Land Sales Crash

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Qie Niangao said:

They were broken for quite a while. IIRC that was back when Resident-to-Resident auctions were disabled.

But I don't think auctions have ever been a very popular market for retail-scale landowners. If I wanted to buy land today, I could look at today's listing to see if there's anything suitable, but there probably won't be. If I kept at it for a month or even a week, something might very well appear, and I might very well save some L$s buying it directly at auction instead of from a reseller. (Obviously the reseller's business depends on that being the case.) But that's a lot of patience to expect of somebody looking to own land—as opposed to somebody looking for land they might resell at a profit.

Right, so with all that, I submit the theory that "auction prices" are not necessarily a good metric for land prices overall. Just for auction prices themselves.

[Diablo Lioncourt]

3 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Right, so with all that, I submit the theory that "auction prices" are not necessarily a good metric for land prices overall. Just for auction prices themselves.

I believe you're quite correct.

Having said that, both auction and retail sale prices have gone down significantly over the past year. In Zindra, for instance, the supply of land that's sold in a "retail" setting by land companies mostly comes from auctions and existing landowners who want to move.

People who really want to move are seeing the prices and undercutting their neighbors, and/or reaching out to land flippers asking them to buy their parcels even cheaper. "Hi I have a 1024 3x protected plot in Kama City I've been trying to sell for 25k... would you wanna take it off my hands for 10-15K?" kinda stuff.

The "teaser" announcement about something "spicy" and "adult" doesn't necessarily mean what everyone seems to think it does. If I was the Lindens, my first priority would probably be adding adult Linden home neighborhoods. Why? Because SL's most loyal and profitable long-term users will feel more free there. You just don't get 60 year old HOA Karen berating you to close your windows or take down your "offensive" artwork in adult. The small number of vocal superprudes who monopolize the welcome areas of SL has always emboldened people like that to invent rules like "no nudity in moderate" and "sex whips are weapons" in the vanilla mainland.

We aren't segregated into the effective ghetto of Zindra and isolated private islands because we asked to be. We're there to keep a bigger group of less profitable users every mainstream "square" business leader still perceives as more lucrative comfortable. Money talks, however, and the new owners of LL have been following it in a way the old owners simply didn't. The notion that SL would replace mainstream social media is now laughable, so appealing to theoretical mainstream later adapters is no longer a concern.

 

Edited January 9 by Diablo Lioncourt

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Diablo Lioncourt said:

If I was the Lindens, my first priority would probably be adding adult Linden home neighborhoods. Why? Because SL's most loyal and profitable long-term users will feel more free there. You just don't get 60 year old HOA Karen berating you to close your windows or take down your "offensive" artwork in adult.

Sounds absolutely legit. I hope we find out soon, all the guessing is quite silly but at least gives us something to post about.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

9 hours ago, Clem Marques said:

The auction results reflect the poor performance of the land sale market quite clearly. Zindra seems to fetch lower prices than it used to a few years ago, and the land sales have apparently slowed down at the moment. That's the impression I get. Believe it or not, it was a struggle to sell protected roadside parcels in Kama City for as little as 9 L$/m2 last month. I know I am not the only one who has had a hard time with that, as there are currently similar cases in the Donathan and Strute regions of Kama City. I have seen others in the past few months. Can't sell parcels even if you price them at a loss. Go figure.

There currently is a very large 1x protected Kama City parcel in the auctions (https://places.secondlife.com/parcels/291508/baern-152-54-adult-8064m) and I am very curious about what the result will be on that one. My guess is that it won't be too expensive, especially considering the fact that it's a big parcel that can't be subdivided (covenant rules) and not everyone can afford a tier that high. But still... it's protected land in one of the best parts of Zindra.

I don't think the land market as a whole is crashing. The land sales seem to be struggling at the moment, but my guess is that it is due to a shift in the market trend instead of a crash. Zindra parcels in particular have gotten so expensive that many seem have given up on owning land in that continent, choosing to buy abandoned Moderate land for 1L$/m2 or cheaper Moderate protected parcels instead. That is the clever thing to do nowadays if one wants to own land for anything other than an adult business or club. 

