Mainland Pricing

[BilliJo Aldrin]

12 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Horizons, yes. Bay City, yes. Nautilus City, yes. But I see them turn over. Meanwhile I watch vast swaths of Zindra stay yellow for years and years, unrented and unsold. Zindra is different.

you miss the persons point, as long as there is enough turnover someplace to cover tier, it doesnt matter if other parcels never sell. 

im not sure how you can assert that nothing on zindra ever sells. do you check each parcel monthly, or take pictures of the map and compare them to previous ones.

 

[Qie Niangao]

3 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

you miss the persons point, as long as there is enough turnover someplace to cover tier, it doesnt matter if other parcels never sell. 

I was trying to ignore that point because I didn't think they could mean it literally. Sure, one can afford their choice of hobby funded by the profits of wherever they're making margin, and if the barons want to spend it owning non-performing Zindra assets, that's fine, but it's not a business.

[Love Zhaoying]

26 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Horizons, yes. Bay City, yes. Nautilus City, yes. But I see them turn over. Meanwhile I watch vast swaths of Zindra stay yellow for years and years, unrented and unsold. Zindra is different.

Where my parcel is (on Zindra) has 2X Prim allotment, so I think there is a lot of turnover.

[BilliJo Aldrin]

1 minute ago, Qie Niangao said:

I was trying to ignore that point because I didn't think they could mean it literally. Sure, one can afford their choice of hobby funded by the profits of wherever they're making margin, and if the barons want to spend it owning non-performing Zindra assets, that's fine, but it's not a business.

they explained they have free tier, they can afford to sit on nonselling parcels, because it doesnt cost anything to own them.

there was a 1024 beside my land that was listed and sold for $30,000 L. Sure it was protected on 3 sides, but i would never pay that much. Its currently being rented out for $300 L per week, so in two years they will break even.

Im hoping they eventually leave SL and I’ll put in a ticket for it. It happened once before 😁

[Qie Niangao]

2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Where my parcel is (on Zindra) has 2X Prim allotment, so I think there is a lot of turnover.

Lol, you can visit me on the other corner of that region. It's true, you did buy that parcel at some point, but the one next to mine has been for sale (this by a private owner, though, AFAIK) for ages.

[Qie Niangao]

1 minute ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

they explained they have free tier, they can afford to sit on nonselling parcels, because it doesnt cost anything to own them.

Profit cannot be this alien a concept. Sure, they can spend the free tier on something that doesn't sell, or they can spend it on something that does, increasing margin.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

35 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Horizons, yes. Bay City, yes. Nautilus City, yes. But I see them turn over. Meanwhile I watch vast swaths of Zindra stay yellow for years and years, unrented and unsold. Zindra is different.

No, not really...

A friend bought half a region of Zindra for L$210,000 in an action, they sold  a snippet of that, under 1200 sqm within 15 mins for L$35,000, in total, over 5 or 6 weeks they offloaded the half sim in smaller plots, with a profit margin of L$300,000, 

Even after paying tier on the land they still made more than $800 USD on the deal, Zindra isn't that different, you just completely missed the point about "MULTIPLE REGIONS WORTH OF 100 % TIER FREE FOREVER GOUP BONUS LAND" and the ability to sit on a parcel for months or even years at NO ONGOING COST, before selling it to some sucker for a fat mark-up.

 

Like I said, it's about understanding the system, and having the spare cash to make use of it.

[Spooky Shadow]

 

54 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Horizons, yes. Bay City, yes. Nautilus City, yes. But I see them turn over. Meanwhile I watch vast swaths of Zindra stay yellow for years and years, unrented and unsold. Zindra is different.

Many put ridiculously high prices just to see their parcels in yellow. 

If you offer parcels at the right price they sell quickly and often. Some people ask ridiculously high prices and wonder why nothing is selling. There is a market rate for parcels depending on where they are. Was higher a year ago but parcels are still selling if you sell at the right price and still wonderfully profitable. 

[Zalificent Corvinus]

46 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

I was trying to ignore that point because I didn't think they could mean it literally. Sure, one can afford their choice of hobby funded by the profits of wherever they're making margin, and if the barons want to spend it owning non-performing Zindra assets, that's fine, but it's not a business.

How iss "I can buy this cheap, and hold it indefinately with NO ongoing costs, and sell for a vast markup when a sucker presents themselves, making a nice fat profit on the bulk sales" not a business...

