What *IS* a "land baron"?

The way I see it, there is a whole range of behavior that gets tagged with the negatively connotate name "land baron", but only a fraction of it deserves it.

Here is my own personal opinion on the range of behaviors you see that gets that name, and how odious I think the behavior is.

MOST ODIOUS : buys land near land owned by residents. Chops it up into 16sqm or 32sqm squares, and puts up really ugly, rotating, urban-blight advertising signs (or even just "for sale" signs). Sells the land at extremely inflated prices. Their intention was never to sell advertising at all, but merely to set up an extortion racket from nearby residents who don't want ugly, ugly advertising plots right next to their land. People who do this are a cancer on Second Life, and if you do it, I'm talking about you.

NEARLY AS ODIOUS : The people who do the above, but really intend to sell advertising plots that are 16sqm or 32sqm in size for inflated prices of L$20/sqm or L$40/sqm or more. The effect is the same, even if the intention isn't explicitly to extort. These people are also a cancer on Second Life.

STILL ODIOUS : People who do the above, but who honestly think that small advertising plots are a good idea, and *don't* over-inflate them. I'm not sure these people exist, but if they do, I still don't like them. Do we really want urban blight in SL? The vast majority of residents, in my experience, are nice and reasonable people who want to have a good time in SL, and who don't like the ugly urban blight that the profit motive coupled with lowest-common-denominator seems to be creating. Urban Blight in SL thrives for the same reason as spam on blog comments and in e-mail; it only takes a few suckers for it to become a viable business model.

JUST AS ODIOUS AS THE FIRST : Land "flippers" who buy low and sell high in a way that takes advantage of one side or the other. During the "first land" era, this included people who made an alt to buy first land (pretending to be the real target of first land) and then sold the land back at market prices. Clearly a violation of the system. This category would also include anybody else who takes advantage of the cluelessness of newbies in order to make a buck.

SOMEWHAT ODIOUS : People who buy plots and sell them back for only a mild profit (i.e. legitimate real-estate businesses), but who also carve out one or two advertising plots before selling them back. Even if they just intend to use the advertising plots themselves, this contributes to urban blight, and makes me grouchy.

NOT ODIOUS : Legitimate real-estate businesses. People who buy land and sell it back. perhaps they landscape it some first to make it more attractive, perhaps they're just out there finding the land and providing central shopping spots where people can get it, perhaps they're speculators. Even the last part isn't odious behavior, although of course it can be risky.

ALSO NOT ODIOUS : Mainland land renters. Some are better than others. I don't know that it is laudable, but it is providing a service that some people want. Some think this may be taking advantage of the system, but I don't think so. There are legitimate reasons why some might want to rent land. You may have only a Basic account, but want to have a plot to call home, or a plot to play with. You may make a lot of money in-game somehow, and want to turn it into land without cashing out. You may not want to pay the up-front prices that you have to pay to own land.

VERY LAUDABLE : People who buy plots and combine them into better plots before selling them. The most laudable are the people who buy lots of the 16sqm plots next to each other, combine them back into a "real" plot, and sell the whole schmear at a loss. These people are actively working against the urban blight that makes so much of the SL mainland so ugly. Alas, there's no profit in it, and it's just a drop in the ocean.

LAUDABLE : People with island land who rent or sell out the island land to others, and do so in an ethical manner. Often these seem to be called "land barons," but I don't understand what's so negative about it. Why not have a landlord other than Linden? What's more, these people are effectively doing the regulating and zoning that is politically unfeasable on the mainland. LL is unwilling to zone or regulate, and many of us would be nervous if they did, so the parasites (my "odious" categories above) take advantage of the system to make a buck while turning the thing into a cesspool. On Islands-- there is an estate owner. If you like the terms, you can live there, with more confidence that the neighborhood will remain something you like than you could ever have on the mainland. There are various modes of this. Some islands have commercial sims-- I have a plot myself on NineInchNerds that I pay for. I'm fond of the "Otherland Estates," which are all residential, and all zoned with (effectively) a "do not make your land ugly and abuse your land privileges" covenant. (I also like Otherland because they are skilled landscapers who make attractive landscapes.) I wouldn't call any of these people "land barons," for they aren't taking advantage of anybody. They're making a profit by providing a service that some people are willing to pay for and appreciate. I call that "enlightened self-interest," and is ideally how a free market is suppose to work when it is working well.