There seems to be a high demand for Linden Homes nowadays, particularly the 2048m premium plus ones, which is understandable because they are very nice. That might be one of the contributing factors in the drop in land sales. And of course, there is the option to rent land, which is definitely appealing considering that it's often way, way cheaper than buying the parcel and paying the monthly tier for it. There are some very affordable landlords out there providing a roof for those who are not so well off, and I appreciate that. Another important factor might be people's RL financial situation not being so good, which is unrelated to SL but does affect the amount of money people are willing to spend here. However, despite all of that, there are still people out there who buy land, so it can't be that bad.

The market varies a lot, this might just be a temporary issue. I love land in SL, and I hope things improve. 

"Crash" was never the word to use -- "Crash" was Ryan Linden opening the old auctions at ridiculously low prices years ago, THAT was crash.

But downturn? Steady decline? Signs that virtual worlds tend towards entropy (my theory)? Indeed.

I feel it picked up a little bit latelyy, that's only because I sold a few parcels after lowering their price a bit -- they had long been sitting out there and baking in the sun. Fortunately, one is to an end user, I'd prefer them as neighbours. I just saw another neighbour who bought land I had sold to some flipper ABANDON rare 40+/- waterfront on deep sea. I thought of asking for it, but you know what? I am steadily tiering down and that's the right thing to do.

The other parcels sold went to flippers, and they've put these so-so Sansara waterfronts at ridiculously high prices, so now they can tier New England, which they've covered with sea-sand-fun junk which I think will actually harm their sales potential.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

5 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Right, so with all that, I submit the theory that "auction prices" are not necessarily a good metric for land prices overall. Just for auction prices themselves.

No, auctions are a Linden's judgement that what was abandoned will likely sell on the auction, and not be left to sit there and be requested for only $1/m. So indeed they are a reflection of the market, a very powerful one, since this is a CONTROLLED market.

AND they reflect the willingness -- or not -- of land barons to use their trading tier to pick up land they can flip or sell long term if they pay a lot. 

So of course it's a reflection of the land market. It IS the land market.

[Prokofy Neva]

1 hour ago, Diablo Lioncourt said:

I believe you're quite correct.

Having said that, both auction and retail sale prices have gone down significantly over the past year. In Zindra, for instance, the supply of land that's sold in a "retail" setting by land companies mostly comes from auctions and existing landowners who want to move.

People who really want to move are seeing the prices and undercutting their neighbors, and/or reaching out to land flippers asking them to buy their parcels even cheaper. "Hi I have a 1024 3x protected plot in Kama City I've been trying to sell for 25k... would you wanna take it off my hands for 10-15K?" kinda stuff.

The "teaser" announcement about something "spicy" and "adult" doesn't necessarily mean what everyone seems to think it does. If I was the Lindens, my first priority would probably be adding adult Linden home neighborhoods. Why? Because SL's most loyal and profitable long-term users will feel more free there. You just don't get 60 year old HOA Karen berating you to close your windows or take down your "offensive" artwork in adult. The small number of vocal superprudes who monopolize the welcome areas of SL has always emboldened people like that to invent rules like "no nudity in moderate" and "sex whips are weapons" in the vanilla mainland.

We aren't segregated into the effective ghetto of Zindra and isolated private islands because we asked to be. We're there to keep a bigger group of less profitable users every mainstream "square" business leader still perceives as more lucrative comfortable. Money talks, however, and the new owners of LL have been following it in a way the old owners simply didn't. The notion that SL would replace mainstream social media is now laughable, so appealing to theoretical mainstream later adapters is no longer a concern.

 

I've never had any neighbour ask me to take any art work involving nudes down in Mature -- only in General. 

As for welcome areas, they are filled with working girls holding up signs, not "superprudes". I don't know where you got that crazy idea.

You must be in the wrong line of work.

The Lindens will dilute what little value Zindra has left with "adult" by adding Bellisseria adult regions, but I can see why that is in their interest.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

4 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

So of course it's a reflection of the land market. It IS the land market.

Ah, so all of those people selling land don't count..? Only auctions..?

Edited January 9 by Love Zhaoying

[Diablo Lioncourt]

Auctions are just one source.

