AirBNB for SL

[animats]

All over SL there are vacant rooms above stores and in large buildings. While the owners could rent them out, then they'd have the headaches of landlording. Has anyone tried doing that as a business? Find vacant spaces and rent them out, with a payment back to the owner? Offer a public list of available spaces? Take care of tenant problems? Offer a set of starter furnishings?

It's hard for new users to find those spaces.

(One of the best ways to get new users into SL is to get them a place to live.)

[Tari Landar]

2 hours ago, animats said:

"All over SL there are vacant rooms above stores and in large buildings. While the owners could rent them out, then they'd have the headaches of landlording. Has anyone tried doing that as a business? Find vacant spaces and rent them out, with a payment back to the owner? Offer a public list of available spaces? Take care of tenant problems? Offer a set of starter furnishings?

It's hard for new users to find those spaces.

(One of the best ways to get new users into SL is to get them a place to live.)

I have a real hard time believing people have difficulties finding rental places. They range in price from free to...who knows how much, and they are everywhere. We do have a public list of places, it's called search. We also have the forums, MP, individual rental company websites....seriously...we have a crap ton of info and rentals right at our fingertips. 

I used to rent out part of my land to people that just needed a home. I doubt I'd ever get into the rental business, but, it went smoothly for us. Still, those folks could have easily found something a bit cheaper, with more offerings, if they had actually looked, or wanted to look. 

I think what you're referring to in the "find vacant spaces and rent them out with payment to the owner" is someone acting as some sort of middleman between renter and property owner. But I would find such a position completely and utterly useless in sl. The middle man would be taking a portion of the rental, right?(else what incentive is there to even do such a thing?) That customer can go find his or her own renal in less than a few seconds time. If we didn't have as many rentals as we do in sl, a middleman of sorts would make sense, but we've literally got thousands upon thousands. 

Basically, what incentive is there for people to look for an AirBnB, or middleman of any sort, in today's sl? What can that service, that person, offer, that does not already exist. If you can find something, more power to you, and I highly recommend looking at that and expanding on it. However, the odds are most definitely not in your favor, and I don't foresee something like that going well in the end.

(all yous, etc, being general of course)

[animats]

3 hours ago, Tari Landar said:

Basically, what incentive is there for people to look for an AirBnB, or middleman of any sort, in today's sl?

Landlording. Managing short term tenants takes attention and availability.

[Tari Landar]

6 minutes ago, animats said:

Landlording. Managing short term tenants takes attention and availability.

Well I get that, but there is a TON of it already in sl. So what's the incentive to having more? Or, rather, why do you think there isn't enough, so we need more? I think your post kinda comes across as if we don't already have this in sl, and we do, way more than we really need even. (which is why I added this part "What can that service, that person, offer, that does not already exist")

Edited December 17, 2018 by Tari Landar

[Theresa Tennyson]

6 hours ago, animats said:

All over SL there are vacant rooms above stores and in large buildings. While the owners could rent them out, then they'd have the headaches of landlording. Has anyone tried doing that as a business? Find vacant spaces and rent them out, with a payment back to the owner? Offer a public list of available spaces? Take care of tenant problems? Offer a set of starter furnishings?

It's hard for new users to find those spaces.

(One of the best ways to get new users into SL is to get them a place to live.)

In real-life the vacant room above a store is completely independent of the store. In Second Life the land impact used by the tenant's furnishings will come out of the merchant's allowance and they will generally need to be added to the landowner's group.

[iamyourneighbour]

14 hours ago, animats said:

All over SL there are vacant rooms above stores and in large buildings. While the owners could rent them out, then they'd have the headaches of landlording. Has anyone tried doing that as a business? Find vacant spaces and rent them out, with a payment back to the owner? Offer a public list of available spaces? Take care of tenant problems? Offer a set of starter furnishings?

It's hard for new users to find those spaces.

(One of the best ways to get new users into SL is to get them a place to live.)

Good idea I like this

 

But I think SL isn't really cut out for it since our supply exceeds demand, where as AirBNB caters to the exceeding demand and lack of supplies in short term housing.

I do airBNB myself, insane amount of renters for holiday locations because your price sits between hotels and long term rentals (and they wont get into long term rentals period) But in SL you can teleport so I do not think there's such location exclusivity to be had.

Edited December 17, 2018 by iamyourneighbour

[Ethan Paslong]

3 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

In real-life the vacant room above a store is completely independent of the store. In Second Life the land impact used by the tenant's furnishings will come out of the merchant's allowance and they will generally need to be added to the landowner's group.

not to forget the customers will love it when there's a bunch of escorts using the little rooms for their workspace... free entertainment when you buy your shoes...

[iamyourneighbour]

4 hours ago, Ethan Paslong said:

not to forget the customers will love it when there's a bunch of escorts using the little rooms for their workspace... free entertainment when you buy your shoes...

