Landsellers: Stagnant mainland sales. Starting to move again?

[Island Granville]

No doubt we're in a dip right now. In the last year mainland sales have dropped off drastically in my experience, to the point that auctions almost aren't worth it anymore. I've never been a greedy seller I don't think - I try to make 20% for my reselling efforts - but with the slowing market the tier costs add up. I've priced and sold a few parcels at a loss lately, just to keep stock moving and free up tier for new acquisitions, but this obviously isn't sustainable and I've tiered-down as a result. Not good for a business that capitalizes on buying great deals when they appear. 

Selling at a loss might be skewing my perception, as sales ("losses") will obviously accelerate proportional to the absurdly low prices being listed.

But are sales maybe picking up? even just a little bit? Can our deliberate efforts to lower prices actually stimulate this sunken land economy?

To all the non-landsellers reading this - it's a buyer's market RN. Make an offer, and let's get this ship floating again!

[belindacarson]

24 minutes ago, Island Granville said:

To all the non-landsellers reading this - it's a buyer's market RN. Make an offer, and let's get this ship floating again!

As has been said in several threads it's always been a buyer's market since Ebbe changed things for the better allowing direct sales for 1l,$ a metre.

 

Land isn't selling due to the silly prices as you said, but it's not going to as if people do their homework they'll save a small fortune biting abandoned land.  If I meet someone shopping for land I always tell them this.

[BJoyful]

9 hours ago, Island Granville said:

Selling at a loss might be skewing my perception, as sales ("losses") will obviously accelerate proportional to the absurdly low prices being listed.

But are sales maybe picking up? even just a little bit? Can our deliberate efforts to lower prices actually stimulate this sunken land economy?

I've noticed sales of a few 512s we have in Zindra have really slowed since last week of August.  I think they normally pick up for a week or so around Hallowe'en and then around American Thanksgiving and then steady good again starting in early January remaining steady until late summer.  Zindra 512's were/are usually a quick turnaround with a week to 3 weeks to sell them in active sales times.  512s seem to sell pretty quick and easy on Zindra because there's almost no Abandoned Land there.

I've not really sold much on the rest of Mainland with any sort of regularity.  The only Mainland we have for sale at the moment is in Tecta between Park Way Linden Road and Protected water.  I've purposely left my build there and not included 2 small rez zones with the land.  Its been sitting there for ages, but I dearly love that build so I'm not sorry its not sold yet.  Other parcels I've sold on Mainland have been to people I know, neighbours, (so those have been for L$0 or a very low price and have usually done it when attempting to reduce tier before the next due date) and a few odd parcels we just toyed with buying, decorating and selling.

 

I have a few questions for you (or for anyone selling or in the Real Estate in SL business to respond to if you wish):

1.  Do you 'stage' your parcels with landscaping, buildings or furniture while they are for sale?

2.  Do you use a Land Group to buy and sell land?

3. Are you over or under the 'magic' 1 full Region of tier in total?

4.  Do you set your parcels for Sale or Rent to get income from both possibilities?

5.  How often and where do you advertise?

I ask these because I'm RL retired from a Real Estate-related career since 2010 and I'm curious about the RL/SL differences there might be.

Edited November 1, 2023 by BJoyful
sp

[BilliJo Aldrin]

I’ve bought three or four 4096’s in the past few months, but each time i regretted the purchase and sold them, always at a loss and always at or just above $1 L per sqm. Not trying to reduce tier, so i dont abandon them , or give them away super cheep.

I have one now, listed for $5000 L, if it doesnt sell soon ill drop the price to $4096 L.

I make money flipping micro parcels, roadside 16’s will always sell for $500 L. and interior 16’s i pick up for under $25 L will always sell after adding $100 L to the price. Pennies i know, but pennies add up 😁

[Island Granville]

2 hours ago, BJoyful said:

I have a few questions for you (or for anyone selling or in the Real Estate in SL business to respond to if you wish):

1.  Do you 'stage' your parcels with landscaping, buildings or furniture while they are for sale?

2.  Do you use a Land Group to buy and sell land?

3. Are you over or under the 'magic' 1 full Region of tier in total?

4.  Do you set your parcels for Sale or Rent to get income from both possibilities?

5.  How often and where do you advertise?

1. Rarely stage anything, other than floating an island on water parcels. Some I have lived at or built on for various reasons, and I'll sometimes leave it as is until it sells.