 

Your problem is you still haven't grasped that it costs them NOTHING to sit on those parcels, nothing at all. Not 1 RED CENT.

Your problem is you insist on thinking on a "single parcel business" basis like some small time nickle and dime failed land flipper wannabe, instead of seeing the big "bulk land shifter" picture.

 

It's like claiming that no supermarket would ever sell premium mature cheddar at barely over cost for a loss leader, because "the cheese is non performing" while the supermarket knows that will make the money elsewhere and plenty off it, and ignore your dire warnings about non performing cheese.

 

Take a parcel on the Black sea, bought 12 years ago for $500 , and sold this year for $3500, owned TIER FREE for 12 years, NO ongoing costs, that's a $3000 profit, that's 50% a year return on investment, and you claim that is "non performing".

Remind me to NEVER ask you for investment advice.

 

46 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

I was trying to ignore that point because I didn't think they could mean it literally

The operative phrase there is "I didn't think".

 

36 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Profit cannot be this alien a concept. Sure, they can spend the free tier on something that doesn't sell, or they can spend it on something that does, increasing margin.

It isn't, they are just smart enough to wait longer for a much bigger profit, because they are not as short sighted as to describe 50% per annum as "non performing".

Edited July 27, 2023 by Zalificent Corvinus

[Qie Niangao]

Good lord. Look, if Zindra land is selling as claimed, that explains it. I don't see it happening, and the parcels I watch are definitely going to lose money at this point, even if they got them for free and they sell tomorrow. But the "free tier" thing, I don't know how to make it any simpler: It's all one pile of tier, free and paid, that determine the baron's bottom line.

I suppose if they didn't have deep pockets, there'd be reason to worry about having cash flow to cover a spread of inventory durations and that would be valid. But there's no way a sensible business person will want to hold land for so long that its selling margin can't cover the average cost of tier for that owner. It's a losing proposition.

[Spooky Shadow]

4 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Good lord. Look, if Zindra land is selling as claimed, that explains it. I don't see it happening, and the parcels I watch are definitely going to lose money at this point, even if they got them for free and they sell tomorrow. But the "free tier" thing, I don't know how to make it any simpler: It's all one pile of tier, free and paid, that determine the baron's bottom line.

I suppose if they didn't have deep pockets, there'd be reason to worry about having cash flow to cover a spread of inventory durations and that would be valid. But there's no way a sensible business person will want to hold land for so long that its selling margin can't cover the average cost of tier for that owner. It's a losing proposition.

Other sales cover tier. if you are in the business of selling land for profit you don't put all your eggs in just one basket. It isn't hard to cover costs by buying and selling land. You have to know how the market is going and what to buy to resell.

Edited July 27, 2023 by Marius Darkheart

[Love Zhaoying]

37 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Lol, you can visit me on the other corner of that region. It's true, you did buy that parcel at some point, but the one next to mine has been for sale (this by a private owner, though, AFAIK) for ages.

I said it partly because at least 2 parcels within my draw distance changed hands in the last year, too!

[Qie Niangao]

17 minutes ago, Marius Darkheart said:

Other sales cover tier. if you are in the business of selling land for profit you don't put all your eggs in just one basket. It isn't hard to cover costs by buying and selling land. You have to know how the market is going and what to buy to resell.

The rest of this is indisputably true, but in the context of this thread, "other sales cover tier" makes me feel like I'm in a real life version of the old joke, "we lose money on every sale, but we make up for it in volume."

I mean, sure, a reseller doesn't need to make a profit on every sale, and they certainly can make a business of high risk/high reward transactions such as long-term holdings with very high mark ups. But if they're in it to make a profit, they do not seek trades that won't cover costs, and tier costs the same wherever it's invested.

There's no special accounting reason to reserve "free tier" for Zindra trades if you know those Zindra trades aren't going to cover average tier cost. The business would be more profitable the fewer of those parcels it held.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

8 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

There's no special accounting reason to reserve "free tier" for Zindra trades if you know those Zindra trades aren't going to cover average tier cost. The business would be more profitable the fewer of those parcels it held.

You are still missing the vital point here.

 

Tier Bands are fixed prices.

If you own 1.8 regions worth of land, LL will NOT charge you 1.8 regions worth of tier, they charge you for 2 regions.

So you have 0.2 regions "spare tier", any land bought with that allowance will NOT alter your tier bill, buying it doesn't increase costs, not buying it doesn't cut costs.

