Is LL using stupid names to keep land prices down?

Not to be a Buttinski, but who is the Fumb Delchdork in the Mainland Sim naming department that thinks that people will be lining up to bid on parcels with names like Hoobelch or Ghulffoot?

You'd have to be a Poob or have just smoked a fat Nuggy to plunk down major cash for a sim named Jorondip or Borgbeef (although when combined, they make a tasty deli sandwich).

Dogoog it, I don't mean to raise a Broo, but this is one time I have to give LL the Tholtfinger.

Sincerely,

Gormthoog Tschotcke

Maybe it's a scam to make you fork over MORE money to have it renamed later on muahahahaha I dunno, but it's beyond ordinary SL silliness to me.

"Is LL using stupid names to keep land prices down?"

I wish!
And what's this "keep" paleface? Surely Sir means 'drive'.
If a sim named Stupid Buttface is going for a song I'll take it

Noob: Where do you live?
Me: I live in Stupid Buttface
So I have to type "I live in"?? LL paid me to take the sim off their hands!



I had a wander around bits of Nautilus last night. I saw plots of 2048 on waterways side by side in the same sim at significantly different prices from different mini-barons. 13L/m and 11.5/m

On the other hand I saw 30+L/m for plots on the edges of sims that bounded Governor Linden 'Maintenance' water sims. Those sims were a mixture of named and default-named sims.
"Unblockable", "Protected" went the sales spin. As far as I know, this is a con-job.


LINDENS !!!
Can you please auction all of the sims that you intend to *before* putting Corsica on the block? And/or label the genuinely protected ones as "Protected"
Otherwise the same confusion will arise.


Suggestion:
Have a different colour on the Map and in View/LandOwners for Linden land.

Rumor has it that they hired Dr. Suess for the land naming job...

Me personally, I am waiting for WhooVille to come on the map.

I've been wondering about some of the names myself. Though I don't think the Lindens have to give the sims wacky names to keep prices down, all they have to do is keep dumping 40 sims at a time on the auction block and that'll do it. Prices have come down nicely lately though I have to say I might be tempted to buy land in a sim called "Stupid Buttface". It would be the perfect place for a Simpsons theme.

Maybe the name of the new continent, "Corsica" belies a new naming scheme.

Land prices barely moved following the latest release of 40 sims. All the main sellers know that it's not 40 every day, and it's not even 40 in addition to a regular release schedule. All they did was store up a few days worth of releases (before the 40 there hadn't been any for most of a week) and let them out in one go.

They're actually being a little cleverer about things. Most of the recent land has been waterfront, and the same is said of Corsica. Selling so much water allows them to get premium values for them on the auction block while simultaneously selling lots of them. They also get to be seen to be doing something about land prices to casual observers who just see the auction queue full of sims.

Going-prices are steady around 10.0 for non-water, which is exactly where people reckoned the Lindens wanted it when they made their blog post about land prices back in January.

When Rabid Platypus comes up, I want it.

How many sims go to auction per day, or how many go to auction every few days isn't the issue.
The issue for pricing is the number of parcelled sims that can be sold per day at a price by the auction winners and the mini-barons who buy from them.


As a consumer, I find all that yellow in both Nautilus and the previous continent very cheering. I have been occasionally checking a few sims with interesting topology. I see big areas that have been unsold since being bought from auction at the start of April (for example).


The mainland land barons and their profits should be of no concern to LL.
They contribute nothing.
They add no value. The only add cost.
LL could just as easily parcel the sims and sell the parcels direct at higher than sim auction. If they did that, they would get more Premium residents paying higher tier rates than do the barons sitting on large land-banks.


Edit:
I'm speaking here of land-flipping barons and mini-barons who simply buy to sell on immediately.

You mean like how they are using stupid Avatar names to keep membership down?

I wasn't talking about barons. By "they" I meant LL.

You stated that the 40 sims reduced prices, which simply wasn't the case because sims were being issued at the exact same rate as before. Trust me, I know what the going rate on a piece of land is.

For the record, LL used to sell land in smaller parcels, but didn't want to bother with it anymore. And also, LL get more money by selling land to barons who then sell the land on, because tier has to be paid by both the baron and the recipient on the same plot of land. If the land was sold directly to the end customer, only one lot of tier would be paid.

technically its not the avatar last names that are stupid , its just the fact that all the non stupid combinations are taken ...