My biggest source of good parcels is directly from the end users who want to move and don't want to abandon their long-loved Zindra City/Coast or Blake/Belli area parcel. They may have no recollection of what they paid for it 10 years ago, but they know its definitely still worth something. They often figure contacting land dealers directly & comparing offers is an easy, convenient way to get someone to come take it right away.

Then there's abandoned land. Some people just have "the eye". Most people I know like this also happen to have a lot of rentals and rental experience, and have lived or owned land many many different places. "Good land" (mainland that will keep residents long-term) is very complicated. Things like "protected roadside" and even "protected sailing" adjacent are only part of the story. Its as much an art as a science. Some people (especially those who sail/fly a lot, and have lots of sailing rentals in moderate)  just seem "get lucky" with AL over and over.

Back to auctions: They're more important to land-flippers than they are to your average resident or even your average landlord. They appear to be implemented in their current form to "suggest" options to newbie land flippers and anyone else interested in some "high demand" access inventory (typically at a higher price than direct purchase, and with a limited selection compared to the "aftermarket") , but auction inventory appears to be scripted-process-selected, based largely on region avatar count. This is certainly one common-sense measure of" demand", but things like a club full of AFKs, sailing waterfront vs mountains in the same region, etc etc etc will fool it over and over.

 

Edited January 9 by Diablo Lioncourt

[Qie Niangao]

I would think that in a general, indirect way, the price land can command at auction would reflect what land flippers think it would bring at resale. An individual auctioned parcel might go for more—maybe much more, if neighbors notice the purple on the map and start a bidding war, and there are all sorts of other noise sources that apply to individual auctions, but generally, directionally, they should be some signal about the overall land market.

[Prokofy Neva]

6 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Ah, so all of those people selling land don't count..? Only auctions..?

They're selling it for lower prices AND abandoning it, duh.

They're not selling it for higher prices.

Don't be fooled by the outliers of $50,000 for a 1024 m2 sailing lot not even in the Blake Sea. Look around what even good land is going for.

I'm beginning to think this thread is a troll to drive prices up to the benefit of the few...or something.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

5 hours ago, Diablo Lioncourt said:

Auctions are just one source.

My biggest source of good parcels is directly from the end users who want to move and don't want to abandon their long-loved Zindra City/Coast or Blake/Belli area parcel. They may have no recollection of what they paid for it 10 years ago, but they know its definitely still worth something. They often figure contacting land dealers directly & comparing offers is an easy, convenient way to get someone to come take it right away.

Then there's abandoned land. Some people just have "the eye". Most people I know like this also happen to have a lot of rentals and rental experience, and have lived or owned land many many different places. "Good land" (mainland that will keep residents long-term) is very complicated. Things like "protected roadside" and even "protected sailing" adjacent are only part of the story. Its as much an art as a science. Some people (especially those who sail/fly a lot, and have lots of sailing rentals in moderate)  just seem "get lucky" with AL over and over.

Back to auctions: They're more important to land-flippers than they are to your average resident or even your average landlord. They appear to be implemented in their current form to "suggest" options to newbie land flippers and anyone else interested in some "high demand" access inventory (typically at a higher price than direct purchase, and with a limited selection compared to the "aftermarket") , but auction inventory appears to be scripted-process-selected, based largely on region avatar count. This is certainly one common-sense measure of" demand", but things like a club full of AFKs, sailing waterfront vs mountains in the same region, etc etc etc will fool it over and over.

 

The point isn't that they're "one source". Obviously there are far less parcels on the auction than inworld.

But they are a good indicator and an important one, and most of all, an easily visible one, because the map is sprawling, and you can be distracted by $50,000 1024 m2 lots that aren't reflective of the norm.

Sailing is overstated, and sailors have gotten a lot of Linden love that other groups have not. I find most people even on waterfront DO NOT sail. It is expensive, difficult, and boring. They'd rather fly or drive, if they have to have some kind of transportation.

I have no idea what this gobblede***** is supposed to mean: "but auction inventory appears to be scripted-process-selected, based largely on region avatar count. 