If you buy this very expensive slurpee you get a free rocket launcher

[Tari Landar]

13 hours ago, iamyourneighbour said:

If you buy this very expensive slurpee you get a free rocket launcher

Lmao

That reminds me of something I did once by accident, totally my fault, I wasn't even paying attention to what I was doing. I accidentally handed out a goldfish in a bag (which sits on your head btw.) to anyone who bought certain things from my inworld store for about 2 months. Then someone finally told me about it, fairly certain everyone else thought it was intentional. She asked if she could have a blue fish and not a purple fish actually, so she could match her partner. 

I know, unrelated to the thread, it just reminded me of that lol. 

[Klytyna]

On 16 December 2018 at 7:45 PM, animats said:

(One of the best ways to get new users into SL is to get them a place to live.)

Rubbish!

Many people in SL are "homeless" and quite happy about it.

On 16 December 2018 at 7:45 PM, animats said:

All over SL there are vacant rooms above stores and in large buildings. While the owners could rent them out, then they'd have the headaches of landlording. Has anyone tried doing that as a business?

The problem is you are STILL thinking like a FirstLifer...

You do that whole FirstLifer thing...

A home's useless unless it's near a road with good access to the freeway into town...

Oh! Wait... SecondLife... We have TELEPORT!

Can't afford a nice big suburban house out in the sticks, rent a squalid bedsit over a biker bar full of drunken thugs, in Kama City...

Oh! Wait... SecondLife... We have SKYBOXES!

...

You are not alone in foolishly trying to apply FirstLifer thinking to SecondLife, there was some buffoon a year or so back who actually thought there would be demand for hotel rooms, a grocery store and a stage show revue dining room (with Sigfried & Roy lookalike animesh lagbots!), to turn a skill-gaming gambling den into a proper FirstLifer casino resort...

Never occured tpo them that people just went there to gamble, nobody needs to eat, lagbots are boring, and you don't need a hotel to sleep in at the casino because, a) you log out and b) often do so after TELEPORTING to your usual "home location".

FirstLifer Thinking, it's a good way to make pointless unsuccessful businesses in SecdondLife.

 

[Persephone Emerald]

As others have said, Second Life doesn't function the same as first life. When people want a home in SL, they'll find one. When they want to have pixel sex with another avatar, they'll find a place for that. Distance means nothing when we can teleport anywhere, but prim usage on a parcel we're paying for makes a big difference. As a former SL landlady, I know how much trouble some tenants can be, and unfortunately the ones I was letting live free were often the worst. When you get a good tenant who pays their rent and doesn't constantly exceed their prim limit, count yourself blessed. On the one hand, I like newbies to be able to live cheap in SL, but on the other hand, if you use Search creatively and look around, you can find free group/ free rez places places all over SL. I used to dress underwater, in sandboxes and in isolated alleys when I was a Basic Account newbie. Maybe this makes me appreciate sim owners and having my own land more now.

Edited December 27, 2018 by Persephone Emerald
Edit to add comma

[Prokofy Neva]

You're always looking to mind other people's business instead of your own, and always looking for ways to "improve" SL which in fact only improve it by your lights, not others'.

My RL landlord bans AirB&B from our complex - and with good reason. Why should anyone else but my landlord make money from rooms that are not properly rented out? In NYC, AirB&B violates motel law, but more than that, it's notorious for slumlords grabbing a bunch of space and re-renting it with minimal care to random strangers for very short periods instead of to people who live here with proper leases and maintenance.

As others have aptly noticed, even with a "room above a garage" not being the same thing in SL as in RL (due to land impact, streams tied to parcels, etc.), there are other reasons.

In SL, there is absolutely no reason at all I want somebody else grabbing up empty rooms that he thinks need filling -- by filling his pocket -- and re-renting them. Again, if anyone is to be making any money off land THAT I PAY TIER FOR in SL, it will be me, not literal rent-seeking expropriators. If someone thinks they can manage and advertise property better, I have an idea for them: instead of hustling "unused space" from someone who went to the trouble to buy it on the auction or on the market and pay tier (unlike you) -- rent island servers from Linden Lab like I do, re-rent them to the general public as you see fit. Or spend the time, treasure and talent that I do on building a rentals business instead of grabbing it from someone else. The end.

So I and many landlords don't allow sublets. Those that do get a hefty price to start with which means those lightly considering it are sifted out.

SometimesI find stores invading land I have set aside for cheap newbie residential rentals and putting up stores in the sky to sell merchandise, often breedables. Why should you lag my sim and pay me only 85 cents equivalent per month and then make tens of dollars off that land yourself selling expensive breedables? At least rent one of my also inexpensive store fronts or store lots, thank you. Or, hey, go to one of the big rental companies and pay them what they ask for commercial lots, which will often be $2-3/prim or more.

When people announce to me that they're likely to go sifting through my rentals and look for apartments they can scout out and re-rerent -- possibly without me ever noticing, as they may be smart enough not to put their rental box on my property (believe me, not everybody is!) -- I have a simple solution: I ban them from my properties. If I hadn't acquired reasons before that to ban them, which I have.