How much influence do the big land owners have on Second Life?

[Noelle Delaunay]

So this question occurred to me during a Concierge meeting, particularly when it came to the question that gets asked over and over again, if the requirement for a Homestead to own a full region will be lifted at any point of time. The answer given (and I'm recalling this from memory as best as I can, I don't have it in writing and I please be corrected if I recall anything wrongly) was that people just wouldn't have fun with the lower prim limit and a Homestead was meant to be connected to a full region. And this made me really shake my head because I think residents who are curious about homesteads have a fair idea of what they can expect from a 5k prim limit ("You think you do, but you don't" - A few people will know what I mean with that unrelated quote.)

When focus changed to if/when land prices could be lowered, it was said in a subclause that some people heavily complained last time Linden lowered their land prices.

And sure it makes sense. Everyone who could afford a homestead but cannot afford a full region depends on renting a homestead from a third party. I wonder if the big players actively approach Linden and make sure that this requirement is kept in place.

Any other opinions?

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by Noelle Delaunay

[Katherine Heartsong]

Now I am a touch paranoid, given the years of dubious moral business practices the body makers have gotten up to, but I would not be surprised that some of the largest land owners have a very much vested interest in maintaining this status quo and may have expressed this to LL in some manner (the "you must own a full sim before you can own a homestead" thing).

I may be utterly way off base, of course, and am NOT accusing any landlord or SL player of that sort of thing, just stating it's possible and you can understand why they might.

I have owned enough land in the past to know exactly what 5000 prims could afford me on a homestead, and how I could still manage to decorate and landscape it amazingly. And I'd be more than willing to pay LL for a homestead set up and then their monthly $109 fee. But there is no way I'm paying a landlord an extra $30-50/month for the privilege of renting that same land. And that's what many of them are charging, as anyone can see by simply doing a L-to-US$ calculation on their rental fees.

For example, here's a popular landlord, asking 6900L/week. That works out to 358,800L/year, or 29,900L/month. That last figure is currently worth $124.07. That's not bad, but also not good. I did find one at the equivalent of $116.88 (yay!!!, and I may reach out to them, actually), but there are also landlords in the Homestead Rental forum asking for the equivalent of $145. (I'd also want to pay in US$ via PayPal and not Lindens, but that's another thing entirely.)

@Rowan Amore I think once posted that she rented once at $112/month, which I'd also pay. But once you start charging 25%+ on your rental versus your cost? Nope.

I would LOVE to OWN my own homestead and pay LL, but not when I have to own a sim as well. But this topic has also been beaten to death a number of times, so you're preaching to the choir, here.

 

[Rowan Amore]

12 minutes ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

Now I am a touch paranoid, given the years of dubious moral business practices the body makers have gotten up to, but I would not be surprised that some of the largest land owners have a very much vested interest in maintaining this status quo and may have expressed this to LL in some manner (the "you must own a full sim before you can own a homestead" thing).

I may be utterly way off base, of course, and am NOT accusing any landlord or SL player of that sort of thing, just stating it's possible and you can understand why they might.

I have owned enough land in the past to know exactly what 5000 prims could afford me on a homestead, and how I could still manage to decorate and landscape it amazingly. And I'd be more than willing to pay LL for a homestead set up and then their monthly $109 fee. But there is no way I'm paying a landlord an extra $30-50/month for the privilege of renting that same land. And that's what many of them are charging, as anyone can see by simply doing a L-to-US$ calculation on their rental fees.

For example, here's a popular landlord, asking 6900L/week. That works out to 358,800L/year, or 29,900L/month. That last figure is currently worth $124.07. That's not bad, but also not good. I did find one at the equivalent of $116.88 (yay!!!, and I may reach out to them, actually), but there are also landlords in the Homestead Rental forum asking for the equivalent of $145. (I'd also want to pay in US$ via PayPal and not Lindens, but that's another thing entirely.)

@Rowan Amore I think once posted that she rented once at $112/month, which I'd also pay. But once you start charging 25%+ on your rental versus your cost? Nope.

I would LOVE to OWN my own homestead and pay LL, but not when I have to own a sim as well. But this topic has also been beaten to death a number of times, so you're preaching to the choir, here.

 

You're correct.  I paid $112/month for my homestead rental.  The price to own one from LL is $109/month on top of owning a full region.  The company I have always rented from is probably the 2nd or 3rd largest in SL.  Their full regions cost $265/month  compared to owning a full region from LL at $229/month.  To me, renting the homestead was an easy choice.  The company makes their money mostly on full regions and smaller parcels, I suppose as they don't have a large amount of homesteads available.  

