Improving the Real Estate Market though Creation of Luxury Items

[Stan Abaddon]

I'm one of the many people on the server who has joined in the last 3-5 months, who have been around long enough to make some money and am now ready to spend it and get a nice place to live.  However, the market for anything besides 1G/2G or the "lower end" 3Gs has completely dried up.   It is extremely rare to see anything go for sale these days unless you're very lucky.    When you have hundreds or thousands of active players and almost nothing ever goes up for sale, it means the market has dried up, and unless additional housing becomes available, there's no options for newer players to purchase anything nice.

Effectively we're locked out of the higher end market.  And, from what I've observed, there are many people who have played here for much longer who own multiple high end properties simply as a place to sink their money into because they have lots of it, and nothing else to spend on it.   They already have supercars or garages full of high end sportcars.

Some suggest additional taxes on those with multiple properties, but not sure if this is fair especially for those who used real money to buy additional home slots.

So my suggestion is this:   Create some new ultra-high-end luxury items, such as yachts, personal helicopters, private jets, and so on.   Minimum price for many of these items would be 10 million at the low end.    This would entice some of the ultra-rich on the server who do own multiple properties to sell them so they have enough funds to purchase these luxury items that set them apart from the masses, while freeing up real-estate for those who are trying to get into the market.   Longer term you have more owners with less houses, resulting in a couple benefits:   More activity in the real estate market as people switch houses or sell houses to upgrade or go after luxury items.  More houses that default and go back to the government as some players eventually leave the server.  More citizens who have the opportunity to purchase a house better than a 1G/2G or something far out of the main population centers.

This would effect the economy as a whole, but hopefully in a positive way.   Simply making additional housing available (which may not be possible in the upper end market since pretty much all of the houses have already been "released" ) doesn't appear to work as after a week or so, all available new homes are snapped up and the market dries up again.   Doing in the way I have stated above provides something for the uber rich to spend their money on and should inject a lot of activity into the market.

[Jasmine]

I feel like they will just buy the luxury items, and keep there 4Gs as well. And if they do, they will just sell them to other super rich people.

I definitely feel you on the problem here, disagree on the solution.

I think one thing they can do is auction those babies off when people are absent for a month. There are a ton of those houses owned by people who don't RP at all anymore. Same goes for the 1Gs-3Gs actually. The market goes up over time simply because people buy houses, then stop playing. Its a never ending bottomless pit where supply constantly deteriorates, but demand stays the same, or refreshes with new players, effectively raising demand over time.

Auction off unused housing, give the proceeds to the owner.

[TreMetal]

9 hours ago, Jasmine said:

I think one thing they can do is auction those babies off when people are absent for a month. There are a ton of those houses owned by people who don't RP at all anymore. Same goes for the 1Gs-3Gs actually. The market goes up over time simply because people buy houses, then stop playing. Its a never ending bottomless pit where supply constantly deteriorates, but demand stays the same, or refreshes with new players, effectively raising demand over time.

 

Yup. Need to make a property tax (or HoA or whatever) that you have to pay in character to keep your house.  Maybe let people deposit a month or two worth of payments in advanced.

[Brandon Powers]

1+ would be great to see these items come in.