Land Pricing

[Luna Bliss]

A customer of mine got a strange note card regarding the cost of her Homestead going up without warning, and wanted advice from me. I've never heard of this -- are many estates pricing their rentals this way?  Is there a danger her rent could become unreasonably high?

Basically, the note card said something like this.......Our pricing model is tied to the overall SL inventory and market, so timing is crucial,
 meaning advance notice isn't possible as the adjustment need be in real time.
XYZ uses the dynamic pricing model, the rate is determined by our current inventory, when we have several empty regions,
the price for new property is lowered, when our inventory is low, we raise the rates of the lowest regions.

[Alyona Su]

23 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

A customer of mine got a strange note card regarding the cost of her Homestead going up without warning, and wanted advice from me. I've never heard of this -- are many estates pricing their rentals this way?  Is there a danger her rent could become unreasonably high?

Basically, the note card said something like this.......Our pricing model is tied to the overall SL inventory and market, so timing is crucial,
 meaning advance notice isn't possible as the adjustment need be in real time.
XYZ uses the dynamic pricing model, the rate is determined by our current inventory, when we have several empty regions,
the price for new property is lowered, when our inventory is low, we raise the rates of the lowest regions.

Wow. Sounds like major SPIN. A landlord attempting to justify their Bolshevik. I hope your advice was to run, not walk, out of that rental and go find a better one.

[Luna Bliss]

1 minute ago, Alyona Su said:

Wow. Sounds like major SPIN. A landlord attempting to justify their Bolshevik. I hope your advice was to run, not walk, out of that rental and go find a better one.

Yeah sounded pretty weird to me, but I don't keep up with land stuff anymore so wasn't sure. So far land seems reasonable for her @   5588 per week...I think..

[Sister Nova]

16 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

A customer of mine got a strange note card regarding the cost of her Homestead going up without warning, and wanted advice from me. I've never heard of this -- are many estates pricing their rentals this way?  Is there a danger her rent could become unreasonably high?

Basically, the note card said something like this.......Our pricing model is tied to the overall SL inventory and market, so timing is crucial,
 meaning advance notice isn't possible as the adjustment need be in real time.
XYZ uses the dynamic pricing model, the rate is determined by our current inventory, when we have several empty regions,
the price for new property is lowered, when our inventory is low, we raise the rates of the lowest regions.

As much as it would be a pain to move from a settled homestead, I'd be off like a shot if a landlord tried this with me.

If your friend doesn't want to be without a homestead I'd suggest she keep an eye on other landlords property and as soon as her rent exceeds an available rent elsewhere, time to jump ship.

[JJ Hoobinoo]

I agree that this is a BS way to treat your tenants. 

I couldn't imagine being with this landlord for years and the landlord jacking the price up and down all the time? In the meantime the tenant is loyal stays. pays on time, and gets the same level of service from the landlord - and as a thank you I incur the landlords perceived business risk of having a sim (which is a fixed cost- and in fact was lowered by LL) changing prices because "there is change in supply and demand". 

I don't know of landlords pricing below cost , below perhaps a promo period, and so then up/down pricing is a matter securing of the landlords level of profit.  I wonder what the landlord would say if LL priced the landlords tier according to land availability.

There is always more land in SL. 

Run. Run . Run. 

[Qie Niangao]

That's some strange pricing strategy in a competitive market. I mean, it's not as if the grid has a shortage of Homestead space -- or at least not for long, if it ever does.

Doesn't seem to be relevant here, but L$-denominated rent might someday need to be adjusted because tier is US$-denominated and the exchange rate drifted recently. (It may have been smart of Lab to sell L$s to adjust the exchange rate when they dropped land fees, thus automatically spreading the savings to renters -- but there's zero indication anything like that has ever happened.)

[Chic Aeon]

Some landlord "promise" to never raise the rent. I am not sure if the one I ended up was one or not -- I just wanted a plain old empty sim with no terraforming etc so went with a very old company. I pay about 400 a week more than your friend. That was NOT the lowest price that I found but lower priced ones weren't really what I wanted.

We are ALWAYS at the mercy of those we rent from. I have had excellent experiences in the past. But as soon as I have my sim designed I make backups for easy and fast moving.  I have moved whole sims in a day this way. So one thing that she might want to do is :

 

MAKE THOSE BACKUPS.

 

I would not be feeling all that safe or stable at this point if I was her. 

[Prokofy Neva]

I haven't raised the rents on my homestead, and I rent it out at cost because as Qie points out, there are enormous numbers of homesteads out there so there's a lot of competition.

I could see why a landlord would raise their rent -- just l like, you know, gatcha creators have crept up from 25 to 50 to 69 to 75 to even 100 per pull today. Because they can.

But the drop in the value of the Linden may be a factor. If the margins are very tight -- and they are in rentals! -- losing a few dollars per cash-out becomes a mounting loss. Maybe they decided to take that out on the customer. I wouldn't do that, but simply wait longer for the packet to convert. But at this point, you cannot cash out within a month at 254, you have to go to 255 or 256 of even higher. And it had been at 254 for a very long time, even 253.