2. I use a group for the 10% when tier is getting tight. I prefer to hold them myself when I can.

3. Under, always. I'm here to have fun, not work at a desk. 1/2 sim is the most I ever want to manage at one time.

4. I don't rent them out. I like to know I can dump a parcel quickly if need be, but morally couldn't spontaneously evict a tenant like that.on the map

5. Land sale forum every week or so - that's about it. No adfarms, no website, and I couldn't possible sink enough into classified ads to make any kind of difference before I went broke. I just try to carry land that people look for on the map.

[BJoyful]

Thank you so much for answering!

I think you should be able to be very successful and have a great time earning a little extra L$!

My answers are:

1.  I stage almost every parcel whether its to flip for a quick profit or something I actually used and eventually decide to sell.  I leave the box ticked "Objects included in Sale" ticked so everything doesn't auto-return in case the buyer likes the build or wants to use the items as is for a while.  Most times items are returned gradually, so I guess they return things as they find something they like better.  With a few 512s we purchased them at L$3.2 - L$3.5 per m2, then set out a rezzer build I made and resold them for L$5000 which is L$9.76 per m2... to the same SL Land Sale Group we often purchase from... and they have also kept my same old rezzed 512 build to re-sell the property! 

2. I always use Land Group for all purchases and sales as the Group pays the Owners the next day and I take total advantage of the 10% discount.

3.  I'm currently at 1.25 Regions (I just checked to make sure It wasn't 1.5 Regions) so I do have all Group holdings at the lowest cost per m2 I'm comfortable with.

4.  I currently don't rent any either.  I have in the past and we enjoyed 80% - 95% Occupancy, which covered the tier cost of the land, but didn't earn a profit as that wasn't important to me.  It was a coastal art community with free galleries for artists.  It was huge and way too much work and stress for me to manage by myself so I did have some wonderful help from my dear Friends and Partner with things such as tenant complaints, grumpy (but extremely talented and fast) Landscaper and Builder who was very difficult at times, doing things like revoking my Partner's Edit rights on the objects she placed on our land, sending rude notecards insulting people who bought parcels of the land and didn't set the Land Options correctly so the community-used things like an ariel cable car system would have its cars get stuck at the border because the new owner didn't know her setting would affect them... and they left, Abandoned the Land and wouldn't come back... or learn how the land settings should be set ;-/ and so many more issues... finally ending with bad feelings on both sides. ;-(  I now have some Void Estate Regions connected to Mainland 'on hold' I guess as I have no landscaper and no partners who are interested in Estate Management.  I gave the entire Group and all its holdings to a land-cutter who promised to try and keep it going as it was, but ended up having the deal sabotaged by some of my 'friends/acquaintances'  who thought they were doing the right thing by humiliating the new Owner... so he cut, dumped and sold everything he could to any interested current tenants or interested parties and disappeared.  It broke my heart and I've not been able to go back there very often because it stirs up difficult memories of such a wonderful place becoming tarnished with anger and accusations, even though some of my very dear friends have kept the most beautiful parts of the Community intact and very active ♥ 

5.  We used MP, Forum, a website, social media, blogs and word of mouth of all the people who lived there, enjoyed it and wanted to tell others ♥♥

If you'd like any advice, I would recommend beautiful staging, always using a Land Group, have Group show in Search but keep it private (not anyone can join) if you ever use it for Rentals.  You can set for Sale or Rent and if rented, cancel the sale until the tenant leaves.

Wishing you the very best success and perhaps think about looking for a Business Partner to combine some tier with yours so you can get up to a full Region and the best price per m2. Happy Selling!

Edited November 1, 2023 by BJoyful

[Island Granville]

I love hearing people's stories - there's so much wisdom and experience to be gained when people open up about experiences like you did above. Thank you so much for that!  I can relate to the loss felt when a great community changes or evaporates. Sometimes I wonder if I attach too much emotion to digital space - glad I'm not the only one

[BJoyful]

1 hour ago, Island Granville said:

Sometimes I wonder if I attach too much emotion to digital space - glad I'm not the only one

I think the more attached we are, the more real SL reveals itself to be.  The more enjoyment we devote to SL the greater the returns and connecting to other people, sharing stories, advice, opinions is life at it's best   We're right along with you, 100%

[Zalificent Corvinus]

On 11/1/2023 at 8:00 AM, Island Granville said:

To all the non-landsellers reading this - it's a buyer's market RN. Make an offer, and let's get this ship floating again!