[Alwin Alcott]

On 7/28/2021 at 10:15 PM, Noelle Delaunay said:

 Everyone who could afford a homestead but cannot afford a full region depends on renting a homestead from a third party. I wonder if the big players actively approach Linden and make sure that this requirement is kept in place.

with the current exchange rates for € to $ by Tillia and the 21% added tax,  renting a homestead is much cheaper than owning one.
However i would LOVE to own one... as long the tax laws forces EU residents ( and a few more) to pay at least 20 % more( purchase price + monthly maintenance), i'm not going to buy one.

So for me the landlords offer a great service.

Edited August 1, 2021 by Alwin Alcott

[Maitimo]

I would love to own one but I couldn't afford even that. Even renting one is way over my budget.

But if I could, I would probably sink most of it underwater and build a home on a mountain island right in the middle.

[Katherine Heartsong]

56 minutes ago, Maitimo said:

I would love to own one but I couldn't afford even that. Even renting one is way over my budget.

But if I could, I would probably sink most of it underwater and build a home on a mountain island right in the middle.

Probably do the same thing. Then sail around that mountain in circles.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

I wish Jack linden was still around, they had smaller prim sims for rent from the Lab directly, but people found out about said sims and started buying more than they could phyiscally handle server side,   same would happen with their aws setup now, it's why the policy far as I'm aware has not been changed,  aws is still more expensive than the old physical hardware was for them.  but maybe at some point (where is oz... when I need him) things will change and they might decide to allow it?   but if they do, they will have to limit it with a hard limit.  maybe 2 per person and no alts, because they know whom are alts are lol.

[Prokofy Neva]

On 7/28/2021 at 4:15 PM, Noelle Delaunay said:

So this question occurred to me during a Concierge meeting, particularly when it came to the question that gets asked over and over again, if the requirement for a Homestead to own a full region will be lifted at any point of time. The answer given (and I'm recalling this from memory as best as I can, I don't have it in writing and I please be corrected if I recall anything wrongly) was that people just wouldn't have fun with the lower prim limit and a Homestead was meant to be connected to a full region. And this made me really shake my head because I think residents who are curious about homesteads have a fair idea of what they can expect from a 5k prim limit ("You think you do, but you don't" - A few people will know what I mean with that unrelated quote.)

When focus changed to if/when land prices could be lowered, it was said in a subclause that some people heavily complained last time Linden lowered their land prices.

And sure it makes sense. Everyone who could afford a homestead but cannot afford a full region depends on renting a homestead from a third party. I wonder if the big players actively approach Linden and make sure that this requirement is kept in place.

Any other opinions?

 

I've often wondered this myself, especially because I'm not one of them, despite the view of some forums' harpies that I am.

It's an area shrouded in mystery on the main point: do they enjoy a bulk discount on multiples? Mainland grouped land gets a known and published bonus of 10% for all tier purchased, so that every 10th sim yields a free one in a sense, i.e. for every 65536 of tier generating 6553 of bonus obtains a whole free sim after 10 of them. 

But do island buyers get a free island after every 10 islands or a deep discount after every 100 islands? This is not advertised although there is speculation that they do get a deal. I can't imagine that there is much of a deal, because the cost of a sim is fixed for Lindens and they can't discount them on the basis of bulk purchases beyond a symbolic amount like 10%. THIS is the question to ask.

I think these people who are NEVER on the forums do have more access to the Liindens than we do, and maybe that's fair but I don't know how it plays out. I imagine that anyone who has 100 Blake Sea sims can call the Lindens directly and get their attention but I have no documentation or personal knowledge of this fact. I get in line like anyone else at the Support window which has live chat for premium account holders. Concierge customers, i.e. anyone who owns more than one sim used to have a group and used to have some perk but I never was sure what it was and I don't think it exists now merely for anybody who owns more than one island or Mainland sim.

But I simply have to point out the actual history of this issue once again which is actually about *the Lindens* stepping in to curb their own land barons, not visa versa.

Originally Jack Linden ruled that void sims could be sold as "a stretch of water, a park," meaning they could fill in between islands. But they rapidly became overloaded with cut-up beach rentals that was not the intention. The Lindens developed Homesteads to solve that problem, stopped selling voids (as far as I know, except to only a few giant dealers who used them properly). I was in SL and in those Concierge meetings so I remember this distinctly.

But then dealers started buying huge numbers of Homesteads and flipping them essentially while retaining ownership. So they cut up each one to 16 or more pieces and put them out, often as flat sandy nothing boards that were supremely ugly and grew uglier. More to the point, they grew laggier as tenants piled on them with content and scripts -- and again, they were not intended to be for such use, but were envisioned as end users' additions to end users' islands. The big problem with the old Homestead configuration, untethered from islands, is that *land dealers* over-used them to make profits that LL itself then did not make. That's important to understand. Yet LL had to step up and provide customer service when no-show landlords left their Homesteads untended. Giving the new "owner" the "estate controls" to be able to re-boot the sim was not enough when serious performance or griefing problems appeared and those "owners" who were only renters had to get the Lindens' attention.

