Last night my wife, a real estate agent, experienced first hand the agony of loss that many other homebuyers experience everyday in this hot Puget Sound real estate market. The only difference was that she experienced it in the new highly popular, alternate reality, online game, known as Second Life. Sara signed up for a Second Life account nearly a week ago, and almost immediately fell in love with this beautiful piece of ocean front property near the equator, where "the sun is out more hours of the day, and even when the sun goes down it is still light because the stars are so bright."
The only problem was that the owner of the property was asking a little more than $60,000 Linden dollars for the land (roughly $200 U.S.). Since obviously I wouldn't understand the great opportunity this prime piece of real estate represented, Sara felt compelled to convince me with a real world bribe. She bargained that if she cleaned our entire house by Monday, then I would enthusiastically agree with the purchase of the land. I rationed that $200 for a clean house seemed like a bargain indeed, so I agreed.
To Sara's great dismay, the property was sold right out from under her last night. Good thing she was able to find another, nicer, piece of property not too far away from the original property, for just a little bit more money, only $250 (real U.S.). Ouch!
After doing a bit of research, we learned that the property next door to Sara's new subject property sold for only $16,000 Linden ($45 U.S.) in December, just a little over 6 months ago. That means property values in that online region have earned a 1000% annualized rate of return! It is not really a surprise either, as the Second Life population has increased from 20,000 people a year ago to almost 180,000 people today.
And Second Life does seem to be a viable economy with a (GDP) that equals almost $60,000,000 U.S. dollars yearly, with over 3,000 Second Life residents each earning over $20,000 (U.S.) in total yearly revenues!
This land purchase may be a good investment after all. As the saying goes, "they aren’t making any new waterfront land".
The only problem was that the owner of the property was asking a little more than $60,000 Linden dollars for the land (roughly $200 U.S.). Since obviously I wouldn't understand the great opportunity this prime piece of real estate represented, Sara felt compelled to convince me with a real world bribe. She bargained that if she cleaned our entire house by Monday, then I would enthusiastically agree with the purchase of the land. I rationed that $200 for a clean house seemed like a bargain indeed, so I agreed.
To Sara's great dismay, the property was sold right out from under her last night. Good thing she was able to find another, nicer, piece of property not too far away from the original property, for just a little bit more money, only $250 (real U.S.). Ouch!
After doing a bit of research, we learned that the property next door to Sara's new subject property sold for only $16,000 Linden ($45 U.S.) in December, just a little over 6 months ago. That means property values in that online region have earned a 1000% annualized rate of return! It is not really a surprise either, as the Second Life population has increased from 20,000 people a year ago to almost 180,000 people today.
And Second Life does seem to be a viable economy with a (GDP) that equals almost $60,000,000 U.S. dollars yearly, with over 3,000 Second Life residents each earning over $20,000 (U.S.) in total yearly revenues!
This land purchase may be a good investment after all. As the saying goes, "they aren’t making any new waterfront land".
TAGS: bubble, game, multiplayer, online, real estate, second life