Land sellers with unrealistic expectations, are largely responsible for the "depressed market".

Real Example:

SL moves to the cloud, LL temporarily suspend sales of private estate regions while sorting tech issues.

Covid keeps people indoors, concurrency rises.

Really Stupid Person sees the two above mentioned fact, and assumes "SL has a Land SHORTAGE! I can buy cheap and sell dear, and make HUGE profits, and fulfil the Sacred Commandments of the Holy St. Ayn of Rand!"

Really Stupid Person on the 4096 tier band, buys an M rated 4096 miles from the nearest protected road or waterway, with no marketable "scenic view" worth speaking of, for 1 L$ a m from LL via a support ticket.

Really Stupid Person tries flipping the land for 12.5 L$ a m, that lasts a week, then they try at 9.3 L$ a m, for a week, then they try at 6.2 L$ a m, for a week, then at 3.1 L$ a m for a week, then they panic as they paid $19 US for the land and are looking at $22 US for a months tier, and they can't even sell it at a break even price, so they plan to abandon it to avoid another months $22 un-recoverable sunk cost, but then at the last minute...

Bottom Feeding Land Flipper steps in and offers them 0.4 L$ a m, knowing that he would NOT incur additional tier costs at all, as he was well within his multi hundred full region tier band, take it or leave it. They take it, and the Flipper sells it for 0.6 LS a m.

 

The reason the Really Stupid Person couldn't sell it even for 3.1/m was that there WAS NO LAND SHORTAGE and anyone could easily file a support ticket for the 4096 next to it, and get it for 1/m or even 0.5/m if they ended as the only bidder in a failed auction.

 

Failed Micro Land Flipper Wannabes with unrealistic expectations.. 

 

How do I know this, because it was the 4096 next to the 4400m parcel I call home.

[Prokofy Neva]

On 11/1/2023 at 4:00 AM, Island Granville said:

No doubt we're in a dip right now. In the last year mainland sales have dropped off drastically in my experience, to the point that auctions almost aren't worth it anymore. I've never been a greedy seller I don't think - I try to make 20% for my reselling efforts - but with the slowing market the tier costs add up. I've priced and sold a few parcels at a loss lately, just to keep stock moving and free up tier for new acquisitions, but this obviously isn't sustainable and I've tiered-down as a result. Not good for a business that capitalizes on buying great deals when they appear. 

Selling at a loss might be skewing my perception, as sales ("losses") will obviously accelerate proportional to the absurdly low prices being listed.

But are sales maybe picking up? even just a little bit? Can our deliberate efforts to lower prices actually stimulate this sunken land economy?

To all the non-landsellers reading this - it's a buyer's market RN. Make an offer, and let's get this ship floating again!

I don't think it's picking up from what I see, although I rent land mainly, and only occasionally sell parcels that don't rent. If there's a sale, it's to a neighbour you may have known for years who needs prims not to the general public. Or perhaps a highly valued piece of land, generally waterfront on pristine sims.

Here's why:

1. I think Bellisseria has made a decided dent in Mainland sales in general, for both Lindens and residents -- their two products, which once I felt didn't directly compete, now in fact do.

That's because they now have two features that make Bellisseria like the best features of Mainland -- choice and space:

o If you get the Premium Plus account for $29.99 per month, you get $650 stipend, 2048 m2 -- and the ability to pick your Bellisseria plot. At the premium level, you can only take a randomly available lot, with 5 tries per day. There are now some 3000+ Bellisseria sims, from my estimation, as many as are under resident tier on the Mainland, which is roughly 5000 sims, with 20% abandoned and another 20% Linden land like roads and parks. 

o If you get the ranch size home with 2048 m2, you have 928 prims. That's plenty for a lot of people.

o This type of account also enables you to get a homestead without an island.

2. The homestead-without-forced-island-purchase feature recently offered also cuts into Mainland sales. If you pay $40 a month for an 8192 in Mainland tier at the regular level, naturally you wonder why you shouldn't either pay a little less and make do with less prims or pay a little more and get a grandfathered homestead.

