Jump to content

Investing In SL


Staralien
 Share

You are about to reply to a thread that has been inactive for 4545 days.

Please take a moment to consider if this thread is worth bumping.

Recommended Posts

I am wondering if it is worth investing my money in SL. SL economy has improved slightly, but will it continue to improve over time? Can a new business and land owner become successful? Judging by some of the posts I have read, grievers can ruin land, business, etc, and how do you avoid that happening to you? The only option for me at this time is to buy on the mainland as I can't afford a whole region of my own. How would one go about finding land that doesn't have a lot of lag, as lag would make it difficult to conduct business? I realize you can rent land off the mainland, but I would rather invest my money into land I actually own and pay teir rather than paying someone else's teir for land I will never own. I would really appreciate some advice on investing in SL, hearing about the experience of others and even some answers to questions I am not thinking of asking that you think would be something I should know as well. I have been doing a lot of research, but the more I read, the more confused and doubtful I become. I want to make the right choices and decided to appeal to the vast knowledge of experience here. Thanks in advance to all replies...I really appreciate it!

Star

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm sure others will chime in far more eloquently than I, but SL is not a safe investment.  You'd be better off playing the markets in RL or working a regular job.  However, SL is very enjoyable as a hobby or interface.

Finding low lag regions on mainland is near impossible as your neighbours change all the time.  You never know who you will share a sim with.

Consider buying a homestead sim for your enjoyment and business.  However, again, I caution that any money put into SL to purchase land (be it homestead, full sim, mainlaind) will unlikely be recouped.  All you need do is keep a watchful eye on sims for sale and bargains are always there to be had by those dumping land.

So I would suggest just enjoying SL for what it is.

My two cents!  Cheers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's my take on threads that ask this question (there seem to be one every month or so).  If you know so little about investing that you need to ask random strangers (who you have no way of checking their credentials) about investing in something (anything at all), then you need to lock up your wallet, go to a brick and mortar book store and buy an investment book by a recognized expert in the field.  Read, it before you even start with Google searches..........or do yourself one small favor and spend some of that money that is burning a hole in your pocket and enroll in an institute of higher education and major (or at least minor) in business financial investment.

 

As it is right now, you're doomed to losing your a$$ with any investment in SL (or anything else in life).  You obviously don't know what you're doing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have had mainland overlooking beachs and currently some road side mainland, none have I paid more then 1 L$/sq.m  and the most I have managed to sell off land for was 0.8 L$/sq.m, most I had to come down to 0.5 L$/sq.m and a threat to abandon it to get lookers to buy.  I'm obviously not much of a land investor. Near month's end the map seems to erupt with new yellow squares, mostly parcels just abandoned and put back on sell by Gov Linden for 1 L$/sq.m, probably abandoned by people just wanting to get their tier down before the next month.  I've seen several parcels for sell for more then 1 L$/sq.m, and I've seen very few actually sell and can't help wondering how much the seller is losing in tier payments.

 

In short, the only land I own is for my own enjoyment, and I do NOT see land in SL as a good place for investment.

 

ETA: This was suspose to be in response to the OP, guess I hit the wrong Reply button

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you Kuntz for an intelligent, informative response. This pretty much confirms what I have been seeing. It is really too bad since they reported the greatest growth rate in a long time was in August, of which I was one of them. Perhaps that is exactly what is needed in SL...new people...fresh ideas, etc. I know for myself I am coming across new people all the time. I can even be of help to them now. haha The economy is pretty bad all over in RL, so that has a lot to do with the decline in SL. People need to put food on the table before paying tier fees every month. Hopefully as the economy in RL recovers, so too will SL. We shall see.

