When Did Land Get So Expensive????

Just for reference, the completed auctions page lists the following full-sims and finishing prices:

Wajo Hill US$3117.00
Demondrille US$3305.00
Goondi US$3251.00
Sognefjord US$2963.00
Wallaroo US$3226.00

As you're all so fond of telling us: noone's forcing you to pay that for something that's only worth half.

if nobody pays it, supply drops even further. If you're interested, have a look to see the one name that's doing most of the bidding (although not always winning) for most of these sims.

Then if you can remember back to who successfully cornered the market last time there was a shortage of new land.

nobody forces someone for paying 4k for a shape or a skin of body since others are half priced or free.
But you know something, many people buy it. Nobody forces them

Should we comment also on that?

Since there are people who make their judgment that the price they pay is worth the money, then that's it. Many also say that Google stock is way overpriced, but you know, there are lot's buying it (no comparison ofcourse between land in SL and stocks, but just an example).

Regular people are complaining that land is too priced too high and get told to "suck it up or don't buy" from the sharks, who meanwhile complain that new sims are priced too high and for some reason sarcastically throwing the same answer back suddenly hits a nerve?

As far as the skin/shape comparison goes, feel free to point out land that's easily available at half price, good luck . Land isn't a free market, resellers make sure of that.

Would it just be easier if we agreed supply has dried up, accepted that this is what we're charging, like it or not, then based on that made a choice to buy or not?

That's really all it comes down to.

As for telling us not to buy either, I haven't, at least not at auction. The winners of completed auctions are publicly visible if you wish to confirm that.

IMHO, the concept of "high" versus "low" is relative. It all depends on the current economic environment. Once upon a time, a gallon of gasoline cost $0.25. Now it's $2.30 -- the national average according to AAA. If our perspective is back when it cost two bits, we'd say gas is too expensive and wait until it returns to a "reasonable" level. Until scientists find a way to turn seawater into gasoline, I think the days of 25 cent gas has passed.

Once upon a time, SL land went for 8 L/m2. Now it's closer to 19 L/m2. If you bought your land back in olden days, 19 L/m2 is a "high" price if "reasonable" is 8-10 L/m2. Maybe, if LL can manage to not screw things up and the demand for limited land increases, land will sell for 40 L/m2. Then we'll be complaining that that's "high" compared to a "reasonable" 19 L/m2.

Thanks for that. I'm currently selling at 16L/sqm, so by your definition I'm offering pretty good value in the current market.

The answer is fairly simple: don't buy land at overinflated prices, wait it out. Over 1000 new sims worth of land will appear in SL between Nov 15 and Jan 1, there is plenty of land. Learn to be considerate and work with each other; if you are getting ready to sell your land, check with all your sim neighbors to see if anyone wants your land before you put it on the open market. If you are looking for land, let everyone know how much you are looking for and what you want to pay. Post your needs in the land forum and let other good samaritans find you. All it takes to fix this is people who are decent enough to help each other out and cut out the middle man. No, it won't be easy and yes, it will take longer, but it is the "right" thing to do and the only way you can make a stand.

In all of November, 1435 acres were auctioned by the Lindens. Using their definition of 1 acre = 4096 sqm, that means 5,877,760 sqm were auctioned, or nearly 90 sims. In a month.

In December to date, only 367 acres have been auctioned, or nearly 23 sims worth.

So from November 1 to Dec 17, they auctioned 113 sims worth. Given that it's Christmas next week, they will have to give it some to auction off another 887 sims before Jan 1, and that's giving you the benefit of the first 2 weeks in November.

Figures from Economic Statistics

That's a good analogy... however, $0.25 for gas was what 50 years ago. (and remember, people only made less (probably way less) than $50 per week back then too). The prices in sl have risen much, much, much more quickly in just 2 months. I paid $10.70/sm for my land with 2 houses, there is now land only in my sim going for $48.83/sm). That quite a rate of inflation.

I wish we could get that advice to all the naive newbies.

I was referring to all the islands ordered between Nov 1 and Nov 15 during the great island land rush of 2005. There were over 1000 of them and LL is still trying to bring them all online before Jan 1. That is a whole lotta land and it is growing the SL land mass by 1/3. That is a lot of people that need to be pushed to island land to make tier...

LL noted that the rush for private sims equals a land mass increase of 30%, which is probably what Isablan is referring to.

I bought land in mid-August for about L$ 5.4/m² which was on the low end, L$ 6.5/m² was about the average with people like Anshe holding the top end at L$ 7.5/m² in some sims.

(Changed my purchase price and date after actually looking it up ).

So in 5 months, prices for land have gone up percentage wise almost as much has gas did in 50 years? Yeesh!

I know it was a few pages ago, but this topic is in response to the OP asking about mainland land.

Just looked through my transactions, it was August 19th and I paid L$5.4/m².

*gets L$ cartoon eyes* Maybe I should sell, wait for the crash, then buy it back again cheap

It's called catching a falling knife

Yes, but island land has everything to do with what is happening with the mainland currently. There are fewer mainland sims being released because most of the hardware is going to fill island orders. Let's say (insert name of your favorite land baron here) ordered 10 sims on Nov 1 to take advantage of the coming price increase. That was $12,500 US out of pocket right away. Let's also say those 10 sims were delivered Nov 20 and all 10 are planned for rental/resale. It takes a week or so to get the sims terraformed and ready for occupancy and right around Dec 1 they are open for business. First month of tier on a new island is free. First tier payment of $1950 US for those 10 islands is due somewhere around Jan 20.

Tell me this isn't big incentive to push mainland prices up, drive people to islands in anticipation of making that tier payment....

Unfortunately, you'd probably have to buy it back 16 sm at a time. LOL

LOL! Great minds.... Back in October after a relationship breakdown in SL, I had a silly wobble and sold everything I had (a little over 4096m2 so not much really), but then came back in Nov and did a little 512 trading to earn some $Ls. I eventually got bored (land trading is so tiresome ) and kept hold of a waterfront 512 in Gualala because..well, my premium ac doesn't expire 'til May 2007 so I might as well hold on to *something*.

But now the nearby land is changing hands at obscene rates (somebody just paid $18,000L for a 512 for heaven's sake and both parties knew *exactly* what they were doing) and the angelic voice in one side of my head is being bawled out by the greedy demon in the other.

I wonder if as many people would pay the fees for small 512 plots of land if it was listed in US$...$18,000L is equal to about $70 US...That's less than 2 prims per $US.

Honestly I don't think I'd want to pay more than $10 US for a 512 plot of land...that's only $2690 US.

Maybe people should start offering the sellers what they are willing to pay, start in US$ convert it to $L and offer than, maybe then the land sellers would realize what the true value of their land is....

That's just me though...

Unfortunately, as far as mainland sims go, that one is actually quite nice . 3/4 of the sim is on my side of the road and owned by a lovely rental community (1/3rd of the sim) and the rest is taken up by four stores.

They're likely to just get griefed with huge obnoxious rotating "for sale" signs if I were to sell .

The simple fact is that SOMEONE is paying these prices. This is a very simple situation, the price of land has gone up because people are prepared to pay more.

If no one was buying at these prices, then they would, inevitably, come down again.

Supply and demand.

By discussing this in forums and news, we are also increasing demand. You are sending newbies to buy land by the time they finish reading this forum post. We are creating an impression for others that there isn't any land or that the land price is going to keep going up. Why not just leave it alone and it will settle where it should.