3. The ability to buy abandoned land for $1/m is part of all this, but we've had that for a long time. The Lindens used to never let waterfront or desirable land go to you directly because they had the auction. But the auction is overfull, and without bids on the worst pieces, and low bids on many, so you can sometimes even get waterfront directly. I personally think Bellisseria is a bigger factor now than abandoned, as there is still a lot of abandoned out there. I have multiple Bellisseria venues in the stamp game and multiple abandoned lots that I buy or let go myself so I have some experience to make this judgement. Bellisseria may feel bland and empty -- I never see a neighbour except -- oh, that one time when I saw a former tenant lol. But the lots are taken by people who must log in some time.

4. The value of the Linden dollow has declined with a cashout within a day or two at $246.

5. When I saw that Zindra was really soft this past summer and land dealers there were fire-selling, I thought we were in for a real "virtual world winter". Could it be that Linden has reached the saturation point for their adult offering? Could be, given soft new accounts and log-ins. 

6. BJoyful has highlighted all the boons you can access, but they don't ultimately matter for a reason she knows all too well from her SL experience in running a community, as she outlined here and as we know from her long service and sacrifices inworld: vacancies. At 80%, Mainland vacancies already make an area a disaster because time, tide, and tier wait for no man. I simply don't buy the claim that "80% vacancy" is viable unless you put in your own money, or have other streams of rental like content sales, events, DJs, etc.  That is, even if you "don't want to make any money" or "just want to break even". When people talk about "just making it pay for itself" -- as I do with the land preserve -- we're often not factoring in content purchases and our time. It's deceptive.

While land-cutting is as bad as ever, and the Lindens sell directly to known land-cutters without batting an eye, and while blight from miles of concrete in the transportation games as well as ugly builds are a problem, a lot of Mainland is actually maintained well and kept up. But people can't last due to the inability to make back what they paid, and they do without or move to Bellisseria which is more stable.

This is how I tried to describe the essential Mainland problem to a friend constantly scratching their head over Mainland rentals math:

Let's say you had $2000 to invest. You could put it in some money-market accounts these days at even 5% but likely far less; perhaps there's some other risky venture you know of in RL. Let's say you head of a deal where you could get $250 on your $2000 or 0.125%, let's say through renting some store spaces in RL. So that's like SL -- if you rent or sell some lots and have 12 sims @ $166/mo which yields one as a  bonus. You might wrest that $250 out of this venture. But imagine if, in RL, to get that $250, you had to deliver mail every single day to every single unit in a 20 block radius AND pick up garbage 3 times a week, keeping trash and recycling separate. Let's say you also had to physically move cars due to alternate-side-of-the-street parking regulations. You would be huffing and puffing all day, going around settling the little problems at these units -- move-outs, late payments, vandalism. Getting your $250 that way would be crazy.

That's what Mainland rentals are like -- the cheaper the rental, the more the work and the more the problems with over-primming, late pays, griefing. In RL, you'd be crazy to make a dime by having to get up at 5 am to move a car due to parking regulations -- in SL, you're up asking the Lindens to re-set a sim, you're removing somebody's excess primmage from group land and so on.

No one is factoring in their time and labour on these ventures, and really, only large volume island dealers likely can make anything approximating "a living" and not even them. (There's a popular video on YouTube of an SL couple making thousands of dollars every month in rentals, quitting their day jobs -- but it's from like 2009. Today, one of those people is long gone from SL and the other has no business on their profile any more.)

I personally find it a pernicious practice to put land to sale and also offer it for rent, because you do run the risk, if small, that a person will pay the box, and then another person will buy the land out from under them. On my rental boxes, you can refund, but that purchase would then lead to return of a paid box. So I only rarely do this because I can't be online 24/7 and don't want someone to get burned. It's true that putting land to sale to rent it helps defeat the badly broken search system on the regular viewer and the vicissitudes of the Land Store, so that's why people do it, it does lead to rentals by people flying around looking at the map.