As for the person questioning my intelligence...I asked a question here hoping that people who actually own land now or at some point in the past could give me some advice based on their experience and I don't see the reason for them to have any credentials for that. Telling me to go to college or read a book was so very helpful.  I probably have a higher degree and more class hours logged. I easily read 200-300 books a year on a variety of subjects as I am interested in everything. But I really don't have to prove any thing to you. So sorry you got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning and felt the need to be insulting, rather than informative. I do want to thank you for your response though for it did serve to remind me that there are many different people in the world and they don't always play nice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm rather new to SL. And I've bought land.  Quite a fair bit too, well to me anyway, due to the dollar being weak compared to my countries currency so buying now seemed a good idea. I'm not expecting to make money though. I'll be happy if I get some of my tier financed. But I view this as a hobby, and in that respect seeing how much fun I'm having with landscaping and understanding the makings behind land ownership, it's well worth the money to me. As for mainland the land I've bought hasn't got much lag at all. And for ugly builds. My neighbors seem to be influenced by nice landscaping and I've seen efforts to tone down the worst eyesores out of curtesy, and I applaud them for that :matte-motes-bashful-cute-2: And I have to say making mainland look pretty is a challenge I like to take on.

 

But offcourse both lag and eyesores can pop-up anytime but I'll deal with that when the time comes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While I do not typically "defend" others in venues such as this, I did agree with the broad statement Miss Paperdoll made that those seriously wishing to invest in anything (especially SL) are best armed with knowledge on the subject in order to conduct appropriate research to determine ROI (inviting responses in a forum will provide only skewed results).  Due to SL's wildly fluctuating nature, even speculators have withdrawn serious commitment of their energies.

Having said all of that, the media and old articles still circulating would lead one to believe that there was money to be made in SL.  Hence the regular posts such as yours, Staralien, and perhaps the somewhat jaded responses such posts engender.  Please understand that such responses are not solely borne in frustration but for myself, at least, a desire to NOT see others delude themselves and to actually ENJOY SL.  SL is a beautiful place we all wish to share the joys of.

However, in a more specific answer to your original query:

I am wondering if it is worth investing my money in SL. SL economy has improved slightly, but will it continue to improve over time?  Yes and then it will decline again.  SL economy fluctuates very rapidly.  I've been here since early 2007, the tail end of the big boom, and then watched a slow decline with smaller upswings and then downswings.  Where it goes from here, truly, only time will tell but such speculation should not be seen as a basis for investment.

Can a new business and land owner become successful?  That depends on your definition of success.  Providing specifics, desired ROI, current skill sets etc. will invite more specific answers.  However, in general, any business venture in SL requires diligent commitment, effort, skill and time if some profits are desired.  There is far more land available than people to live on them.  The concierge chat is replete with estate owners dumping their sims because they simply cannot afford to maintain them.  Yes, there are those who are "successful" but they bought when sim prices were "sane" and have grandfathered rates.  They also work very hard.

Judging by some of the posts I have read, grievers can ruin land, business, etc, and how do you avoid that happening to you?  Griefers can be a problem, but reporting, having admin staff on hand at all times to contend with griefers etc. handles most such situations.  An ounce of prevention and all that -- in other words, do not invite griefing inadvertently by maintaining contentious environments, attitudes etc.

The only option for me at this time is to buy on the mainland as I can't afford a whole region of my own. How would one go about finding land that doesn't have a lot of lag, as lag would make it difficult to conduct business?  See my first response.

On a final note, I hope you find some time to simply enjoy SL, get to know others and the "lay of the land" so to speak.  After a time you will have accumulated the information necessary to ask these questions again and have a better understanding.

Also, if you are serious about getting into the land game, be a renter for a while to learn that side and what people desire from a landlord.

Good luck.  Cheers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Global Economic tanking has had an obvious impact on SL in the past years.  Putting aside IRL economic factors SL has still always been a risky investment. 

People who think they're going to buy some land then open "TEH HAWTEST CLUB IN SL!!!!!!!!" have always been the butt of jokes.  They're basically an allegory for people who have absolutely no idea what they're doing, how to market, promote, manage, etc.  They think they can just buy some land, slap a generic building on it, add some lights and rake in the money.

Remember, people are cheap, especially in SL.  If you want to make money you have to provide a good service and hopefully appeal to a niche.

There are a handful of residents with good business sense but there's innumerous ones that merely make money by ripping off other merchants and scamming people.

At any rate, before you embark on any financial endeavor in SL that requires a lot of out of pocket money I advise you make a detailed plan and maybe consult with some people who have similar businesses and are willing to share good advice.