EXTREMELY ODIOUS : Anybody who screws people over by pretending to do any of the above. Island owners who try to pawn off their land as mainland, who don't make clear that the buyers have to pay tier (if they do). Island owners who take peoples' money, but come up with a BS reason to kick them off the land and then just resell it. People who falsely advertise mainland land by playing games with prim limits. People who claim that land is "roadside" when they built the road themselves and fully intend to go back and sell the road later. Etc.

Some clearly use the term "land baron" for any and all of the above. I disagree with the use of that term. There are many legitimate real estate type people as well as estate owners who really are engaging in "enlightened self-interest, and I think it's terrible to lump them in with the jerks who do all the odious stuff above.

As with all business practices in real and second life there are honest traders and rogue cowboys who would screw their granny's for a quick buck! I guess you just have to read the signs....be vigilant and dont always take a land barons word as the gospel truth. As long as you do some simple checks and spend a bit of time looking into the deal then you should be able to suss the genuine honest traders from the scum.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who's bored at work today, Prospero Seriously though, anyone who chops up good mainland into 16m plots should learn that there are better ways to make money in SL that won't piss people off.

When I first joined I had major unpleasant experience without 1st SL millionare assoiciate but it was only because I was new and made mistake of selling.
It sort of soured me from trusting just anyone who sells land.
Often with few exceptions I get the opinion must of successful business in SL are all because they are focused on one thing and become good at, they really don't have time to deal with making new friends, mentoring,etc.
I reccently moved to better lot increasing my tier but I had 1536 where I had bought my first land from few months back. I rather have the prims in the new spot.
Being the prim addict I was I broke down and wrote a neighbor who I saw had several lots for sell and asked him if I could talk to him about his land.
I told him I could only afford certain amount but I had this other lots would he be interested in making a deal.
We talked, I even added him as friend. He was very, very nice!
The deal work wonderfully I got 2024m2 in spot I wanted he got 1536 plus 7500.
Most of the cheapest lots at previous place were around 8 to 9k, highest for 512 was 99999999 L to 27500.
He can still eventually get 27k for land and I got the land I wanted.
It really actually was one of best and most postive business deals I have made in SL.
P.S, I am not land baron because I don't plan on selling
Before I had this experience I assumed land baron buy lot of land and flip and raise the prices and usually overcharge anyone they can.

First off, thanks for the entertaining and informative post. I'm glad you and others can see that the humans (behind the avatars) are not all the same and that some of us in the virtual real estate business want to be ethical (like me). I decided the buying-sims-and-reselling-them-for-modest-profit was too stressful and cutthroat, so I only buy private islands now and rent the subdivided parcels of them out. This way people can have land usage and not have to spend a small fortune.

You actually missed one: buying up auctioned sims, carving them up and reselling them.

As far as I'm concerned that is the one and only decent use for "land barons", everything else has a negative impact (another one you left out is labelling the land as protected when it's merely next to a void region and therefor not protected at all; or the ones running around newbies telling them L$1024 was a good resell deal for their first land plot).

Private sim owners aren't really land barons in my opinion: they don't deal in transferable goods (although some still claim they do), nor do those who deal with rentals. Scratching those two out of your categories leaves you with the actual land dealers which is what most people mean with "land baron" and not surprisingly the only category you labelled positive is a category you note doesn't really exist, leaving only negative aspects to land dealers.

Ahem. In his "Laudable" category, that describes me exactly. We are NOT all scum. Far from it. If you don't like humane capitalism (which is what the land business should be), then we have no discussion whatsoever.

Kitty, you seem to have it in for people who deal in land. I'm sorry your experiences so far have been negative with regard to so-called "land barons." I want to point out that estate land IS transferable. I sell land in my Kush sims (Kush and Kush II) to residents at around cost. They can then resell at any price they choose. Several residents have sold their lots for over 100% profit. Kudos to them!

There was another group of those auction buyers I noticed it when I bought land reccently
Someone got land sold it for 4890 to 5100.
I am just regular resident who likes lot of land to do stuff on and do group projcects with friends.
While I was buy the land someone comes in starts to swap in and raise the 4880 and 5100 lots to 9 to 10k
There was another group came in bought like my neighbor who could charged more but didn't and took a temporary loss.

Agreed. Those pretending land bordering on voids is protected or "waterview" is borderline criminal.

If that's true then I have a no transfer house I bought to sell you. Don't worry about the fact that I can delete it whenever I want to... I won't... honest.

As ridiculous a deal as that is, selling private sim land is no different. Sure, LL can take your mainland away, but then the house could vanish from both the sim and your inventory too due to database issues (far more likely than LL wrongfully taking land), yet that wouldn't stop you from buying a copy of your very own.

