time? I have about 4.5 sims worth of land rented out right now and my profit margin is abysmal, barely worth my time. I basically just do it as a way to offset my other businesses. A company that employs more than 1 or 2 people is not going to bother investing in a new market like this if the potential profits after buying up dozens of sims are USD60k or USD120k or whatever. That sort of money barely pays one persons salary.

Coldwell aren't in this to make money selling or renting land. They are in it as a one time advertising expense. Think of it like one huge 10 sim billboard. If it doesn't cost /too/ much and continues to get a lot of eyeballs then they may stick it out long term. I'd guess probably not but then SL constantly surprises me.

True, that makes sense. Large companies are perfectly fine sinking large one-time expenses, and even the ongoing tier prices of a few sims is not much for a big company.

I think real-estate companies like Coldwell might, in the end, do better if they developed a rapid method of creating builds that represented actual RL buildings they had on sale. I would loved to have had the chance to "virtual walk-through" dozens of houses, before choosing which ones I wanted to see the "real thing" of.

Just as, I think that architects / contractors who did large-scale gut-rehabs of existing structures might do well to be able to show clients: "this is your house now -- these are some options of what we can do with it"

I seem to vaguely recall, though, that LL ToS might have restrictions on this sort of use?

Sorry, I've gone off-topic.

Very interesting indeed. Surprised this didn't happen sooner.

So, Ranchero, Crowfoot, Elboya, Gorbash and Scurfield will now be a corporate-designed suburbia? Even if they hold on to 50% of the parcels as rental-only, the other 50% will soon revert to mainland chaos. There is no way the big realator can stop it. According to the article, there's already rotating land-griefer signs in Gorbash, and a casino adjacent to one of these sims.

500 Quatloos says this corporate experiment will be a dismal failure financially, and that the sims they developed won't look the least bit like their planned suburbia within a year.

The thing is though, the actual majority of SL users aren't creative, and the majority of US$ coming into the game comes from the non-creative users (the creative ones tend to be the ones earning L$ and cashing out)

The logic doesn't seem too reasonable: since most of those paying users are going to use a prefab anyway, why not just give them one?

I think i know which are these sims and they are located mostly on the last months sims on the old continent. I don't think however that something will change in the way land biz work in SL for such moves. It's interesting to see how it goes ofcourse, but i don't expect that much difference though. If the prices right now are attractive for making rentals in mainland, that's another story to talk for.

If I understand your question correctly, I believe the answer is "Albatross"

I'll put down 1,000 Quatloos, that if they actually sell the Mainland parcels rather than renting them all and enforcing a covenant, that it won't look like suburbia within a month.





What's a Quatloo, and do I have any?

It's a silly reference to a very old Star Trek original series TV episode, that probably first aired before you were born. Aliens were betting in this strange 'currency' on the outcome of arena fights between gladiators, some of whom were captured members of the Enterprise crew.

Back on topic...

If they sell the parcels at about $20 US each, as implied in the article, then even if they carve the whole sim into 128 tiny 512 M2 parcels, and sell all of it, they wouldn't get back enough money to cover what those sims most likely cost in the recent auctions. That wouldn't even completely cover the purchase price of a new private island sim, and the mainland auctions have been more expensive than buying a new island sim.

Prediction. If they sell at under the market rate, 100% of the for sale parcels will be in some land speculator's pocket and/or re-priced and re-sold to yet another party, before the week is out.

*Gets out her popcorn and sits back to watch the feeding frenzy.*

I think the article meant the prefabs would be sold around $20. Will have to reread...

But, seriously, who's down for a little sabotage??

Wow. Something ethical that a landbot can do. Who'd have thought?

I would not be so charitable as to call it ethical. I seriously doubt that most of these realtor-sold parcels will end up, at the original price, in the hands of anyone who actually wants to use them for anything more than profit flipping. The bots and land speculators will, instead, buy them and instantly jack the price higher before any actual user can even click on them.

The article says that "Coldwell Banker will open a virtual sales office and start selling virtual land at 9 a.m. on Friday." Have they opened it yet? I'm at work (not in-world) and I should be working, but I just can't wait to see how this is going to turn out.

If they release these parcels on the open market below market price, they'll get snapped up by bots, the prefabs will get autoreturned, and it'll turn into run of the mill mainland madness almost immediately, I think.

But what if they're just selling the parcels to buyers who come in person to their sales office, so they can screen them and only sell one to each person, and not sell to known land dealers? They might actually have a fighting chance of keeping their suburban utopia for a month or so. Of course in that case the land dealers can send in their alts and still wreak havoc. Does anyone think the folks at Coldwell are smart enough to pull this off?

I will add: If they do manage to pull this off, I just may have to mosey on down there and see if they're willing to take advertising for in-world businesses. After all, people who like to live in a neighborhood of matching pre-fab houses might also like to have matching furniture, gardens, etc., and I would be happy to have their business.

so let me get this clear ... we're behind Coldwell now are we? .. I kinda get confused

Doesn't matter how the land eventually turns out. At all.

Doesn't anyone get it?

It's a trust-building exercise.

If you like the land buying experience they offer, you'll perhaps spend half a million real dollars getting a real home through them, and use their services.

Even if they *fail* at least they tried, and that will be remembered too. Which is more than any other big name broker has done.

Get with the program bilbo. It's down with bots, up with faceless multinational megacorporations.

I have a fair amount of faith that their sim will stay pretty. All you haters seem to think every mainland sim collapses into a mess of sinful rotating ads and oscenity shouting casinos. Actually the vast majority of the mainland is beautiful and awesome and a great place to live.

I'm only behind Coldwell if I can make a profit .

Seriously, I'm not pulling for them, I'm pretty much neutral in this whole thing since I've given up on trying to make a profit off the land market myself. I'm just curious whether or not they can pull it off.

Landbot Hax - since when do landbots have opinions? Have you evolved into a sentient being? Does your botmaster know you're posting on the forums? Very frightening, indeed.

It's not a completely new idea, if I understand the $20 homes correctly.

Every once in awhile in my SL wanderings, I run across a tract of houses that all look alike- someone's dream of the beginnings of a rental empire. I've never seen anyone living in them. Wandering down the curved streets gazing at empty driveways, look-alike houses and lawns, it feels like being in a ghost town. I expect a whirlwind of dust and a tumbleweed or 2 to go rolling by at any moment, heh. The wind blows down the lonely streets. I would certainly never consider living in such a drab environment, since in SL I'm free not to.

People who don't have the predilection to build their own house have lots of interesting designs by others to select from. Just go out and buy a house and put it in your shopping bag and bring it home, yay.