Land – Ciaran Laval

March 7, 2012March 7, 2012

Land – The Financial Frontier

Linden Lab are no longer reporting economic stats,as reported by Tateru Nino here, but personally I’d long gone off Linden Lab’s stats and found myself far more interested in Tyche “Statto” Shepherd’s stats. Tyche regularly reports stats over at SL Universe, as well as running her own site from where you too can access the data, at GridSurvey.com. There are loads of stats to be found over there, including details of Tyche’s awesome census data:

43.0% of Mainland owned directly by Linden Accounts (Contiguous Mainland is 6723 regions including Linden Home regions).
6.7% to 7.8% of Mainland by area is abandoned parcels (details – 2nd Jan 2012).
56.5% of Private Estate regions are Full Regions, 42.9% Homesteads & 0.6% Openspaces (details including top 20 Estates – 29th January 2012).
Monthly Tier Estimates – Private Estates c.US$4.842 Million, Mainland c.US$1.008 Million.
As of December 2011 38829 Linden Homes are occupied (details – 2nd Jan 2012).

Stats galore and more fun to be had on that site but the survey that gets most attention from Tyche is her weekly grid size survey and this week’s doesn’t make happy reading:

“48 hours late in reporting but still based on Sundays figures – Anyway this week the grid shrunk by 196 regions, Private estates had a net decline of 183 whilst Linden Owned fell by 13

Total number of Main Grid regions is now 30188 ( 23058 private estates & 7130 Linden owned) 126 new regions were added and 40 returned to the grid, with 366 regions removed (30 were renamed and 6 came and went since last report)”

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October 28, 2011October 28, 2011

Last Week’s Land Sale Even Better Than Initial Results Suggested

Tyche “Statto” Shepherd has updated the results of her findings of the results of last weekend’s sale. Initially Tyche reported that the sale had resulted in 311 private regions being added to the grid, this was a combination of full regions and homesteads. However Tyche ran this survey just thirty minutes after the sale had finished.

However Tyche later reported that another 197 regions were added to the grid, meaning a net increase of 508 regions. This suggests that a hell of a lot of people were keen to have their own sim but were put off by the high upfront cost, despite this, I still maintain that the real barrier to land ownership is land tier prices, USD$295 a month is a mortgage payment for some people, it’s a hefty bill. However as I’ve said before, Linden Lab cannot reasonably be expected to lower tier until they can find some alternative forms of income, this could come via an increase of residents, but it also may mean Linden Lab having to look outside their comfort zone, either way, these issues will run and run.

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October 24, 2011October 24, 2011

Estate Sales Offer Looks To Have Been A Success

Despite some complaints, especially from those in the second hand sim market and despite questions about the advertising, the Second Life sim sale seems to have been a success, according that is to ace stat gatherer Tyche “Statto” Shepherd who reports to us from SLuniverse:

“Overall 322 new private regions were added to the grid between Friday and this morning, along with another 50 which returned to the grid, the net effect was to increase the grid to 31248 regions from 30924 with private estates gaining 311 to 24262 . This is about 300 private regions more than would have been expected over the same period if no offer had been active.

Of the 322 new regions, 152 were Full Regions and 43 were Homesteads, the remaining 127 were still closed to public access. The 195 open to public access were owned by 177 different owners, with no single person purchasing more than 3 regions. On investigation some purchases were by the larger estates ,again no more than 3 regions, but 111 of the new owners have no other active holdings. ”

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October 21, 2011October 21, 2011

USD$295 For An Estate Sim – This Weekend Only

Linden Lab have engaged in a weekend sale whereby you can pick up a shiny new estate region for a record low price of just USD$295.00 (excluding VAT). The USD$295.00 fee will be due upon delivery, which pays tier for the first month, this is how private region tier works, you pay tier in advance. The fee for the first month is usually included in the setup fee, which runs at USD$1,000 (excluding VAT) so you can make a saving of around USD$705.00 on this deal.

Homesteads are also available on this deal, although you need to own a full region to purchase a homestead, the fee is usually USD$375.00 (excluding VAT), with this deal it will be USD$125.00 (excluding VAT). Personally I don’t feel Homesteads offer good value at that price, but for those who want to add a Homestead to their portfolio, this is a good time to do that, I don’t see many Homesteads being sold second hand. the best use for second hand Homesteads is, I imagine, combining three and turning them into a full region.

For those whom were considering a private region but were put off by the whopping setup fee, this is a great deal, although it should be noted that there is a second hand sim market in Second Life, one which Linden Lab support very well and have over the years improved greatly to make much more secure, Linden Lab charge a transfer fee of USD$100.00 in these cases, so they make money on the deal but they also help facilitate it too. Inworld groups such as For Sale By Owner are quite active in this market, the problem is the transfer time eats into the value of the sale price as the next tier date moves closer. Having said that, sims can be purchased there for a lot less than USD$1,000 and even a lot less than USD$705.oo, so there is better value to be had for those who seek it.

However, in terms of this weekend’s sale, I have never seen a better deal than this, if you’re fortunate enough to want a sim this weekend, this is a wonderful deal.

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July 15, 2011

Izzy Wizzy Let’s Get Busy

Before Jezebel and I go Relay For Life crazy, I thought I’d blog about abandoned land in Second Life. I was pondering the other week about the sheer amount of abandoned land in one of the mainland sims I have land in, some of it was set for sale but plenty of it wasn’t.

I found a plot I liked, my land didn’t border it on three sides but it was adjacent to plenty of my land, but alas it was merely owned by Governor Linden, not set for sale. I decided to chance my arm and put in a support ticket anyway. However I had heard nothing back, which was frustrating as I could make use of this land. Then today I received a response.

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