While residents can devise ever new strategies to rent out or sell land; while certain types can berate others for being poor managers or whatever, the reality is, the Lindens could fix this in a number of ways:

o Ceasing the over--production of Bellisseria sims. I see numerous unclaimed lots. 

o Removing the tier "jumps" after 2048 and 4096 so that there are even 1024 increments for tier at a standard rate. There is no reason not to do this. If the original reason was "it costs more server power to run 8192 versus 4096," that can't be logical as all the scripts can pile up on one person's 4096, along with the 42 avatars. Now that the Lindens are at AWS, I don't see why these tier jumps have to exist.

o Making good on their frequent threat to remove the old Linden homes. In doing the trick or treat game, I saw that MANY people are still in the trads. That's because they still enable them to be claimed and people failing to take a Victorian claim them. An offer for a month free to move to the newer parts of Bellisseria should sop up the excess and save the Lindens on server bills.

o Ending their sales of abandoned to known land cutters. This isn't hard to tell; five minutes on the grid with a keen eye on the map will let you know who they are. An instant moratorium on all abandoned sales and a crackdown on the abusers renting and flipping microparcels would help. No one wants to move in next to a cut-up roadside or worse, inland. The Lindens could simply, via hard code, make it impossible to sell land under 512 m2 for anything except $0 (to enable it to be moved in and out of groups or traded among friends and neighbours). 

o Allowing the LindEx to float the value of the Linden higher.

o Ending the practice of putting accounts on hold or default status for non-payment of tier, and permitting continued log-ins and sales of land and Linden dollars in order to pay tier bills, but adding a fine for payments past 30 days and 60 days, before closure. 

There's more, but I think this is about rearranging the furniture on the deck of the Titanic. I'm all for re-arranging it until the water rushes in.

 

Edited November 5, 2023 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

On 11/1/2023 at 9:28 AM, BilliJo Aldrin said:

I’ve bought three or four 4096’s in the past few months, but each time i regretted the purchase and sold them, always at a loss and always at or just above $1 L per sqm. Not trying to reduce tier, so i dont abandon them , or give them away super cheep.

I have one now, listed for $5000 L, if it doesnt sell soon ill drop the price to $4096 L.

I make money flipping micro parcels, roadside 16’s will always sell for $500 L. and interior 16’s i pick up for under $25 L will always sell after adding $100 L to the price. Pennies i know, but pennies add up 😁

Your business is what harms other businesses and what makes end users abandon land and cease paying tier, or not buying land in the first place. The Lindens need to put an end to the sale and rent of microparcels.

[Prokofy Neva]

1 hour ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Land sellers with unrealistic expectations, are largely responsible for the "depressed market".

Real Example:

SL moves to the cloud, LL temporarily suspend sales of private estate regions while sorting tech issues.

Covid keeps people indoors, concurrency rises.

Really Stupid Person sees the two above mentioned fact, and assumes "SL has a Land SHORTAGE! I can buy cheap and sell dear, and make HUGE profits, and fulfil the Sacred Commandments of the Holy St. Ayn of Rand!"

Really Stupid Person on the 4096 tier band, buys an M rated 4096 miles from the nearest protected road or waterway, with no marketable "scenic view" worth speaking of, for 1 L$ a m from LL via a support ticket.

Really Stupid Person tries flipping the land for 12.5 L$ a m, that lasts a week, then they try at 9.3 L$ a m, for a week, then they try at 6.2 L$ a m, for a week, then at 3.1 L$ a m for a week, then they panic as they paid $19 US for the land and are looking at $22 US for a months tier, and they can't even sell it at a break even price, so they plan to abandon it to avoid another months $22 un-recoverable sunk cost, but then at the last minute...

Bottom Feeding Land Flipper steps in and offers them 0.4 L$ a m, knowing that he would NOT incur additional tier costs at all, as he was well within his multi hundred full region tier band, take it or leave it. They take it, and the Flipper sells it for 0.6 LS a m.

 

The reason the Really Stupid Person couldn't sell it even for 3.1/m was that there WAS NO LAND SHORTAGE and anyone could easily file a support ticket for the 4096 next to it, and get it for 1/m or even 0.5/m if they ended as the only bidder in a failed auction.

 

Failed Micro Land Flipper Wannabes with unrealistic expectations.. 

 

How do I know this, because it was the 4096 next to the 4400m parcel I call home.

I don't think there are many people like this any more.

There used to be a ton of small Mainland businesses buying and selling -- and usually improving -- smaller parcels. Some people would make a decent revenue just from buying and improving abandoned land. They don't exist any more except a few clueless or persistent outliers.

