Forced Out Of My Home By Linden Homes

[Perrie Juran]

Today I was greatly saddened when I received a note card from my Land Lady informing me that I was going to have to move.  I have lived in the same place for almost my entire time in Second Life, living there around four years now. 

In the course of those four years I have put much effort into decorating my place, landscaping, etc.  I have spent many Linden dollars doing this as well as things that I built myself.  I learned to do many things in Second Life there.  Also I have had innumerable friends there and have had lots of fun entertaining guests.

My Land Lady owns the entire SIM,  It is on Mainland, but has always been strictly residential.  She is not the original owner but both my previous Land Lord and my current Land Lady have always been quick to respond to any needs their residents might have.  I don't know how I could ask for better service.

But rentals are down and the income from the SIM now is not covering Tier.  So she is having to dispose of the SIM.  And I blame this more than anything else on Linden homes.

While I can not provide any numbers or statistics to prove this, I do know this from personal experience, that when your supplier also becomes your competitor it puts you in an impossible position competitively speaking.  I have had this happen to me as a businessman in Real Life.  And it sucks.  And what I saw in both my situation and in other situations I am was aware of, in the end, it hurt both parties. 

In this case my Land Lady is having to dispose of  the SIM, and Linden Lab will be losing the tier because while I am certain she would prefer to sell it, she has stated that "On Friday (26 August) I will be disposing of the SIM by whatever means I must in order to get it off my tier before billing runs on Saturday and I incur another month of tier for the Sim."  

It may be that Linden Homes has increased new user retention.  But I seriously have to ask at what cost.  When we consider the amount of abandoned Mainland, one has to ask if they could not have accomplished the same and maybe more with better support for the rental industry in Second Life and better support for the new user.  From where I sit and from both talking with other Land Lords and Ladies as well as what I have read in other Blogs, Linden Lab has shot itself in the foot again.

Maybe I am wrong.  But that is at least my perspective on the issue.

For right now, my Land Lady does own other properties so what she is doing is consolidating.  She has offered to assist any of us who chose to stay with her help in moving.  I am taking her up on this offer.  And while maybe it is only a pixel world, I have grown quite attached to my place.  Maybe rebuilding will be good for me.  But I do really love where I live.  It's been four years of awesome memories.

Thanks for giving me a listen.

Perrie Juran

[Liisa Runo]

Sorry to hear you need to move. Same happened to the very first place i lived. The person who was renting the land for me sold my parcel to me when he had to quit the land renting business. Ask if your landlord is willing to sell you the piece you want.

Also check out the world map for parcels for sale. There been lots of awesome parcels for sale lately.

I hope you find a nice place.

[Chelsea Malibu]

Unfortunately, it happens and when it can be worse is if your business is there since there is no way to re-direct landmarks.

However, this is a digitial world and everything in it is just data on a server.  When I had to close down my 9 sims years back, I was in tears for days seeing all my work just go poof with nothing to show for it.

Then I built again and each time, something different and better.  Each time my skills got better and I got faster.  What used to take me months to build now takes me days.  The truth is, things get better and though a bit taxing sometimes, in the end, we always come out with something improved and your skills will grow to the point where you wont care if something goes away since you will always have an idea somewhere in the back of your mind that tells you, you will need to build it.

[May Caramel]

I'm sorry that you will have to move that really sucks.

There are a few reasons I disagree that Linden homes are competition for land owners.

1. Very low prims, no privacy, no freedom to decorate with the house style you want and the yard plants and flowers you want etc. A linden home is not a real home. Noone who wants a real home will be content with a linden home. They can put a bed out and a few decorations but they can't really make it their own. As soon as someone starts decorating they will find their prim limit is hit almost immediately. People who want a home will pay for a good one, people who don't care about a home won't bother anyways.

2. Newbies don't know that having a home can be fun. As a newbie the question is, why should I rent a home? I want to buy clothes and hang out at a club. I can use a sandbox for free, I can chat for free...it isn't worth it. A linden home gives them a small taste, a sample of owning a home. They learn that decorating can be a lot of fun. But the linden home is so restrictive that they will want more, and the only way to get more is rent (or buy) it. So I suspect that linden homes actually create more renters. People too cheap to rent or not interested will just use a sandbox.

 

The reason there are less renters right now I suspect is much more due to the economy, sales of everything is down in second life right now. People can't afford to spend money in the game as they used to. Clothing sales are low, skin sales are low, everything including land. I also have no proof, no statistics. So it's possible that I am wrong and people really are happy with a linden home when they otherwise would rent a real home. But I don't think so.