Any land you buy and flip with that spare tier incurs NO ongoing costs, the mark-up is PURE profit..

 

You see some clueless "think nickle and dime single parcel investor" selling a nice plot for 3 ls /m desperately trying to avoid another months 4096 tier payment, and you snap it up, because it costs you NO TIER, and you know you can flip it to another similar clueless moron for 9 ls/m, who will try and sell it for 15, and lose their shirt, and desperately try to offload it in 4 weeks for 3 again to avoid tier, when you will swoop in again, snap it up, tier free, and flip to another moron for 9. rinse and repeat all the way to the bank..

 

There's one baron in SL who makes a policy of watching failed land baron wannabes go broke, and swoops in at the last min before another months tier is due to offer them 0.4 ls /m as it's better than a total loss, right? Then he sells the land that costs him nothing in tier, for 0.6 ls/m and sells it in a week or two tops. all within his spare tier/group bonus, it's a small margin but there are literally no costs to cover, the rest of his business covers it's own costs, so these rapid turnover sales are... pure profit, and worth his time if done in bulk.

 

Remember that thread a few weeks back about the dreadful fall in land prices... That was him and his nearest rival having a price war, as part of some ancient feud.

 

You simply don't understand how they think, or how they make money.

[Qie Niangao]

Of course I understand all that, but that's simply not what you were saying. You kept segregating the "free" group bonus tier and (now) the need to fully invest the discrete tier levels, and committing those specifically to hold assets (like Zindra parcels) known in advance to not perform as well as average, as if it were a laudable business strategy.

Of course the resellers must fully invest whatever level of tier they choose to hold, but that investment will always be best made in assets with the highest payback, taking all costs into account. If one category (Zindra) takes too long to turn over to cover that average tier cost (plus average margin), the business will be better off not holding it at all and instead investing in something else.

But if Zindra assets can make that same return on investment, there's no reason not to make those investments. That's the thing others are seeing that I simply haven't; it's an empirical question that objective data could resolve.

[Gabriele Graves]

2 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

Horizons, yes. Bay City, yes. Nautilus City, yes. But I see them turn over. Meanwhile I watch vast swaths of Zindra stay yellow for years and years, unrented and unsold. Zindra is different.

Just a small amendment here about Nautilus City.  All of the yellow parcels there are owned by rental companies, every single one.  There is no land legitimately for sale there and hasn't been for a very long time except for the rare odd person getting out and having their land snapped up by rental agents.

Sure a person could buy the rental land at L$500,000 but it's priced specifically NOT to sell.

So Nautilus City has no turn-over to speak of.

Edited July 27, 2023 by Gabriele Graves

[Qie Niangao]

3 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

So Nautilus City has no turn-over to speak of.

I very occasionally see them at auction, but I guess it's rare enough that there can't be very much turnover, fast or slow.

That seems very different from Bay City, at least, where there's a pretty active market (despite the usual claims that it's just too expensive for anybody to buy).

[Freckles Fairelander]

I'm a bit late to this part of the discussion, but as far as I'm concerned, my landlord's rule of what you do in your skybox above 1000 meters is your own business and keep your skybox X meters from your neighbor could work very well for mainland, especially when voice and sounds are restricted to a parcel.

[Spooky Shadow]

1 hour ago, Qie Niangao said:

The rest of this is indisputably true, but in the context of this thread, "other sales cover tier" makes me feel like I'm in a real life version of the old joke, "we lose money on every sale, but we make up for it in volume."

I mean, sure, a reseller doesn't need to make a profit on every sale, and they certainly can make a business of high risk/high reward transactions such as long-term holdings with very high mark ups. But if they're in it to make a profit, they do not seek trades that won't cover costs, and tier costs the same wherever it's invested.

There's no special accounting reason to reserve "free tier" for Zindra trades if you know those Zindra trades aren't going to cover average tier cost. The business would be more profitable the fewer of those parcels it held.

Not what I said. Other sales make up for the parcels that take longer to sell. If you are just selling one parcel then yes what you say is true but if we are looking at the actual economics of this then profit is made and costs are covered as there are still sales happening that cover the few parcels that are taking longer to sell. No one is losing money.