When I started, much of those negative experiences simply didn't exist. First land was aplenty, just search and 1-2 sims worth would show up. Land prices were affordable, some sims were cheaper than others but it mostly all for sale at L$5-6/m². Private island rentals were for the most part being honest and not try to grab up some extra cash by "selling" the land.

I rent two private island parcels, 9600m² and 5200m² at $38/month and $18/month respectively with no purchase price ever required. Those are acceptable prices to me and were pretty much the norm when I was looking for rentals. Looking at current prices (Anshe's) it would be $54/month and $30/month respectively and I'd be expected to pay for land I would never own.

A friend had about 16,000m² worth of mainland to sell, land barons were quoting her prices that would equal L$6/m² and making it out as a great deal.

All I see with those dealing is little cartoon L$ eyes, stuffing their pockets at the expense of others, so yesh, I have it in for people who deal in land because when it comes down to it. You, or anyone else posting here on the forums may be ethical (or ethical to your own standards which don't necessarily have to match my own ), but as a whole land traders aren't the nicest group of people in my opinion.

Yes, the estate owner can reclaim land. But if the estate owner wants to maintain their integrity and continue doing business, this will not happen. And yes, you can own land on an estate. I say own because you can resell it and get all of the proceeds. As I said earlier, many residents in my Kush sims have resold their land, some at over 100% profit. Second Life has grown a lot recently, Kitty. Some of these changes are positive and some are negative. Please don't focus on the negative!

What is a land baron?

Hmm... dunno, but they sound so scary! Good thing there's none around here...

<shifts eyes>

I'll sit on my deck, rocking back and forth in my chair, mumbling quietly about the good old days and those rotten land barons if I want to! .

(Disclaimer: The above was a humerous comment ).

People who whine about people who buy land underpriced because of tier and other reasons are just envious that they can't be fast enough to snag such deals

As far as I'm aware, the term "land baron" was coined a long while back in the earlier versions of SL, at an early point in the changeover from the blue-sky "creative" paradigm to the more market-driven one.

Essentially, the objection was this: most people would only want land as a "stepping stone" towards realising their creative ambitions. However, if - in order to get it - they had to enter a market with people who treated land dealing as the entire reason for them to be in Second Life, they would be at a disadvantage in that market and lose out in terms of value and price, etc.. Furthermore, since SL was "supposed" to be about creativity, by that logic the people doing pure land dealing were not using SL for its intended purpose, and they were interfering with the people who did want to do so.

That early changeover point was when a lot of the hate for "land barons" emerged and really, at that time they couldn't do anything right.

Nowadays I think they are a lot more accepted (mostly because I expect many of the people who complained have either left, or have saved money by selling to a "baron" on the day before tier) but the term carries on, although I don't think it's usually meant pejoratively any more.

When I started, well maybe shortly after I started, land prices were going for well over 20l/m. I know of 512 plots being sold for L$20,000! There was no other place to go, as PI were not in existence. During this same time, there was also an run up in price for the L$. It was very expensive to own land. As time went on, more and more land was released until the opposite situation occurred. Land was just being abandoned because people didn't want it any more. Auctions would close and no one would bid on them. You could buy a sim in auction for $1000. Now we are back to having more demand then land. The solution? Release more land, which is what is happening. Over the last few weeks, I have noticed a steady decline in the price per sqm. Give it 6 months and I would be willing to bet that land goes back to L$5-7.

I assume by people who own islands and rent them out fairly your referring to Ansche Chung and her ilk. I think the complaint with her is not that she own so much (though that is a legitimate concern if she decided to use that clout to manipulate the market harmfully) but her business practices which if the stories are true are less than ethical... though I won't go into it more than that here as I am already bending several forum rules with this post.

I would include those who lie about what their land is -- one example being claiming that something is next to "protected" land when it's just next to a void -- fall into my "extremely odious" category.

Now, it is possible that they fall into an "ignorant" category, which isn't as bad as odious, although the effect on the uninformed buyer is the same. However, I suspect that most of the people advertising "protected" land when next to a void really do know better and are in fact prevaricators.

Another one that bothers me is the term "ocean view" or "waterfront." That seems to be used for any land that's within 1 sim of water. The terms have become meaningless. Being right next to real, protected river or ocean is priceless, and indeed I'm lucky enough to own some of that land myself. (No, I'm not selling, I love it.) (And, yes, I paid more than L$20/sqm for it, but it was back when that wasn't such a bad price.) However, people take advantage of that by claiming that anything that's relatively nearby has a "water view". Hogwash.