Crunch the numbers.  If you add them up correctly, you should show a visible loss :P

Seriously, though... ^^

Also, have a product/business/product line and marketing/promotion set up or planned before you start buying land.  Otherwise, you're just as likely to sit there with a big empty plot of land for months losing money and if you start promoting it before there's any product/service available then you're screwing yourself on top of that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

just need to remember that the land is not an investment in the sense that you will get a return on it. is an operating cost (the tier)

sion chicken is good example of a very successful business that didnt need hardly any land at all to sell chickens. the chickens needed land to breed once sold, but sion didnt need land to house them for sale. so sion only got and paid tier on a tiny parcel. a stall in Brown i think it was.

some of the other breedables that followed have whole sims, more that one even. maybe their sales can justify the operating costs, but is not always necessary to do this

oracul the same as sion. they sell one of the most popular AOs. the business run out of a quite tiny parcel compared to some other animations makers, yet oracul have as many and more even animations. their tier (an overhead) is way lower and they able to pass on some of this savings to their customers in their product pricing

lots of people somehow trap themselves into the idea that they need a big parcel to make a successful business. like bigger is better and then argue that bigger is all about advertising and marketing. look successful be successful. that not always follow tho

better business is about making a profit. so keeping your overheads down is where it starts

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

Hello all. I decided to re-visit this thread more than a year later to tell you how it all turned out. ;-)

Plan A - I started out getting a 4096 parcel and put up an apartment building.

Plan B - When that didn't rent, I tried remodeling and lowering prices. I got a newbie in an apartment I offered for free.

Plan C - Then I added 8 sky boxes and cut the building down to the lobby, and two free newbie apartments and two floors of a furniture store since I now had made enough to try to sell.

Plan D - I took down all but three skyboxes, and tore down the building. Then I built 9 apartments, three stories high, and reduced the rent to 40L and 100L for the sky boxes and furnished them. They started renting. They started filling up. SO then I built more for a total of about 30 apartments.

Plan E - I aquired the 8192m plot next door, tunneled through the rental office to get to it and put in a bridge and built more apts, including 2 bedrooms at 70L

Later aquired the 8192m plot behind that one. This one was harder to develop, and took several different plans. All of it recently got new builds as I got better at building and landscaping. 

I have added sky domes, and more sky boxes, and cottages and now it is an amazing village community with awesome tenants, some of which have been with me a year. My newbie I gave the apartment to more than a year ago, now rents several places from me. My rental rate stays between 80-95% full. There are times it is at 100%, but that never lasts long. People come and go, and many end up coming back. ;-)

It is at its best right now, a beautiful place, low rent, and good tenants.

Am I getting rich? Not hardly. But oh my has it been successful!!

It has been and continues to be a lot of hard work. And has been worth every moment. 

As for my furniture store, Un-Needed Things, it is on another sim and doing well and I now have a lot of my stuff on the Maket Place. Now that my rental business is doing well, I intend to concentrate more on my furniture store to make it more successful.

Not everyone can make money in SL and not everyone will be successful. But with dedication, stubborness, and a lot of hard work...and a little luck, you can have a successful business. And for me, a lot of it was about proving that I could, when some said I couldn't. ;-)

Thanks for reading and thank you for all of SL community for helping to make SL an awesome world to be in!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

There are many ways to begin your SL journey.  As I am from an investment background, I took interest in the SL Capex and have invested  bit of spare money into it.  I returned 40% at one stage on capital growth.  The dividends are generally around 1% per month on a 'good' company. 

The returns from this covers any business development costs and allow me to grow my SL account.

Several factors led me to invest a bit of money to SL, they include:

Computing improvements in many countries allowing the use of SL platforms as previously many general computers would not run SL.  This will allow the SL user base to grow.

With the economy changing and over time it will be a growth phase again, people will have money to blow and some may take interest in SL, driving the online economy higher.

High risk often brings high returns when used right and the monthly dividend is great.

As for other ways of making money in SL, I have not ventured this way yet, but will consider using my dividends to grow a business over my spare time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You are about to reply to a thread that has been inactive for 4545 days.

Please take a moment to consider if this thread is worth bumping.

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...