Supposedly land barons have scripts to determine which parcels on the auction come from sims with low avatar count? By what definition and time slice? The reality is, there are few enough auctions that a land baron can tell at a glance using his own experience and common sense what is worth it, based on rating, waterfront and protected status, etc. The end users and sometimes even the barons will go in real time to look at a lot and see claim dates, FPS etc. I don't see evidence that this is done by bots, or that it would be easy to script and interpret if it were.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

13 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I'm beginning to think this thread is a troll to drive prices up to the benefit of the few...or something.

Most of these similar threads are "the sky is falling", or "stirring the pot", or trying to cause drama and panic, etc. 

Most of us "normal folk" over here with our current land, happy, aren't affected by land prices.

IMHO.

 

[Diablo Lioncourt]

13 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I'm beginning to think this thread is a troll to drive prices up to the benefit of the few...or something.

 

I doubt what's posted on these forums has any real impact on prices/sales in-world. I don't believe most of the grid knows.

[BilliJo Aldrin]

14 hours ago, Diablo Lioncourt said:

We aren't segregated into the effective ghetto of Zindra and isolated private islands because we asked to be.

 

I personally never considered Zindra to be a ghetto. On the contrary its the most desirable, best laid out place on Mainland. People don't pay tens of thousands of L's just to rezz some crap. They are there because they have a legitimate purpose for paying tens of thousands of L's.

If they made adult LL homes on Zindra, Belli would probably be mostly be abandoned the next day.

[Prokofy Neva]

19 hours ago, Diablo Lioncourt said:

I doubt what's posted on these forums has any real impact on prices/sales in-world. I don't believe most of the grid knows.

Note that not a single major land baron -- particularly the really big dogs with hundreds of islands -- ever post on the forums.

A few lesser breeds do read them as I have discovered, but they don't post. Some have sworn never to post because the Lindens used to have this mantra that if you were permabanned on the forums, you should be stripped of your land inworld and ejected from SL. But then they dropped that in later years, although one can never be entirely sure.

The forums do have an impact, but it is not always measurable.

It's not true that the rest of Belli would be abandoned if they made an adult Belli. For one, if you are up in a skybox, in mature, and you don't display yourself, the Lindens basically declare you as "safe" and won't prosecute you. It's more the public adult activity like clubs that they want in Zindra. Some of the extra cautious with enemies who spuriously AR them will also go to Zindra.

Again, as I know from my tenants, there is a sizeable contingent of SL users who do not engage in any form of adult activity. This may due to the fact that they "have lives" and RL partners who, at the end of the day, with all their human failings, may be "more fun" and more stable than the virtual types that can and do disappear at any minute -- and the beauty part is, they can't make alts in RL, at least not without a lot of trouble and expense.

More people prefer shopping and socializing -- which can consist of IMing people while they sit in their house alone -- than sex. True story.

If the Lindens saw Belli empty out into an adult Belli, all they'd have to do is allow commerce in the original Belli and they would stop that outflow. And by "commerce," I mean even tip jars in art galleries or at parties with DJs, which are not currently allowed.

 

 

[Love Zhaoying]

6 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Note that not a single major land baron -- particularly the really big dogs with hundreds of islands -- ever post on the forums.

Wait, that doesn't describe you?!

[Diablo Lioncourt]

5 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Wait, that doesn't describe you?!

In his defense, most of the "land barons" who post on these forums are little guys like myself who serve one particular niche. Most of us do this for fun; it may pay for our SL, maybe our Internet & light bill, etc. It's a hobby we made into a side hustle.

Before my skybox business got so big that it financially made sense for me to buy my own sims - its actually cheaper to leverage someone else's buying power and sublet getting started - I personally spent most of my SL as a tenant. In some ways I think that helped me become a better landlord when I decided to get into it.

Anyway, most of the places I rented parcels from as a tenant were huge estate companies with hundreds of private sims managed by a skeleton staff of humans, with some scripted help to restart sims as needed, dynamically adjust asking tier in response to current demand similar to Amazon pricing bots, autoreturn abandoned objects, etc. They give you a covenant with some basic rules, instant access to your land as soon as you pay, and then they're as "hands off" as possible as long as you keep paying and follow the rules. Their game is all about serving a large volume of people with relatively thin margins; they don't typically have time or patience to explain anything to anyone or teach you how to use your land, and they sure don't have time to tell anyone their trade secrets here. There's too much work to be done when the sim to human ratio is 100 (or more) to 1; they may be incorporated in another country just to get around VAT, outsourcing Chinese staff, etc to turn a profit. It's ultra-competitive.

