The new property rules

[HaveADream]

I've seen a few people bring up the real-life housing market as if that is something that the economy needs to look towards emulating.

 

It's not - this economy functions nothing like a real economy, for all intents and purposes, the economy is a closed economy. This needs different levels of regulation than a mixed economy that many of us are used to in our real lives.

 

When the economy in the game is such in that a dozen or so people are able to trade houses for upwards towards millions over what they paid for having the luck and the ability to get there first, that's not fair. When someone wants to start a character emulating folks in the country, living up in Sandy Shores but are priced out from every single property because of the dedication to their own character development, that's not fair. When someone joins the server and works really hard on their character development within Los Santos, making the right connections and giving back to the server by providing with unique, high-quality roleplay, but being priced out of every property their character would realistically be able to hold - in any area, by characters that have no hard reasoning behind owning those properties in the first place, that's not fair. When someone presents a business idea capable of working to provide a level of depth and development in characters throughout the server but is priced out of the market, that's not fair. This is a solution that brings the scale of fairness towards the centre once again, and it's a solution we need. If you're unhappy of this change because you fear your characters' money in the top right-hand corner will go down, or their assets are worth less, you need to realise this is a server that, above all else, tries to prioritise real development of characters. 

 

Ultimately, the changes in the rule that Property Management has enforced are good for the server.

Edited May 10, 2020 by HaveADream

[liq]

Starting to put caps and checks and balances on an otherwise free market economy after it's been operating on that basis for three years is of course an issue. It's good for continuity, because all a free market does is inflate price just because some can pay for it and we're no soon than becoming ruled by those who grind for cash and not those who look into providing role-play at the expense of having assets. It puts all the players who've inevitably had to pay these huge amounts just before the rules were creates and in effect, and it shouldn't stay that way.

 

The server has no real development when it comes to building housing. All it does is add to the existing housing already on the server that weren't available to players yet. It has done so by enforcing house requests, which not everybody can get.

 

Instead of criticizing Zaxxer, think about it: everyone who inevitably fell into paying more just to have something is now at a loss, because they can never get that money back. They were essentially conned out of hundreds of thousands of earned in-game cash. This demotivates players. It makes you lose players, and it serves as no good system when you're putting players at a loss. It's, of course, natural, that something should be given to those players. And what Zaxxer is saying is right — the market price on houses such as those in Mirror Park is a remnant of the server's beginning days where it didn't amount to much. The fact that the MP on a Mirror Park house is below $200K and an apartment in Morningwood is $300K shows you how flawed this system is. If a cap is going to be made involving the market value of a property, then all market values need to be revisited to make sure they're in line with the server's current standing.

 

If not? Check above. The server isn't creating new, easily attainable houses anymore. It creates restrictions and rules and checks and balances. All of that makes it harder for the average player to get a house. Not everyone wants to bother with the red tape behind a house request.

 

Why would anyone who has paid $1m+ for a house that's now worth half or quarter of that by these rules ever sell it anymore? They'd be at a loss. This locks the house market and it's going to create the inevitable chain reaction of rule-breaking on these prices because those who own now have been wronged.

 

All in all, the system's good. It ensures fairness, and it also ensures house flipping and/or illicit ways of making quick cash aren't so widely available to players. But you can't let those players who were the last to pay these exorbitant amounts stay like that because it's going to either make them say fuck it and break the rules anyway, or leave. Either way, the server loses players, and it usually has a chain reaction of not just 1 guy leaving but his entire friend group of 20-30 active players leaving.

Edited May 10, 2020 by liq

[Centauri]

Without reading too much of the other comments, I do believe that @zaXer. has a point. Limiting house price sales do not make much sense in my opinion. It's a realistic thing that happens IRL and I don't see a problem why it shouldn't happen on GTAW. 

I'm one of those people that got their house in early 2018 under the Norrig PM era, my vespucci canal house cost me 290k. Good luck trying to find newly created vespucci canal houses with a MP of 290k. The playerbase in 2018 was a lot lower, therefore houses were widely available and prices obviously lower as well. As the playerbase rises the houses are become more rare, the price increases.