People who used to put their land to sale for some ridiculous price and say "some Japanese people who don't routinely calculate the cost of the dollar will buy this" -- well, Japan had a terrible recession and guess what, people aren't as stupid as you think, anyway. I see certain parcels remaining at extortionist sale rates FOR YEARS because somebody bought an annualized account and they never come inworld. There is never a reason to buy roadside for more than $1/abandoned, and the many cars you see passing by are autopilot load-tests for the Lindens who permit this sillyness, they contain no passengers and real human eyeballs.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

Re:

 I gave the entire Group and all its holdings to a land-cutter who promised to try and keep it going as it was, but ended up having the deal sabotaged by some of my 'friends/acquaintances'  who thought they were doing the right thing by humiliating the new Owner... so he cut, dumped and sold everything he could to any interested current tenants or interested parties and disappeared.  It broke my heart and I've not been able to go back there very often because it stirs up difficult memories of such a wonderful place becoming tarnished with anger and accusations, even though some of my very dear friends have kept the most beautiful parts of the Community intact and very active ♥ 

I'm going to note that this is your version of history and a lot could be said about this, but I'll just make two points:

1. Some of us knew this land cutter years ago and knew of his practices and publicizing them prevented more rip-offs.

2. Nobody at that level of land ownership who today, despite everything still owns at least 225,000+ meters, is going to "cut and dump land" due to "humiliation", i.e. someone has dissed their rep or said mean things. That makes no sense given the nature of the land baron business in general in SL.

Cutting and dumping land comes from not being able to pay tier, and from not caring what happens to the land and the people on it or near it. It takes a particular form of hubris to take roads and easements that could easily have been combined with land for sale or even cut or dumped -- and wasn't. 

How do I know? I bought some of those very roads either at fire-sale or from the Lindens when abandoned, and I continue to maintain to this day, and should have my head examined.

Edited November 5, 2023 by Prokofy Neva

[BilliJo Aldrin]

21 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Your business is what harms other businesses and what makes end users abandon land and cease paying tier, or not buying land in the first place. The Lindens need to put an end to the sale and rent of microparcels.

It harms no one, and where do you make the line banning sale and rent of microparcels? 16, 32, 64, 128?

If you wanna end the flipping of micro parcells, just make a rule, no builds on parcels smaller than  64 sq m. I have a cool mini club on a 64 sq m parcel, so it needs to be smaller than that.

😂

Edited November 5, 2023 by BilliJo Aldrin
added stuff. then added more stuff

[Prokofy Neva]

3 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

It harms no one, and where do you make the line banning sale and rent of microparcels? 16, 32, 64, 128?

If you wanna end the flipping of micro parcells, just make a rule, no builds on parcels smaller than  64 sq m. I have a cool mini club on a 64 sq m parcel, so it needs to be smaller than that.

😂

512 is what I said. No sales. When there are no sales, there are no builds.

The Lindens should install their own ad sales network and displace the blight and extortion.

[BilliJo Aldrin]

30 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I don't think there are many people like this any more.

There used to be a ton of small Mainland businesses buying and selling -- and usually improving -- smaller parcels. Some people would make a decent revenue just from buying and improving abandoned land. They don't exist any more except a few clueless or persistent outliers.

People who used to put their land to sale for some ridiculous price and say "some Japanese people who don't routinely calculate the cost of the dollar will buy this" -- well, Japan had a terrible recession and guess what, people aren't as stupid as you think, anyway. I see certain parcels remaining at extortionist sale rates FOR YEARS because somebody bought an annualized account and they never come inworld. There is never a reason to buy roadside for more than $1/abandoned, and the many cars you see passing by are autopilot load-tests for the Lindens who permit this sillyness, they contain no passengers and real human eyeballs.

 

How do you improve abandoned land? Put a tree on it?

Most people don't want improvements, they just want an empty parcel so they can dump their own crappy build on it.

My biggest peeve on mainland: people that buy land with a 100% slope and then rezz a giant prim to make a flat surface. They don't even add a brick texture on the vertical face, to make it look like a retaining wall, if you are lucky they tint it green or something.

Edited November 5, 2023 by BilliJo Aldrin
wrong word, changed it

[BilliJo Aldrin]

7 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

512 is what I said. No sales. When there are no sales, there are no builds.

The Lindens should install their own ad sales network and displace the blight and extortion.

I have a fine house on a parcel that's about 400 sq, with prims to spare

How do you get off wanting to interfere with how others wish to live their second life?