So they put a cap on this insanity to tether the Homesteads back to the islands and encourage end-user purchases and purchases from responsible land dealers who monitored their purchases and served their tenants and didn't dump them on the Lindens.

You're envisioning Homesteads as an end-user with happy ideals of putting undersea mermaid caves or mountain eeries by yourself or with your friends or group -- you're not zooming back to see what happens when these products go on the market and these same land dealers you hate buy up lots of them and re-rent them -- not just to end-users on one Homestead, but as multi-dweller units.

So now there is a significant demand from end users for a cheaper island product so they can pay not $275 or $175 for a new or grandfathered island, but $109 or $79 (or whatever the prices are, go look) for a Homestead. They're willing to make do with less prims and less scripts on their end-user Homestead. Great!

$109 or especially $79 sure looks good for 65336 even with less prims as an alternative to $35 for 8,196, then a jump to $67 for 16,384, but and a more painful jump up to $112 for 32,768. 

Except if you release untethered Homesteads into the market again, all that happens is that land dealers snap them up and flip them, not just end users, and the Lindens are back to a situation where they do not make profit from a product and have more customer service on it.

So I'm not for land dealers getting to grab zillions of Homesteads again and essentially flip their 16-piece pancakes on the market again and not do customer service or dump off their tenants, as they often do, when they can't pay their tier.

End-users can rent homesteads and have almost all the permissions they need on that land from scrupulous land dealers who can't mark up much on these products as the market is saturated with them already. If you study the ads on this forum event, and the prices inworld I don't think you will find these huge markups referenced here, they can't in a world with a glutted market even with curbs.

I honestly don't know how the Lindens can square their circle. But I think you have to realize that they have this policy to benefit themselves, which is rightfully their first concern, and don't break it because some big dealer put a bug in their ear.

Edited August 8, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Marianne Little]

Could not homesteads be locked to a premium account, so the one who buys one can not sell it, and can not buy more than one?

Or even better, lock the homesteads to the payment information. This way the land baron can not make alts and let them buy more homesteads.

Sure it is possible to make x number of debit cards. But it is not practical in RL. And it is only possible to have one personal Paypal account and one business Paypal account.

Can also homesteads be locked so it isn't possible to rent out? Rental boxes be returned? It is possible to pay the land owner directly, but the more obstacles, the better. The landlord has to work harder. Keep a spreadsheet of who has paid and who not. Contact them directly, instead of having it automated. Can not advertise.

[Alwin Alcott]

the problem is... this would block europeans from owning. The VAT will still hit them. Renting from a US owner or company is all what's possible to get in the same line of prices to pay.
With limiting one or two homesteads per account it would get a disaster.

[Mollymews]

1 hour ago, Marianne Little said:

Could not homesteads be locked to a premium account, so the one who buys one can not sell it, and can not buy more than one?

back when Linden floated Super Duper Premium, getting a homestead in this package was one of the most favoured asks

[Prokofy Neva]

4 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

Could not homesteads be locked to a premium account, so the one who buys one can not sell it, and can not buy more than one?

Or even better, lock the homesteads to the payment information. This way the land baron can not make alts and let them buy more homesteads.

Sure it is possible to make x number of debit cards. But it is not practical in RL. And it is only possible to have one personal Paypal account and one business Paypal account.

Can also homesteads be locked so it isn't possible to rent out? Rental boxes be returned? It is possible to pay the land owner directly, but the more obstacles, the better. The landlord has to work harder. Keep a spreadsheet of who has paid and who not. Contact them directly, instead of having it automated. Can not advertise.

Would the Lindens go to this much trouble? It involves extra staff doing a lot of picky work.

I thought they had a rule of only 5 accounts. But they don't anymore, they want to build the premium account list, understood. Their reasoning for putting a cap on the 5 seemed more about people stringing together first the free 4096 given to Charter Members; then about people stringing together the free 512s under the First Land program. Neither of these features exist any more. They don't seem to care if people have more than 5 Bellisseria houses.

In fact, you are not required to put a separate form of payment on each separate account. While many game companies have that feature and I believe SL used to have this feature to control the accounts under their "5 only" rule, I don't see that it is in effect at all. I agree that most people can't make bunches of debit cards or would bother with eating all the fees involved in ordering up bunches of credit cards. But you don't need to now. I think only prepaid cards are blocked now as they are in many places as they obviously run out quickly.

The Lindens could very easily make a Beverly Hills Bellisseria with homesteads that allow no commercial activity, no search, etc. which kills off the rentals business on them. And they will do that in a heartbeat if it seems practical but I think it's a lot of customer service work for them, even so. I think even Linden and Moles really don't keep track of the many hours they invest in Bellisseria, at low pay or no pay even sometimes out of their good will as people, just like all of us in SL trying to make the world work.

