Land resellers

Best solution? Lock down all land to L$6/sq m and 95% of the playerbase win.

The 5% that lose are the land dealers - who frankly we could do without anyway. They control the land market, which controls the economy, which causes everyone pain.

What is Second Life without the ability to own land? Just a big chatroom with little point. The appeal of SL for many people is that they can buy some land, build something they want, and tailor their little bit of the game to just how they want it, not how someone else built.

Don't for one minute think that land dealers are here because they are providing a much needed service - they're doing it to make money, and that's all. They really don't care that they're manipulating the market price to suit their own needs - because there are enough people that will buy land regardless of how much it costs (example being the L$10,000 16 sqm ad parcel griefers).

A more flexible tier system, enabling people to expand without worrying about going up to the next high level would benefit so many players, I really don't understand why Linden Lab haven't implemented something like that already. It would encourage far more people to hold on to that little 512 that would put them over tier if they buy something else - and perhaps pay only $1 for it instead of $20 or whatever.

It pains me to see greed destroying Second Life just as it does reality.

Broccoli

RL economics only go so far with any game, even SL. Land tier fees don't really counter the balance you get from a government tax system. The tax laws in the US make it impractical to buy land and resell for a minimum profit. SL has no such system, nor (do I feel) it would fit in. The differences still prevent the 'greed' business practices IRL.

Well, this topic shows once again that SL is not simply a game. The "playerbase" are residents of a virtual world, a world that contains game-like entertainment but that also is a business platform, often an extension of RL business.

Everyone who doesn't want to pay other residents can use only the services provided by LL. For example, one could buy a mainland sim directly from LL, at the lowest possible purchase price, and just split off and resell the unneeded land with just enough profit to cover the tier of L$195. As long as one has that opportunity, one can't complain about residents who try to make a profit.



SL doesn't need a tax system, since everyone who makes a profit here has to pay RL income tax. I should have mentioned that in my example; the land reseller will have to pay taxes for the earned US$139, to avoid defraudation of tax.

I'm sorry, but having to pay income tax on money you make isn't the same as the penalties associated with buying and selling land IRL. 139 dollars isnt going to really effect your taxes(assuming you even bother to cash out with that amount). But when you take a 30 percent tax penalty on a 20k chunk of land, you'll think twice about what you are buying and if it's worth reselling.

**EDIT: once again, I do not endorse or support such a system in-game because I do not believe it would work in SL's architecture. See a previous post.**

Honestly, I put the people buying and selling entire sims into a different catagory from the everyday people here complaining about the cost of their 512, 1024, 2048 parcels.

I'm seeing whole islands for sale for $2500 listed here ... why would anyone buy an island - especially an undeveloped one with no traffic - for that price when they can get a new one for $1675?

Surely this is something that Zee Linden should be commenting on - and doing something about? He's been quiet lately.

If you buy a piece of land IRL and turn around to resell it the next day, you will take a huge penalty for doing so and you had better make one hell of a profit to cover the fees. If you keep that land for at least a year, the heaviest of those penalties are negated down to normal taxes. If you actually live in a house on that land for a year(2 years?), it's nearly a total write-off.

The market dictates the max. price; currently the resellers are lucky bastards, but that may change again soon. It's up to LL to change it, by selling more mainland

Because they'll be grandfathered at the old tier, saving the buyer $100US a month on tier fees over a new island? I don't buy, sell or rent land on private islands so I'm only speculating, but it seems pretty obvious to me why it costs more.

Posted by Stephen Zenith

Of course, you're comparing the SL land market with the US RL land market, including taxation. Other countries have vastly different systems of taxation when it comes to real estate.

In the UK for example, your taxes are no different if you sell within an hour or a decade, the buyer pays a fixed percentage of the land value, called Stamp Duty (for historic reasons) on a sliding scale based on the sale value.

You would also pay Council Tax which funds local services (garbage collection, local policing, fire service etc) based on the appraised value of the property on an ongoing monthly basis, which strikes me as reasonably similar to tier.

I'll be honest though, it's nice to have a sensible debate about SL property without the name calling and finger pointing that has traditionally gone with it.

posted by Kitty Barnett
LL indicated that when they'll raise mainland prices, they'd be inclined to hit the higher tiers more than the low tiers which will hopefully cut into their margins enough to no longer make it worthwhile.

I did actually point out that your example was a legitimate reason to have resellers . The problem is the active swooping to force everyone to pay the minimum price they set.

If I wanted to sell what I have at a price that is fair to me to people who are new to land owning and just looking for something to live, how would I go about it? The vultures would be there in 5 seconds, buy it and resell it at double. They'll stoop low enough to create dozens of new premiums just to snatch first land away from those who need it.

by Ishtara Rothschild
What I meant with buying an entire sim from LL: currently you can't lose any money by doing so. LL will charge your account, not your credit card (afaik, if mainland sims are billed the same way as islands). Means, when your sim is delivered, the USD balance in your account will show a negative value that you can pay off by selling the L$ earned by selling the uneeded parts of the sim. With the current land prices, you could even make quite a profit that covers your tier for several months. Buy a sim, keep only 2048 sqm (or whatever you need), sell the rest with profit and pay for the sim using the earned money.
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Yes, but you missed my point. Most of the people here complaining, aren't the people who can afford to drop down 3k for their own sim. The people complaining here are looking for something between an extra 512 lot and 4096 (for the most part) and finding everything bought out that was reasonable and priced unreasonable. My example I had used before was a particular person who buys everything he can lower than him(the example was 1024 lots that were all priced at 20k yesterday, by the same individual), reprices it at much higher than what it's worth without doing anything to the land, not even bothering to change the description.

You are correct, however. It's the most efficient way to get your land if you can fork up that kind of cash. It really puts you above the problems others are experiencing.

Ugh, I'm not looking forward to LL's idea of hitting higher tiers. I'm hoping to expand my land to about 4096sqm. I don't think I'd really want to pay a higher monthly fee than it already is.

Nice thought, except the "money saved" is spent in 9 months - when, by then, there's a fairly good chance that the "grandfathering" will have been abolished, all land will be at the higher rate - and we'll probably have had another price increase by then as well. Not only that, new islands will be 'class 5', whereas old islands are most likely a class 4 or possibly even 3.

Broccoli

Yes, but you missed my point. Most of the people here complaining, aren't the people who can afford to drop down 3k for their own sim. The people complaining here are looking for something between an extra 512 lot and 4096 (for the most part) and finding everything bought out that was reasonable and priced unreasonable. My example I had used before was a particular person who buys everything he can lower than him(the example was 1024 lots that were all priced at 20k yesterday, by the same individual), reprices it at much higher than what it's worth without doing anything to the land, not even bothering to change the description.

You are correct, however. It's the most efficient way to get your land if you can fork up that kind of cash. It really puts you above the problems others are experiencing.

I think you worded that a bit strangely, the new owner would pay a higher up-front price in exchange for lower tier. This person will have saved enough in tier after nine months to offset their higher initial outlay.

I don't know though how long LL tolerates a negative account balance before charging your cc. But with the current need for cheaper land, your additional land could sell within a day after sim delivery.

I'm not sure if they changed it since, but a few people have mentioned on Linden Answers that they were getting charged the fee the moment the order was placed, not even when the island was delivered.

Nice thought, except the "money saved" is spent in 9 months - when, by then, there's a fairly good chance that the "grandfathering" will have been abolished, all land will be at the higher rate - and we'll probably have had another price increase by then as well. Not only that, new islands will be 'class 5', whereas old islands are most likely a class 4 or possibly even 3.

Broccoli