As a result of all that capitalism, unless you own a half sim or more, its often cheaper to rent from one of these big companies than it is to own land directly through LL as a premium member. This is more or less what the creators originally intended.

 

 

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Diablo Lioncourt said:

managed by a skeleton staff of humans

This sounds terrifying!

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Diablo Lioncourt said:

and they sure don't have time to tell anyone their trade secrets here.

..and absolutely no motivation or reason to do so.

[Diablo Lioncourt]

11 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

This sounds terrifying!

That also sounds like LL, Meta, X, etc.

[Love Zhaoying]

6 minutes ago, Diablo Lioncourt said:

18 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

This sounds terrifying!

That also sounds like LL, Meta, X, etc.

Oh, sorry - I meant, I was envisioning literal skeletons!

Edited January 11 by Love Zhaoying

[Prokofy Neva]

On 1/11/2024 at 5:19 AM, Love Zhaoying said:

Wait, that doesn't describe you?!

Nope, I'm a very small landlord, I have a total now of about 13 sims' worth of land, spread across about 55 sims.

[Prokofy Neva]

On 1/11/2024 at 11:29 AM, Diablo Lioncourt said:

In his defense, most of the "land barons" who post on these forums are little guys like myself who serve one particular niche. Most of us do this for fun; it may pay for our SL, maybe our Internet & light bill, etc. It's a hobby we made into a side hustle.

Before my skybox business got so big that it financially made sense for me to buy my own sims - its actually cheaper to leverage someone else's buying power and sublet getting started - I personally spent most of my SL as a tenant. In some ways I think that helped me become a better landlord when I decided to get into it.

Anyway, most of the places I rented parcels from as a tenant were huge estate companies with hundreds of private sims managed by a skeleton staff of humans, with some scripted help to restart sims as needed, dynamically adjust asking tier in response to current demand similar to Amazon pricing bots, autoreturn abandoned objects, etc. They give you a covenant with some basic rules, instant access to your land as soon as you pay, and then they're as "hands off" as possible as long as you keep paying and follow the rules. Their game is all about serving a large volume of people with relatively thin margins; they don't typically have time or patience to explain anything to anyone or teach you how to use your land, and they sure don't have time to tell anyone their trade secrets here. There's too much work to be done when the sim to human ratio is 100 (or more) to 1; they may be incorporated in another country just to get around VAT, outsourcing Chinese staff, etc to turn a profit. It's ultra-competitive.

As a result of all that capitalism, unless you own a half sim or more, its often cheaper to rent from one of these big companies than it is to own land directly through LL as a premium member. This is more or less what the creators originally intended.

 

 

It makes absolutely no sense to rent land from somebody else to then run as a rentals business. There is no way that this is cheaper in the long run.

In fact, I forbid it in my rentals, because I don't see why I need to absorb all the business costs of purchase and tier for somebody else's business. It's always best to own your own land.

 

[Diablo Lioncourt]

5 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

It makes absolutely no sense to rent land from somebody else to then run as a rentals business. There is no way that this is cheaper in the long run.

In fact, I forbid it in my rentals, because I don't see why I need to absorb all the business costs of purchase and tier for somebody else's business. It's always best to own your own land.

 

Business question: why do you think SL chooses to lease servers from Amazon Web Services?

Why do you think Apple, Netflix, and even Google do this?

One possibility is that you know something they don't. Then there's the other possibility...

Edited January 13 by Diablo Lioncourt

[Diablo Lioncourt]

On 1/9/2024 at 10:41 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

I have no idea what this gobblede***** is supposed to mean: "but auction inventory appears to be scripted-process-selected, based largely on region avatar count.

Lindens use a script or bot to decide which AL they're going to auction off. It's looking for regions with avatars present almost 24/7 already ("high demand" areas). Idea is to have as few mainland regions actually "awake" as possible.

It's possible you weren't understanding that because you didn't WANT to.

Edited January 13 by Diablo Lioncourt