 

Doesn't the same thing happen IRL? You buy a house, every single year your house is worth a little more, more people get born, cities and countries become more packed with less space to build houses, houses become more rare and therefore their prices increase. The ground that your house is build upon increases in value as the world is more packed. Doesn't the same happen with GTAW's playerbase?

Fixing the old houses wouldn't work either in my opinion. GTAW continues to grow, almost reaching 800 players. Good houses are becoming extremely rare, their value automatically goes up, it makes sense. 

[Pádraig]

Comparing it to real life doesn't scale particularly well because in a completely free market more houses would be built. There is no way to build more houses in GTA World, as such, the prices go up.

 

I'm not of the belief that houses should be accessible by everybody, however prices were reaching levels to where only the richest on the server could access them, which we don't want, especially since there isn't another viable alternative to live in these places (renting isn't in anyway viable with the current system). It isn't healthy for an economy for properties to skyrocket in prices either (2007/8, anybody?)

 

Again, being married to the idea of a free-market is silly if the free-market cannot serve the needs of the server, and it seems like with housing, this unadulterated free market was a failure for the vast majority of players and intervention was (and is still) needed.

[MasterChief]

9 hours ago, zaXer. said:

The market used to be free, and people should be free to sell their properties for whatever they want. If they set it too high, nobody will buy it, Or if someone buys it and it's a bad deal, they'll end up not being able to resell it and therefore lose.

To suggest we ever had a free market here would be incorrect. We have a mixed economy, which often has the government stepping in to regulate when necessary.

8 hours ago, zaXer. said:

The issue I am writing here is about the lack of sense at market pricing between properties of different quality zones.  A mirror park house shouldn't have a MP similar to a sandy trailer. 

This I completely agree with. Market prices should be reevaluated based on the areas they are located in. If a Sandy Shores trailer has a market price of $90,000, Mirror Park houses should be significantly higher.

 

Also, read below as I'm responding to both of you.

4 hours ago, Mike said:

Doesn't the same thing happen IRL? You buy a house, every single year your house is worth a little more, more people get born, cities and countries become more packed with less space to build houses, houses become more rare and therefore their prices increase. The ground that your house is build upon increases in value as the world is more packed.

It doesn't always work that way. It's often heavily dependent on the area the houses are located in (low income/middle class/affluent), the overall state of the economy, real world events, the Federal Reserve to increase/decrease mortgage rates (which would either create or deter interest in buying/selling a house) and a myriad of other factors that determine the health and stability of a housing market. Just because the number of houses decrease in a certain area, doesn't mean their value always goes up. You could have a low-income, run down area with little to no more space for expansion. The house values are not going to just magically go up. That area they are located in basically will keep that from happening unless there is a significant influx of positive external factors I mentioned up above. It's not just a matter of availability that determines a house's value.

 

People in the real world also have access to tools that help make a realistic and sensible decision on buying a house. Making a smart purchase is important because you don't want to overpay for a house so much that it makes it a bad buy. Market conditions are always changing. A bad buy is not 100% avoidable, but most people aren't just going to spend whatever they have to in order to buy a house. It's an investment and it could impact many different things later in life. In the game, none of that makes any difference. You buy something a little high? Oh well. It's just digital money, no big deal. There are no real consequences that you would have in real life making a bad decision in terms of buying a house. This leads me to my next point.

 

We have none of these above mentioned factors here because this isn't real life. There is no dynamic housing market with external factors affecting a player's choice. It's simply a matter of buying and selling houses and nothing else affecting player choice besides who has enough script money and who doesn't. It's not feasible to leave it as a completely free and open market. There must be some action to keep the market from spinning out of control because there are no other factors regulating the ups and downs of our housing market. Right now it's just up, up, up and away. That's not a sustainable market.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Chief

[zaXer.]

6 hours ago, liq said:

Starting to put caps and checks and balances on an otherwise free market economy after it's been operating on that basis for three years is of course an issue. It's good for continuity, because all a free market does is inflate price just because some can pay for it and we're no soon than becoming ruled by those who grind for cash and not those who look into providing role-play at the expense of having assets. It puts all the players who've inevitably had to pay these huge amounts just before the rules were creates and in effect, and it shouldn't stay that way.

