Personal Property Market - What do you think?

[MasterChief]

This is intended to be a civil discussion, so please don't turn this thread into something that is going to get locked in the first hour. Pretty please lol.

 

The housing market seems to be in an upward trend of inflation. Houses seem to be selling for more and more, regardless of the area they are located in. Everyone knows that the point of an open market is to let people buy and sell for what they want, letting the supply & demand lead the way in terms of price points. If people are willing to pay for it, then that's the price it's worth. In the case of our GTAW housing market, do you believe it should be a completely open market or should prices be somewhat regulated to keep housing prices in line with their fair market value? Fair market value is usually something established by the surrounding houses in the area, the actual area the house is located in (Affluent, Middle class, low income, etc). If comparable houses are selling for $200,000, then usually that's the price point people look for along with tools such as property records, realtors, online websites to help to make a sound decision in buying a house at a fair price. We don't have those here, so house prices are basically whatever someone is willing to pay for it. Do you think this is okay the way it is? Are there any long-term downsides to this? Should something be changed or left the way it is?

 

Discuss.

Edited April 25, 2020 by Chief

[SugarDavis]

I think this topic was discussed in this thread. 

The core of the issue is that we have more money being injected into the server than is being spent. For example, being unemployed gives you $5000/hr. It's very easy to amass wealth just AFKing the game. The simplest solution to fix inflation is lower the amount of money going into the game. Give less money for unemployment, raise taxes, etc.

In regards to houses, right now owning a house carries very little financial burden. This is not the case in real life. I'm a firm believer we should introduce a system of having to pay for utilizes, like you see with real home ownership. Perhaps every pay period make it so you get charged something like $300 for utilities. You could also RNG a possibility of some kind of repair being necessary to the house. Maybe every pay day it's something like a 1% chance you get a $1000 bill from a plumber or electrician. 

Just some ideas from me. 

[Law]

I feel like the open market would be ideal but asset freezing also plays a large role as to why properties and their locations have inflated price tags, property inactivity should be enforced. That’s just my opinion though.

[Exploits]

Actual homes, I understand. Apartment buildings? Not so much. Home sales inflating does make realistic sense as the existing market surrounding them dries up into private hands, but the idea of 'flipping' apartments is very strange to me. Realistically it would be entirely outside of the owner's control: somebody else sets that 'rent' price. But I do understand and don't wish to change the fact that we do buy our apartments and own them.

 

Mostly it concerns me since apartments are generally the least expensive and most abundantly available property. If players can simply buy them up in bulk in order to resale them for higher cost, then that removes a huge number of homes and makes their accessibility zero. It utterly invalidates their purpose as I understand them to be.

[UTOPIA]

Really depends if the interiors are customized/furnished or not, if they aren't furnished they tend to go for under market price, depending on the area the property is in. I personally would not pay over the market price for an apartment with a basic interior. 

[SugarDavis]

Just now, Exploits said:

Actual homes, I understand. Apartment buildings? Not so much. Home sales inflating does make realistic sense as the existing market surrounding them dries up into private hands, but the idea of 'flipping' apartments is very strange to me. Realistically it would be entirely outside of the owner's control: somebody else sets that 'rent' price. But I do understand and don't wish to change the fact that we do buy our apartments and own them.

 

Mostly it concerns me since apartments are generally the least expensive and most abundantly available property. If players can simply buy them up in bulk in order to resale them for higher cost, then that removes a huge number of homes and makes their accessibility zero. It utterly invalidates their purpose as I understand them to be.

Just to clarify, generally an apartment that you own is called a "condominium", or condo.  Script-wise it's called an apartment. I think that could be due to a language/cultural barrier between the scripters and the setting of the server. In-game I refer to my owned apartment as a condo because that's essentially what it is. 

[MasterChief]

6 minutes ago, UTOPIA said:

Really depends if the interiors are customized/furnished or not, if they aren't furnished they tend to go for under market price, depending on the area the property is in. I personally would not pay over the market price for an apartment with a basic interior. 