P.S. I was one of those newbies who didn't think renting was worth it untill I saw how fun it was to decorate.

[Rabid Cheetah]

Bummer.

 

Have her subdivide the land.  Then, if she's unable to find a buyer who's willing to let you stay, and she abandons, as far as I know your stuff should stay on the land until Linden comes in and clears the objects (which I don't think they'd do automatically), or until a new buyer does so.  It's anyone's guess as to whether the land will immediately go for sale at $L1 per M2 (in which case, if it does, buy it and never again worry about loosing the land), or if it will just become Linden land that's not for sale (I've seen both cases happen).  If it's not set for sale, open a ticket with Customer Service and ask them to sell the land to you, or at least set it for auction.

 

On the other hand, she might be intendingto get as much money as she can, FAST, and plans to keep dropping the price until one of those land robots show up.  They usually don't show up until a parcel is set at $L0.39 per M2 or lower, so offer her $L0.40 for your portion, and everyone wins (save for whatever new neighbors you wind up with).  That comes to rougly $120 USD for the entire sim, or thirty bucks for a 4096.  Not a bad price, especailly given your attachment to that particulart parcel.  No morer rent, but then you've got to pay tier.  Has she considered just raising the rent, instead of selling the land?

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

Perrie, I'm sorry you're having to move...I've seen a sample of your lovely home in the Vanity thread, and can see why you are saddened by this turn of events. I'm very attached to my own home although I've only been there for a year or so, and would not like to be forced to move, either. 

I do agree with May that Linden homes may actually bring more residents around to the idea of renting; it worked that way for me, at least. 

[Rabid Cheetah]

I fully agree with your take on the situation.  in fact, I'm working on a parcel I've subdivided into 512's to target-market to folks wanting more from their Linden Homes:  Same size, but double prims (by only subdividing some of the original parcel, not all of it, I can offer the extra prims without having to sink a thousand bucks into purchasing an estate), better view (edge of the world, facing east, by water), and for a weekly $L price that works out to be the same as if someone were paying for a Premium Account to get a Linden Home.  I'm not quite ready to put it on the market yet, so I don't know how well it's going to go over (and even so, it's not gonna makea profit unless this experiment works and I then repeat it with my remaining tier), but I'm certain that without Linden Homes asa benchmark of "Here's what ya get for ten bucks a month" there wouldn't be anything for renters or myself to figure out the fair market value, and I'd be stuck charging so far bellow tier that I'd, well, do the same thing the original poster's Land Lady is doing...

[Rabid Cheetah]

Don't you dare move, neighbor!  There's no telling what would go in if you did.  The last thing we need by the Great Wall is another giant Bart Simspon's Butt statue...

[Perrie Juran]

Just to answer a few things in general, first I am not a Premium member.  For me personally I have never had a need for it and when doing the math with the stipend, etc, it has been slightly cheaper for me to simply rent.  Also, my Land Lady's rates are par with average rates in SL.

I would love to buy the SIM but simply do not have the resources nor do I desire to get involved as a Landlord here.  I am here more to "play" than to 'work."

As far as my buying my particular parcel then, I'd have no way of knowing who my neighbors could be.  So as long as she has some other residential parcels for me to move to I am going to take her up on that offer.

As I said, I don't have any hard numbers I can show anyone to back up my statements.  There are others who hypothesize and extrapolate on that.  But only Linden Lab has the hard numbers.  I don't know if they can track how many people move on from a Linden Home to private rental.  I would imagine they can track who actually buys land.  So how much of a stepping stone the Linden Homes are to rental elsewhere may be hard to determine.

What I do know as a business person is the terrible position it is to suddenly find that your supplier has become your competitor too.  How much effort is Linden Lab making to encourage people to move from Linden Homes to private home ownership or rental?  If I had been setting up the program, I would have made it a temporary situation, i.e., a free home for a set period of time while the new user settled in to SL.  Six months.  Maybe even a full year.  After that, get them off of the 'government teat' so to speak.

for whatever my two cents is worth

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

We have a Bart Simpson's Butt statue? Why haven't you blasted it with your cannon yet?? 

[Persephone Emerald]

I agree with your original post, but I'll add a few qualifiers.

Linden Homes compete directly with low rent, low prim rentals that newbies generally prefer. A newbie looks at the weekly cost of a rental, in which case most landlords can't compete with a "free" Linden home. What they don't see is the all the extra time & care a good landlord provides in creating a pleasing environment, helping a renter settle in, adding community spaces & generally being a good neighbor.