-Rob

I don't think there's anything more misleading and downright evil than that. Listing land that backs onto voids as protected or "waterview" hurts buyers and sellers alike whereas most of the other categories metioned hurt only buyers. Buyers are mislead into buying what they believe are genuine waterviews... And at the same time, oftentimes this scammer has the nerve to price his "waterviews" at lower prices than anyone else is selling at hampering the ability to sell genuine waterviews, protected land, etc.

I know nothing makes me angrier than seeing such a listing when I go through the search listings.

Figure I'll put n my 2 cents worth, er 2 lindens worth anyway. I wonder myself if anyone that buys land purely to resell it is considered a land baron, or if the land baron tag is a self proclaimation. I myself buy and sell land, but had never considered myself a land baron, the whole title just gives me a bad feeling..

To say anyone who has a 16 meter plot for advertisement is a bad person just isnt fair, advertisement is a legitimate thing, although going overboard on advertisment is a bad thing. I have 2 plots with my billboard on them, they where the odd peice and rather than selling a 532 i cut a piece out and sold a 512, futhermore i have only done it on roadside, would you say im a bad person for that?

Land trade is a chosen path in SL just the same as a builder, vendor, club owner, stripper, escort, or any other profession. I think the animosity that people have for land barons is morelikelyjealousy and envy, I can understand. If your a builder and working hard for your 10k then you see someone else flop a large peice of land for a profit of 20k, then less i can see how you would be unhappy, but you should be unhappy with your own chosen profession not with the success of someone else. this makes up the bulk of the animosity, and just like everything else bad feelings generate more reaction and judgement than good words to. Now on the same token, does a stripper who makes 1000 a day look at the builder that makes 10k a day with the same animosity?

It really is easy to point the finger at someone else and paint them as the bad guy, makes you feel better about yourself, and gives you the feeling that you are helping in some small part to try and make SL a better place, but just to paint someone as a bad person becuase they sell land immature and silly. Heres a short equation that is used in RL and does apply to sl, not sure if its of any use here but its for whoever wants to see past the BS and really understand how markets work

Supply and deman = Market price
Market Price = what buyer and seller agree to

Example supply and demand produce a price of 7000 per 512 of land, buyer is looking for 5000 per 512 of land, Seller A isnt willing to sell less than 8000 per 512 of land, buyer refuses, seller refuses, = nosale, not market price, Seller then contacts buyer with a lower offer of 7000, buyer returns with a counter offerring of 6500, seller counters with 6750, buyer accepts, = Property sold at market price of 6750.

Alot of people have this understanding that big land sellers are buying land at a price thats way under what other peop-le are paying, like somehow they have figured out the system enough to BYPASS MARKET PRICE, this isnt true at all, well unless your Mr. Flagstaff and let your bots do your buying for you, which while i dont like it, after several weeks of though, I realized, im jealous of him because he is more sucessful, not because he is a bad person becuase he buys and sells land. No lets not put aside the attitude of some of his staff, or rather the lack of personality

Point is, dont hate the player, hate the game

You ruined someone else's view just so you could selfishly profit, you honestly consider that a decent thing to do?

Money really has nothing to do with it in the end, it's the way that whole business aspect of SL behaves itself. A builder/content creator adds value to SL with his/her creations, a club owner creates a venue for places to visit, whether they appeal to you personally or it (you can object to the sim-filling casino-club builds, but at least other club owners decry such behaviour, please show me land traders who stand up and protest the behaviour of their peers instead of cheering each other on).

As shown in another active thread, land traders don't benefit anyone but themselves. Noone has a problem with a business that makes profit based on a symbiotic relationship where both parties benefit from the deal, but most people who aren't involved in it themselves do have problems with parasitic behaviour where one preys on the other. Neither the seller, nor the buyer, need a third-party to pop up who's one and only contribution is to raise prices.

In the end, the difference is easily shown with a simple question: given the choice, would you rather have more people get land at less profit for you; or less people at greater profit to you?
The majority of residents simply want to make SL an enjoyable place not only just for themselves, but others as well. Land traders simply want selfish gain, without ethical or social consideration.

If you were really asking a question rather than just getting on a pedestal and ranting, here is the answer:
/13/c3/163207/1.html

I got my hater blockers on...

Seriously, Kitty, quit hatin'

Land traders provide a significant benefit to people wanting to sell land!

Not long ago, I had 8192sqm of land I needed to sell. Land prices were lower then than they are now, so I couldn't sell it even at the market rate. So I sold it to a land trader. I got less than the market rate for it... but, if I hadn't sold it, I'd have had to pay another month's worth of tier, which would have cost me more than the loss I made compared to market rate by selling to the trader.