[belindacarson]

On 7/26/2023 at 5:28 PM, diamond Marchant said:

4. For land encroachment issues (e.g. into protected water or land), sometimes they take no action even though there is an obvious violation. @Abnor Mole often says just because you can do something, that doesn't mean you should do it. (btw in Belli, if you encroach, make it look like what Moles build)

What I've noticed from living on the mainland, if your build seriously obstructs something they'll usually act.  If it's a tiny corner of a fence , house etc that very slightly encroaches (eg doesn't affect the road of waterway, or someone else's land) it's left alone.

 

Each case is looked at uniquely.

[xDancingStarx]

On 7/27/2023 at 10:03 PM, Zalificent Corvinus said:

If you own 1.8 regions worth of land, LL will NOT charge you 1.8 regions worth of tier, they charge you for 2 regions.

So you have 0.2 regions "spare tier", any land bought with that allowance will NOT alter your tier bill, buying it doesn't increase costs, not buying it doesn't cut costs.

Any land you buy and flip with that spare tier incurs NO ongoing costs, the mark-up is PURE profit..

That doesn't make sense from a business perspective. Let's say 16,384m² of tier cost $42. Let's say you only own 12,288m², but you will still get billed for the 16,384m². So you're saying the difference between used and maximum allowance, 4,096m² in this case, is to be considered "free"? This doesn't make sense for a business. From a business perspective the "free" 4,096m² of tier cost you $42/16,384*4,096 = $10.5 per month.

From a non business perspective, let's say you want to own 12,288m² of land to NOT do business with it, just for private reasons and you don't care about money, only in that case you could make the argument that you pay for the tier anyway and therefore can do with the land whatever. In that case your argument would make more sense. But even in this case you could ask yourself "what could I have done with the land instead and how much money would have made me that in comparison?" (opportunity costs).

Edited August 5, 2023 by xDancingStarx

[BilliJo Aldrin]

Its free tier if you arent using the square meters and have no way to use it. I have 48 sq meters im not using and cant use, so i use it to flip microparcels.

 

[NikolaosSakamoto]

On 7/21/2023 at 6:41 AM, Studmeister Rizzo said:

I can't believe that people are taking advantage of noobies to land owning by charging 4,5,6 times the amount the lab would charge per square meter. I understand the need to make a profit, but 600% mark up is gouging in my opinion.

I can't believe LL charges as much as they do in the first place.  I can run an entire Neverwinter Nights 2 PW with just... humongous amounts of stuff to do from playing arcade roms to riding carnival rides, board and card games PLUS an entire full blown DnD world for the players to explore and level up, for 13 bucks a month and Linden Labs charges that much for a postage stamp.

[Sid Nagy]

On 7/27/2023 at 8:30 PM, Qie Niangao said:

I was trying to ignore that point because I didn't think they could mean it literally. Sure, one can afford their choice of hobby funded by the profits of wherever they're making margin, and if the barons want to spend it owning non-performing Zindra assets, that's fine, but it's not a business.

Years ago there was a discussion about a leak\trick with group owned land on the other forums, that it was possible to hold lots of land, without paying tier.
I don't know if LL ever stopped that leak or left it open as a convenient help for land flippers.

No, I'm not going to point in any direction on where to find it, because the archive of sluniverse, where that discussion took place, is down for years already.

 

[Qie Niangao]

1 hour ago, Sid Nagy said:

 it was possible to hold lots of land, without paying tier.
I don't know if LL ever stopped that leak or left it open as a convenient help for land flippers.

One way it used to work was to deed land to a group, then withdraw the tier contribution that was necessary to deed it, but once withdrawn doesn't immediately flag the land to be reclaimed by the Lab. It's actually important that there be a grace period for juggling ownership across groups or inadvertent tier withdrawals (I once did that myself, oopsy!) but there were allegations it was used widely by land barons to multiply the value of their tier.

Thing is, back then there was also a developer mode one could enter that revealed how much tier was contributed to a land-owning group. They've long since patched it to make that (of all things) private, but I used it to check those allegations. Surprisingly, I never found a single real land baron playing that game, but I found a bunch of adfarms with no tier contributed at all, owned by a variety of disposable groups. This was before Jack's adfarm policy, so reporting the under-tier groups was about the only means of defense against that plague.

That was all ages ago, and I don't know if there really is a way some (not all) Zindra land barons are able to balance the books on what appears to be no visible means of support. Maybe they make a lot of sales I never see, but still: when they have the very same parcels for sale for years, something is driven by motives other than the apparent market.