Oh and I personally don't do networked advertising any more, I just buy the land and flip it 😁

Edited November 5, 2023 by BilliJo Aldrin
punctuation is your friend, added a line

[Prokofy Neva]

7 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

I have a fine house on a parcel that's about 400 sq, with prims to spare

How do you get off wanting to interfere with how others wish to live their second life.

Happy to interfere when others interfere *first* with the enjoyment of my SL and that of my neighbours. More than happy. This concept was at one time in the TOS under 2C "the interference with the enjoyment of Second Life" and was the premise under which land cutting and extortionate sale were at least in some forms criminalized.

Edited November 5, 2023 by Prokofy Neva

[Island Granville]

4 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

I have a fine house on a parcel that's about 400 sq, with prims to spare

Some of my fun here over the years has been earned by achieving satisfactory builds on tiny parcels. It's a puzzle, and adds a dimension to my experience.

[BJoyful]

14 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

1. Some of us knew this land cutter years ago and knew of his practices and publicizing them prevented more rip-offs.

Do you know that same Land-Cutter was given about 1.75 Regions of that same land approximately a year prior and just sat with it for a couple of months before coming to me and stating "I just can't devote time to looking after this currently, so if you want I'll give it back".  I took it back for L$0 and said Land Cutter kept a 1024 owned in his own name and continued to remain a member of the Community while gathering a Landscaper/Decorator/designer team to look at what we had going on, see how active the community remained.  He brought the team to his 1024 and showed them all around the area, what was popular, what he considered less important and what rented, what had a high turnover, etc.  I assume he decided he could do something like this and proceeded to create a Community on some contiguous Estates.  Then, when I became ill again and announced I'd tried to find someone to take over again but no one was interested.  I'm pretty sure I asked you, Prokofy, if you would like to take any and you stated you didn't.  Then when I finally appealed to Land Cutter again, he said he would take it over again, as in that year he saw some areas which I had fully provided at my own expense could possibly generate some income, maybe pay for the tier.   He asked me to keep as much as I wanted and he'd take over the rest and try to at least pay the tier and his staff to manage it and I did that, keeping the best protected coastal land for ourselves and intending to continue living there as I recuperated and offer myself as a consultant.  He said if he couldn't make a profit with the parts I provided rent free and wanted to make changes I didn't want, I would take that land back and pay the tier and he could 'experiment' with the steep mountainside in parts of 3 Regions.  I went offline to rest and recuperate, only coming online for brief periods and by request.  The Land Cutter also accepted the assistance of some of the core active members to help him implement changes he had in mind.

Then the proverbial offal hit the... and a couple of well intentioned friends/acquaintances jumped in with stones in hand, and shamed and labeled him to be a Land Cutter and decided to hold a protest and grief anything and everything they could.  I assume they must have concluded I was a naïve idiot, who desperately dumped my land for tremendous or at least some monetary gain and disappeared, leaving everyone to clean up my mess.  Did ANY of those accusers ask me "What are you thinking?!?  Why sell to HIM??!!?!"  Nope, not one.  ALL the Protestors jumped all over him, named, shamed and made him very upset.  He stopped talking to me.  The Protestors continued to name and shame him to any who would listen.  Some of the tenants who did not know him, but knew some of the Protestors and that they were pretty knowledgeable people and some even Friends of mine... so they panicked believing the sky was falling, removed tier they had donated, waited to get ejected for non payment of rent or just fled silently, as anything he did was deemed BAD. 

There was a lot of upset people including me, who happened to be online during a name & shame event in the Group chat.  I said nothing in Group chat and had a private IM with her asking why she did that and she stated "Once a Land Cutter Always a Land Cutter."  I explained I did know him and his reputation and that he was trying to turn over a new leaf and she said "A leopard can't change his spots.  They may pretend to be something else but they will always be leopards and people need to be warned"  I said I wanted her to apologize in Group chat.  She didn't and was firm in her belief that he needed to be exposed.  He wouldn't answer my IMs.  He wouldn't respond to my offer to take back some of the tier.  He was mad and wanted to do things his way with no help from me... and many people who used the free donated space left as the rent was introduced, and people Abandoned owned parcels within the community or tried to sell them cheap as possible and he offered all the land he was going to dump because he couldn't get new tenants to help pay tier... no one wanted it after that!