I agree with you. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there who will pay top dollar for anything without any regards to what it is and what area it's in. Would you buy a trailer in Sandy Shores Trailer Park (MP $95,000) for $300,000 with a stock interior? Maybe not, but people do it just because of the supply/demand of housing in our market. There are plenty of other examples of this, as well. This unknowingly inflates housing to a huge degree, almost unrealistically, wouldn't you say?

Edited April 25, 2020 by Chief

[Exploits]

9 minutes ago, SugarDavis said:

Just to clarify, generally an apartment that you own is called a "condominium", or condo.  Script-wise it's called an apartment. I think that could be due to a language/cultural barrier between the scripters and the setting of the server. In-game I refer to my owned apartment as a condo because that's essentially what it is. 

This occurred to me right after I had hit 'Reply'. I wonder if many apartments should be condos by this metric, since it is very much a thing.

 

7 minutes ago, Chief said:

There are plenty of other examples of this, as well. This unknowingly inflates housing to a huge degree, almost unrealistically, wouldn't you say?

I try to keep things within the context of the existing economy as much as possible. All players will, at minimum, possess $200,000 if they stay active, and their fortunes should only grow from there, so while even $95,000 for a trailer is 'unrealistic', it's really not excessive at all in our economy.

 

 It's absurdly difficult however to get a solid handle on market dynamics in the game when there are so many OoC factors. For example, said trailer may indeed sell for $300,00 right now, but if a popular/major faction were to move into the area, a player might withhold the property and be able to sell it for $1,000,000 due to it being a barrier for those faction members to role-play there. It's a bit of a mess.

Edited April 25, 2020 by Exploits

[MasterChief]

4 minutes ago, Exploits said:

I try to keep things within the context of the existing economy as much as possible. All players will, at minimum, possess $200,000 if they stay active, and their fortunes should only grow from there, so while even $95,000 for a trailer is 'unrealistic', it's really not excessive at all in our economy.

The economy is not an issue for me in this case. It's their cost for the area they are located in. It's a trailer park. I don't mean that offensively, but it's meant to be a run-down housing area. A trailer with a stock interior shouldn't be selling for $300,000, whether the money is easy to obtain or not. It's a role play quality issue. The area doesn't justify the cost. Likewise, houses in El Burro and Davis shouldn't be selling for double their market value because it's meant to me a low-medium income area. Houses wouldn't sell for those prices based on the area they are located in.

Edited April 25, 2020 by Chief

[UTOPIA]

Just now, Chief said:

I agree with you. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there who will pay top dollar for anything without any regards to what it is only because they want it so badly. Would you buy a trailer in Sandy Shores (MP $95,000) for $300,000 with a stock interior? Maybe not, but people do it just because of the supply/demand of housing in our market. There are plenty of other examples of this, as well. This unknowingly inflates housing to a huge degree, wouldn't you say?

Absolutely, there are people who will purchase well over market value, and it is totally relevant to the low supply & high demand for homes, especially outside of the city, however; this could probably be remedied by adding a few list apartments out there, and I acknowledge that there really aren't many buildings suitable for housing list apartments. I think the list apartments in Los Santos especially really turned the tide on housing, some of them are a little pricey for what they are, but not completely unreasonable, depending on location. I think players should be aiming for homes that their characters should realistically live within. 

 

I've often criticized the zoomer wealth class of the server, and I do really think something needs to be done there before we move onto anything else. I understand that players may be new to the server, monkey-see-monkey-do, and I understand that; we were all new to the server once, but I think people should be steered in another direction. There are characters who are half my character's age who live in luxury with no real development. I like what PM is doing with the housing requests, and I think this is a long term solution for the property problem you've brought forward. I assume most people are trying to liquidate their properties & other assets so that they may be able to afford the houses in the hills or Chumash, so we'll probably see a downward trend within the next few months on property prices from players.