Because Linden Labs basically took away the newbie market from land owners trying to be landlords, remaining landlords had to focus on providing benefits Linden Labs wouldn't. Generally this translates into larger parcels with more amenities at a greater cost.  That's fine for people who want a fairly expensive rental unit, but most new players want a cheap place to change clothes, visit with friends & have virtual sex. Many older residents, on the other hand, want to own their own land, so they end buying land & paying tier to Linden Labs. Either way, Linden Labs is getting their money while the landlords lose it.

Someone above said people are too "cheap" to pay for rentals, but I have to disagree with this assessment. What's going on with people wanting things free or cheap isn't so much stinginess as it is a reflection on a poor economy.  Many people are using SL as a diversion from RL problems. It's a very economical leisure activity that makes them forget about their crabby boss or not being able to go on vacation in RL because they haven't had a decent raise in years. It's a social activity for people who are on disability, retired or unemployed that doesn't have to cut into their rent, groceries or medicine budget. Then there are the newbies who don't want to spend a bunch of money on another video game. They have to be sure this thing is worth it, before they start spending serious cash on it. These are all very sensible reasons for people to cut back on or be careful of how much they spend on SL. I don't think it's fair to paint people as being cheap just because they choose to not spend alot of money on SL.

@ Perrie,

If you appreciate all the work your landlady has done for you, then I think moving with her to a new location is the best thing to do. I've seen so many good landlords struggling to keep renters & pay tier. They may not all be able to keep providing rentals for users who want to rent, but I think we should support those who do an exceptional job of trying to do so.

[Faithless Babii]

Hi Perrie

it must be a real wrench leaving a home after that period of time, sorry to hear you must.

My take on the Linden homes is pretty much as the poster above me (Im a landlord of some 4 years btw) One thing I will add is that these days I find more and more new residents are coming to me after realising the shortcomings of the Linden homes (lack of privacy being the main one) but this is usually after they bought a premium membership, they signed up because they presumed they HAD to in order to get a home. They had no idea that they could rent privately...and this infuriates me !

LL advertise the "free" home so hugely, its almost appearing thats the only way to go to have a home, that or buy land from them via a premium membership. I currently have so many people renting small AND larger furnished homes that were unaware they could do so before paying for a premium membership. I feel that landlords like myself are being cut out of the equation at the initial stages.

One huge bonus for most we find is the help we offer daily...no submitting tickets required, no directing the a wiki to get answers :matte-motes-bashful-cute-2:

Hope the move goes well for you and btw if youve been happy with your landlady Id say stick with her too !

Fai

[Pamela Galli]

I am sure the Linden homes have had an impact on landlords who specialized in small parcels -- but as others have said, I saw an almost immediate increase in the # of noobies house shopping.  It did not take them long to understand the limitations of Linden homes AND to develop a taste for home ownership.

I also know that lots of landowners have found a business model that works -- offering beautiful landscaping and premium homes, sometimes furnished.

[Mayalily]

I know, I have two empty houses for rent where I rent, and they are so inexpensive.  Mine is like 6 U.S. dollars a month and it's huge -- 2-story, 2-bedroom, the land lady is an absolute doll, and we were just talking about some decorating ideas she has for the holidays which sound way cool.  Six dollars a month is hardly anything, and I really don't want a LL home, or I mean shoebox where I don't have room to change my mind hardly.  I'd much rather rent; it's a far better deal.

Sorry this happened to you.  Hope you find something better!  If more people would come to the forum, we'd get more renters, but I've noticed that even in fairly long threads, the average is about 550 views.  550 views compared to all the users in SL, is hardly any.  It's seems not too many people read the forums, and they are missing out on so much information on how to create a better SL. 

 

[Randall Ahren]

---

Mayalily wrote:

It's seems not too many people read the forums, and they are missing out on so much information on how to create a better SL. 

---

They have a Second Life. People like me don't have one, so I read the forums.

@Perrie: I don't understand renting. If I had a choice between owning in hell and renting in heaven, I'd live in hell. 

[Mayalily]

I have a SL, I just gotta dance in real life!  I can't sit for 12 or more hours at a time like some people can.  I just gotta dance!  And, then I log off a lot for a real life in the evenings with my rl bf and I spend weekends in real life also, rather than SL.  But, I still have a SL, only I'm about 10 hours a week, not 10 hours a day.   Quantity does not equate to whether one has a SL or not. 

[Persephone Emerald]

If someone wants to live in a castle or in a house on castle grounds there is a beautiful one in Fourmile that has rent as low as $L 1/ prim/ week.

 http://slurl.com/secondlife/Fourmile/80/238/152

 

[Randall Ahren]

Yes, but I want to be the king and kings don't rent the castle, they own it.