That doesn't scale.

[Marianne Little]

@Alwin Alcott, can you imagine my surprise when I found out that I don't pay VAT for annual payment of Premium? I could not believe it. (Yes, of course EU get their due. LL must cover it) https://secondlife.com/corporate/vat

If the homestead was connected directly to Premium, it would solve this problem. (Whyyyy can't we get Super Premium with a homestead? 😭 )

And not possible to sell the homestead, it would function like Linden Homes. As soon as you stop paying for Premium, the homestead is returned to LL.

It would hurt those who rent out, that is true. I can not imagine ANY other reason for not offering more land with Premium. I would settle for a 1/4 region with 2500 Li for a Super premium too. I find the tier-free 1024 very small now. So it must not be a homestead, but a noticeable bigger amount of land.

@Prokofy Neva, I have the same payment info on all my avatars. I must admit that I crossed over the 5 account limit when it started to rain free mesh heads over us... lol. It was tempting to make a few more "special" avatars.

I can use my debit card on one account and get 2 homesteads if it is tied to payment info. That is very easy for those who want to rent out. But it would not be possible to stack up a bunch of homesteads.

LL would probably not have resources to police the rental boxes with human labor... but how about sweeping the region, track for the scripts in rental boxes? It would be automatic. It would not stop people from renting out, but it would take away the easy way of doing it.

 

 

[Alwin Alcott]

42 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

@Alwin Alcott, can you imagine my surprise when I found out that I don't pay VAT for annual payment of Premium? I could not believe it.

it's VAT-less since the loud noise with the premium price raises.. only monthly and quarterly ( quarterly would been removed.. but reversed that descision) get VAT added, the annual ( in fact also but) gets waived by LL .. they take that for their account.
Land however.. tier, maintenance fees and direct purchase at the landstore dó have VAT added.

If it's added to a super premium could be interesting only when it's without VAT.
I wouldn't like a mainland perk above the/ instead of Linden home .. unless it's a new type on a 8196 or higher sqm.

[Bold Burner]

On 8/8/2021 at 1:11 PM, Alwin Alcott said:

the problem is... this would block europeans from owning. The VAT will still hit them. Renting from a US owner or company is all what's possible to get in the same line of prices to pay.
With limiting one or two homesteads per account it would get a disaster.

I'm a European Landlord... we do have a disadvantage. 21% is a lot. We have to work 21% harder

[StarlanderGoods]

39 minutes ago, Bold Burner said:

I'm a European Landlord... we do have a disadvantage. 21% is a lot. We have to work 21% harder

Im not saying that you dont work hard. But "As a European Landlord, I have a disadvantage" is the most privileged sounding sentence Ive read all year.

I pictured you on your chalete, overseeing the vinyards, while sipping tea, powdered face and big white wig, letting out a sigh as you look at the snowy peaks in the background.

[Stephanie Misfit]

5 hours ago, StarlanderGoods said:

Im not saying that you dont work hard. But "As a European Landlord, I have a disadvantage" is the most privileged sounding sentence Ive read all year.

I pictured you on your chalete, overseeing the vinyards, while sipping tea, powdered face and big white wig, letting out a sigh as you look at the snowy peaks in the background.

Hardly. Landlords in Second Life, other than a few big land barons, are just regular people and they aren't making a huge profit. How those outside the US can make any profit at all is beyond me.

[Bold Burner]

On 12/5/2021 at 9:12 PM, StarlanderGoods said:

Im not saying that you dont work hard. But "As a European Landlord, I have a disadvantage" is the most privileged sounding sentence Ive read all year.

I pictured you on your chalete, overseeing the vinyards, while sipping tea, powdered face and big white wig, letting out a sigh as you look at the snowy peaks in the background.

I dream along with you... and picture it myself as well ...

[Bold Burner]

On 12/6/2021 at 2:38 AM, Stephanie Misfit said:

Hardly. Landlords in Second Life, other than a few big land barons, are just regular people and they aren't making a huge profit. How those outside the US can make any profit at all is beyond me.

I don't make profit.. I lose money. But it's calculated loss.. As I get so much back for it.. Happy content people that have a good time... in an environment they like and choose to participate in. That's worth gold... ❤️ 

[Jennifer Boyle]

On 8/8/2021 at 1:54 AM, Prokofy Neva said:

Except if you release untethered Homesteads into the market again, all that happens is that land dealers snap them up and flip them, not just end users, and the Lindens are back to a situation where they do not make profit from a product and have more customer service on it.

Easy. Limit the number that one account or group can own. Alternatively, progressively increase the price and tier for each additional one owned.