Its too bad its not technically feasible to just Sell Accounts - you could scoop up all the Normal names every time a last name comes out - then sell teh account for a proffit to someone who doesnt want to be named wtf2008Ih8thisnam3 Smith.

Actually, my real last name was one of the options back in December - it was quite disconcerting to see somebody with my full, rl name.

Yes. That's what I understood you to mean.



Nope! That was someone else. Believe me .....
My view is that the rate of new continents, whether auctioned as a steady drip or in batches will take the steam out of prices - provided the rate of supply exceeds the ability of barons to sit on land until their asking price is met.
In particular, I'd like to see prices in the new water continents taking some of the premium out of waterside land in the older continents.


Not quite duplicated tier! Tier is paid on area, not on particular land. If the baron sells square metres at the rate he buys, his tier is fairly constant.
On the other hand, if I as an individual buy a bigger area and *then* sell my old area, I'll suffer a once-off hit on extra tier. It's not strictly duplicate tier as I will have been temporarily bumped up to a tier with a lower cost per metre.

It's still open to LL to sell smaller parcels directly. I don't see land barons going to any great effort in slapping a grid of smaller parcels of whatever size over a sim.


It remains that the barons don't add any value for the end user.
I've come across many people who won't buy or go won't go Premium right now because they consider that the up-front cost of a decent area of land is 'too high'.
I'd like to expand my tier, but not at current up-front prices.

Yellow maps? Love 'em

So
if LL come up with a nice water sim on a guaranteed edge of a continent and name it ButtUglyCrapWhereEvenwtf2008Ih8thisnam3SmithWouldn'tLive,
and sensible people won't buy it,
would all the loonies please agree to form a queue *behind me* so I can buy it for cheep?

Ah, my bad.

I dont follow the land market at all, but have noticed a massive amount of land for sale and it seems to be increasing by the week. Also Ive noticed that the new sims, once dropped/bought/parcelled up are not selling quickly either. So in my uneducated opinion. there is far to much land up for sale compared to the estimated number of buyers currently looking for land and this has been the case for a few months now.

So, how is it that the price of land has not dropped. I just cannot see how the average price is still L$10 per sqm. The only explanation is that the land barons/sellers are paying vast amounts of tier on land they cant sell. Answer = lower the prices, but they don't seem to be doing that.

What am I missing here?

This thread was more a snarky commentary on the names than on prices, but I'm glad that is where the discussion headed.

Yes, as I've stated before, it appears that L$10 a meter is their target base price. However, that may go to $L8.5 if the Corsica dumps come fast and furious. This will eventually correct upwards again once the dumps slow down.

However, there is an X-factor (or the Y-factor for "yellow land". There are a lot of barons holding a lot of tier right now. If demand slows down enough, we may see a sell-off. Especially since the "Highly desirable" waterfront in Nautilus isn't all that is was cut up to be. With ugly ad plots, an auto-return of 5 minutes and scripts not enabled, it's not like anyone can enjoy the open water anyway...the comments on the new continent blog announcement were very telling:
http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/07/06/new-mainland-continent-on-the-way/

I hope Jack and his team learn from the recent past and do a better job with Corsica. Having waterways that are usable would go a long way to keep values up. Just one Fumb's opinion.

The only thing I see you are missing is that when prices dipped below $10 two weeks ago, they stopped dropping new sims. This caused prices to go back up pretty quickly. And if you look at how high the 40 sims just went for in auction, it's obvious there is still a demand for land.

My guess is it's the constant influx of new baby barons trying their hand at it that is keeping prices up. When they realize that the land bots get all the good deals and that tier keeps them from realizing a decent profit, we may see things heading south. It's been surprising to me too that it has not happened yet.

Erotic Star Trek fan fiction?

Burgers that eat *you* ?

"Damnit, Jim! I'm a Doctor, not a Short Order Cook!".

LMAO!! I wanna be your neighbor then =D

I bet its just like walking by a tombstone with your name on it lol

I have land in a sim named so stupidly I still can't spell it. Something like Vorizonhirkistuckstan.

But, I think continuing to come out with new continents, letting other vendors run private continents, established sims moving to private servers to cut lag, gambling places closing, and the like - that is sufficient to keep land prices down.

In fact, I can't understand what is keeping them up where they are, considering the demand vs supply.

I love the name Sounds like something out of an old poem. "With bravery he wields the spork, to kill the rabid platypus..."