 

The server has no real development when it comes to building housing. All it does is add to the existing housing already on the server that weren't available to players yet. It has done so by enforcing house requests, which not everybody can get.

 

Instead of criticizing Zaxxer, think about it: everyone who inevitably fell into paying more just to have something is now at a loss, because they can never get that money back. They were essentially conned out of hundreds of thousands of earned in-game cash. This demotivates players. It makes you lose players, and it serves as no good system when you're putting players at a loss. It's, of course, natural, that something should be given to those players. And what Zaxxer is saying is right — the market price on houses such as those in Mirror Park is a remnant of the server's beginning days where it didn't amount to much. The fact that the MP on a Mirror Park house is below $200K and an apartment in Morningwood is $300K shows you how flawed this system is. If a cap is going to be made involving the market value of a property, then all market values need to be revisited to make sure they're in line with the server's current standing.

 

If not? Check above. The server isn't creating new, easily attainable houses anymore. It creates restrictions and rules and checks and balances. All of that makes it harder for the average player to get a house. Not everyone wants to bother with the red tape behind a house request.

 

Why would anyone who has paid $1m+ for a house that's now worth half or quarter of that by these rules ever sell it anymore? They'd be at a loss. This locks the house market and it's going to create the inevitable chain reaction of rule-breaking on these prices because those who own now have been wronged.

 

All in all, the system's good. It ensures fairness, and it also ensures house flipping and/or illicit ways of making quick cash aren't so widely available to players. But you can't let those players who were the last to pay these exorbitant amounts stay like that because it's going to either make them say fuck it and break the rules anyway, or leave. Either way, the server loses players, and it usually has a chain reaction of not just 1 guy leaving but his entire friend group of 20-30 active players leaving.

Thanks for actually reading the main post and understanding the issue. I have no problem with the system because it is set with an enough leeway to sell your properties, BUT for some of them the MP is no longer to date and that's what causes issues. 

[eMe]

I don’t understand why people say don’t compare this to real life and that it’s “not fair” when we actively try to emulate real life. I can’t speak for everyone but where I live, I am priced out of owning my own home, it is almost like impossible to buy anything property related in my City. The worst studio flats cost millions in some cases. I cannot help this, the government does not step in and make it any cheaper, I cannot fix that I was born 20/30/40 years too late and missed the prime times to buy property.

 

Just like new players on the server, if you join now or are “born into the server” if you want to say it like this, you are not going to have the same advantages as someone who has put in 1000 hours. There is now a property request system so if their roleplay is good let them apply for a house...

 

You guys are putting the blame on house sellers for their house being expensive but it’s only worth what someone is willing to pay and if that is 10M$ then so be it. The flaws are not the buyers or the sellers the flaw is that there are not enough in game script variables to make buying a house a more significant purchase like in real life with maintenance costs and taxes etc.

[Shekh]

9 hours ago, Beatrix said:

Trucking and mechanic, yeah. 

The problem is that this is completely letely normal for any server, prices will go up as there are no houses for sale in specified area. Look at Mirror Park there was a lot of houses for sale, but there is maybe one for sale, once a month. Someone who really wants a house there is ready to pay a lot and if he wants to do it, dont see why would it be forbidden. I mean most of the house owners will keep their houses now even if they use them ince a month, let this rule be, but dont complain that there are no houses for sale. 

 

The money is not the problem here, the problem is in other jobs that make you rich fast enough. Whoever is a real estate agent IG or IRL he's wealthy enough and I see no problem with that for someone to be "rich". 

This sums it up. This rule helps but the grindy script jobs are the reason most these houses can be bought for so much. Lower mech pay and trucker pay and we're good.

[misTake]

1 hour ago, zaXer. said:

Thanks for actually reading the main post and understanding the issue. I have no problem with the system because it is set with an enough leeway to sell your properties, BUT for some of them the MP is no longer to date and that's what causes issues. 

Even Davis house and Mirror house have the same market price..

[zaXer.]

Just now, Beatrix said:

Even Davis house and Mirror house have the same market price..

Exactly what I'm trying to explain here what the issue is.