Those core members took on as much tier as they possibly could to try and save the best parts.  I offered tier to help them, but no one would take it from me.  I gave (price L$0) my beautiful protected coastal 16,239 m2 away to a good friend who expressed an interest to buy some of that prime land from me on her promise that she would always keep it open to the public.  a few months later the beautiful mountainside was Abandoned Land, I couldn't find a road from the Linden Protected Roadway to the coast and beach, most of the tenants from my period of ownership were gone... it reminded me of my RL dying small city, and what a waste of thousands of US $ in tier which was now empty and barren and back to being pure expense as Abandoned Land again.  He may of been a Land Cutter but we did have a pretty good agreement and a promise that he would try his best, with my help, to make some kind of worthwhile venture for his donation of Tier... but he didn't get a chance to give it a try.  He was labeled, named, shamed and he saw the value of the community drop like Wall Street before The Depression.

A few months later, I asked a Friend if he'd make a nice Destination on a contiguous G rated Region if I donated tier, hoping a nice Destination would encourage some regrowth around it and he said yes.  That beautiful Destination is still there, but really underused as I'm not able to take on too much which may be stressful, causing more illness or blindness.  I was totally heartbroken at the failure of such effort to find someone to take over.  I was stressed and struggling for months before giving the land to Land Cutter as my very last hope before Abandoning it myself.  I nearly lost my eyesight permanently, stressed and to limping along doing a half-assed job of mending spats between neighbours, complaints from tenants and landowner/neighbours about imagined disasters, stalkers, home invaders, etc.

 

So I guess the Protestors did a great job of:  "Some of us knew this land cutter years ago and knew of his practices and publicizing them prevented more rip-offs."  I hope the Protesters got what they wanted for my wasted investment of thousands of US $ in something I felt was the best thing I'd done. I certainly didn't and I surely imagine the Land Cutter will never try anything like this again.

[Island Granville]

37 minutes ago, BJoyful said:

That beautiful Destination is still there,

I'm not sure if the location in this discussion is common knowledge...I missed a lot when I was out of SL for 10 years, I think. In the interest of someone (me) with no clue about the parties involved, just wanting to see the beautiful destination, would you be willing to share a slurl?

[BJoyful]

5 minutes ago, Island Granville said:

I'm not sure if the location in this discussion is common knowledge...I missed a lot when I was out of SL for 10 years, I think. In the interest of someone (me) with no clue about the parties involved, just wanting to see the beautiful destination, would you be willing to share a slurl?

Yes. I hope you visit and enjoy how much the Builder and Group Owner has devoted to this wonderful project ♥♥

Here's a link to it from Destination Guide: https://secondlife.com/destination/the-glastonbelli-redwood-forest 

 

[Zalificent Corvinus]

19 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

and the many cars you see passing by are autopilot load-tests for the Lindens who permit this sillyness, they contain no passengers and real human eyeballs.

Why do you think I refer to the highways of Satori as "The Road Nobody Ever Uses", "The Other Road Nobody Ever Uses", "The Unused Cross Connection" and "The Useless Bit of Tarmac Textured Prim Waste At the Bottom".

 

After some 20 odd pages in one of the never ending series of Vehicle Fanatic Minority Rant Threads, I spent 5 & 1/2 hours one day circumnavigating Satori along the roads, I saw exactly TWO vehicle users.

Both were parked in aircraft on the taxi-way of the upper deck of a half region sized double decker prim crud anti-gravity airport, built less than 40 m above ground, directly below a stack of dis-used sky-bubble rentals. Both had remained in the same spot for a week, since they re-logged after the previous week's rolling restarts.

 

[Polenth Yue]

As far as pricing goes, people tend to buy land next to me and try to sell it for high prices... only to have to drop them down again. I assume they're hoping that shops will want to move next to other shops (some put being next to a mushroom shop in the land description, so not much of an assumption). It's not a bad thought, but it's not worth the price the land sellers think. There are often similar bits of land that could just be ticketed.

On the redwood forest, I was around that area recently, as The Nature Collective hunt went to one of the nearby locations. Smaller projects with less stress can be the way to go.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

3 hours ago, Polenth Yue said:

I assume they're hoping that

"...this parcel is a sound investment, you will easily double your money. Only 2 regions by road from the abandoned ruins of the Philip Linden Memorial Sports Centre, home of the 2006 SLolympic Games, well worth the low low price of 128 L$ per Sqm..."

3 hours ago, Polenth Yue said:

but it's not worth the price the land sellers think

So true!