[Venus Petrov]

Perrie,

It is unfortunate your landlady feels forced to move but it is understandable given the SL and RL economies.  While I have a Linden home it is only used as a backup place to go when my primary home's sim is restarting.  I agree with other posters that Linden homes probably are not competition for a parcel such as one you have had for four years. 

Your landlady has been very fair to you.  Stick with her and perhaps you will have another parcel you can make your 'own' for many more years.  Good luck!

[Rhys Goode]

Why blame Linden Homes?  I was forced out of several rentals buy landlords going out of business.  Years ago.  Before anyone even thought of a Linden Home. 

I am sorry that your SL is changing, but that is just the nature of SL.  Few things last for years.

[ArgontheDevil Ormega]

Well, let's see.

The Linden homes were obviously set up to get people to get premium memberships.  But with a premium membership I believe you still can own a 512 without tier, which is the lot size for a Linden home.  The Linden homes are prim intensive, a 70 prim house does not leave a lot of prims for decorating.  But if you get a low prim building (or build one yourself, with the new megaprims you can make a big house with very few prims indeed. )  there are more than enough prims for decorating if you go with low prim furniture.

All of which means the Linden homes don't make a lot of sense.

[Chronometria]

They make some sense. The problem here is that Tier is too costly and people are feeling the squeeze. Linden homes suck, but living on the mainland in a 512 sucks more and frankly, renting and having your landlord go bust sucks a lot too.

LL seems to regard owning land as a luxury, which has led to half the grid being abandoned and the other half being in the hands of land sellers all squabbling between one another.

The fact that some landowners pay the equivalent of computer or small car ownership for their sims is way, way too much to spend on virtual entertainment in the current climate.

[Perrie Juran]

---

ArgontheDevil Ormega wrote:

Well, let's see.

The Linden homes were obviously set up to get people to get premium memberships. 

All of which means the Linden homes don't make a lot of sense.

---

I do see from a sales point of view one reason for this.  To get people to 'take possession' of Second Life.

They teach you in sales that you just don't set the sample on the clients desk.  You put it in there hands.  Get them to take possession.  Get them to fondle and caress it while you laud its beauty to them.  So in this I do see the benefit to Linden Lab in doing this. 

Still, in the bigger picture of things, if the housing market in SL is suffering, especially for the smaller lower priced so called "nOOb housing," you have to question the net benefit to Linden Lab. 

Land Lords and Ladies in SL are in one sense middlemen or women.  There are pros and cons to middlepeople. (Dang I'm getting politically correct here.)  A good middleperson gives added value service.  We provide technical expertise over and above what a manufacturer may or will provide.  In RL, I am an amateur photographer.  I pay a little more buying from my local photography shop.  But they also provide me a service.  When a photograph does not come out the way I wanted, I can take it into them and they will help me with figuring out settings, etc, so the next time I am taking a similar shot it comes out right.  I can't get that support from the manufacturer.

So it is with many of the landpersons in SL.  They provide that added value support, helping the residents in SL.  So while LL may be making a few pennies more by cutting out the middleperson, they are cutting off the hand of one of the best new resident support tools they have in SL. 

A statistic that I don't think LL can do is this:  How many homes have disappeared from the housing market in relationship to the number of Linden Homes added out there. 

So understanding the importance of getting a customer to take possession of the sample it is possible that Linden Homes may be contributing some to new user retention.  But at what cost?  At best, the homes should have had a time limit set on them to guarantee that the new users did get off the government teat.

[Rabid Cheetah]

lol was speaking allegorically.  I could have just as easily said 100 rotating "xXx LaNd 4 $aLe!!! xXx" signs :womanmad:

[161488303349]

---

ArgontheDevil Ormega wrote:

Well, let's see.

The Linden homes were obviously set up to get people to get premium memberships.  But with a premium membership I believe you still can own a 512 without tier, which is the lot size for a Linden home.  The Linden homes are prim intensive, a 70 prim house does not leave a lot of prims for decorating.  But if you get a low prim building (or build one yourself, with the new megaprims you can make a big house with very few prims indeed. )  there are more than enough prims for decorating if you go with low prim furniture.

All of which means the Linden homes don't make a lot of sense.

---

Tiny correction. The house prims are not included in the Linden Homes parcel prim count. So you get the full 117 prim allocation to furnish with.

I wanted a garden so I abandon my Linden Home and bought a parcel on mainland. Deeded the parcel to a group I own so got 560m - 128prims for no extra Tier.