Jump to content

L&A.


Le Englishman

Recommended Posts

Let me start by asking everyone who reads this a quick question. IRL, how many people do you know sell a house independently so they don't have to pay realty/estate agent admin fees? The answer should be hardly anyone if at all. This is due to the fact that selling a house comes with a large amount of admin work that is not common knowledge and so the agencies charge commission for their work in sealing the deal and handling the transaction of a property...

 

((Link to websites explaining what i'm getting at here))

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/071514/8-reasons-not-sell-your-home-without-agent.asp

 

https://www.inman.com/2016/06/16/10-reasons-you-should-never-buy-or-sell-without-an-agent/

 

Bearing this in mind, how is it that we allow people to freely sell properties through /ad or on the forums with often little to no role-play at all on what is a hardcore RP server.

My second issue is that realistically if we review the rules in conjunction with this matter you'd be quick to realize that unless you have a realty knowledge background, your touching on the realms of Power Gaming . Please take a second to read rule #2.

 

((Quote from the rules))

Spoiler

 

2) Powergaming


 

It is not allowed to perform actions which would not be possible in real life either, this is not limited to roleplay through /me. It is not allowed to force actions upon another player. You are not allowed to roleplay a non-player character.

 

 

 

I know many of you are going to look at this and reply with "But then where do we sell our properties?". Well believe it or not there are currently FIVE! Yes five Realty businesses operating on this server at this moment in time. All active, some here longer than others, but nevertheless trying to provide a service. What is actually happening is these services that I and others like me provide are not being utilized at all and instead of engaging in solid, high level RP, people are selling simply through /ad or forums independently for quick sales and care free because they don't want to pay commission or cant be bothered with RP. I totally get this but it is Power Gaming if you assume your char could sell a house and have the know-how to do so legally and professionally. 

 

My suggestion is that a review of how properties are traded is held and we look more in to how Realty agencies can be involved please as there is a whole sector in the business world of this server being massively neglected by the player-base. With a system that holds risk and accountability to the owner when selling independently or make it a requirement to involve a registered Realty firm. 

 

A final question before I finish up. Can we really sacrifice RP on a server such as this, to cater for a type of player that wishes to rush such actions and "skip" vital RP components to property dealings? All other aspects of properties are held to a high standard, I.E landlords, property leases etc.. So why is property trading not?.

 

I would very much like to speak on behalf of all in this sector and encourage you to voice this matter to the development team and admins. If you have personal experiences which could further bring credibility to this point, that would be great.

 

Below I will just tag those who I believe can make a positive difference to this particular issue I hope you don't mind. @Bombie @Musiceith@Beatrix @Gamble @eMe @BiiGy

 

Many Thanks

$Dollar$

 

 

Edited by $dollar$
Link to comment

I do like the premise and idea of this for the most part, however the hurdles you run into are the below;

 

- People don't need realtor companies.

- You're charged for something you do not need.

- There are very few realtor options.

- It takes 1 command to sell a house.

 

In real life, the process takes longer because you have to first get a mortgage (something which does not exist in GTAW), then you have to find a house to buy, of which many factors come into consideration, IE structural integrity, condition, location, size etc whereas on GTAW only two of these examples are applicable for purchasing a property. After you have found a house you want to buy in real life, you then have to negotiate with the vendor on a price, get the offer agreed, then instruct solicitors/lawyers from both sides of the agreement, get surveys for the structure and for the value of the property.

 

All of this in real life takes about 4-8 weeks depending on how efficient your solicitors, and agent/realtor are. In game, there is no need to get a surveyor to come and survey the house, there is no need for lawyers, there is no need to negotiate because if you do not buy it someone else will in many cases. With this in mind, a realtor has a 'value' because they can market the property online (the average person cannot do this cheaply), have a pool of clients looking to buy properties, and oversee the completion/sale of the property while you are looking/working for other properties. 

 

In game you cannot easily simulate this same level of 'worth' for a realtor, advertising on the forums is free, advertising in game is a negligible expense, and there is no incentive to pay someone to do this for you. Also in real life, there are a lot more options and variables when it comes to house buying, whereas in game there is no running costs, or fees that you have to be attentive to. 

 

While it's a good idea in theory, I think the only solution to implement something like this would restrict anyone other then realtors to do property/commercial for sale ads on the forums or in game which is very restricting and a bit over the top. 

Link to comment

I love the idea, and the RP it could add, but why would I pay for something I could do myself? It's something that's been done for years. I could see myself using if it was a difficult property to sell and the realtor company would get me a much better price than I could get for it myself, but I don't see a true need for it.

Link to comment
1 minute ago, Kuma said:

I love the idea, and the RP it could add, but why would I pay for something I could do myself? It's something that's been done for years. I could see myself using if it was a difficult property to sell and the realtor company would get me a much better price than I could get for it myself, but I don't see a true need for it.

Without sounding rude. It is this point I am making entirely. Its to easy for a heavy RP server to sell alone, we need to incorporate the Realty companies in somehow, same as Garages are included in RP to fix cars. Same as delivery companies are included to restock businesses. Same as farmers and fisherman are needed to restock food supplies. Why cant realty be included in property sales? Its not an obscene suggestion.

Link to comment
5 minutes ago, $dollar$ said:

Without sounding rude. It is this point I am making entirely. Its to easy for a heavy RP server to sell alone, we need to incorporate the Realty companies in somehow, same as Garages are included in RP to fix cars. Same as delivery companies are included to restock businesses. Same as farmers and fisherman are needed to restock food supplies. Why cant realty be included in property sales? Its not an obscene suggestion.

I understand, but at the same time how many people actually RP those actions? Outside of the garage which forces it, everything else is roleplayed only when someone is there around you. Deliveries still drop off components when people aren't looking without roleplaying, neither do all the farmers or fishermen fully roleplay if it's just them by themselves. All of those have alternate options, I'm not saying that you can't roleplay a realty company, but with the server having the /sellhouse command, people are going to choose what they want. I myself would probably use a realty company, but I don't blame anyone who wouldn't. 

Edited by Kuma
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
1 minute ago, Bandolero said:

It creates a lot more hassle than it's worth, as everyone has stated above it just takes 1 command to sell a house. As much as I can see you're trying to make it as realistic as possible, unfortunately it won't work. 

Yes, the point of this is that it shouldn't take one command. Its so Non-RP to list a $250,000 property with /ad no pictures or proper selling. Every other aspect of this server is RP'd to a standard, why is this not?.

Link to comment

So, to answer you question, I looked. In 2018 about 11% of homes sold in the United States are done via the "By Owner" route. Of the total, 31% were yard signs, 20% were done on multiple leasing service sites (which we could easily consider the forums as), 13% via classifieds (which is what we could consider our ad system as), social networking sites took 11% of them (so facebrowser).

Now according to the 2019 NAR profile of home buyer and sellers only 3% of FSBO sellers found the paperwork a difficult process. And here's why it matters. Most FSBO sellers actually own their houses. They're paid off their mortgage. Why does it matter on the server? We don't have home loans. So every home sale is an FSBO home sale. So realty companies have that to deal with, the players don't need the service.

Another thing about realty companies is they have a bad rap as money grubbing, constantly checking the forum and speeding around the map to buy up any property and flip it for double the price with no work. Why do you think the rules about property ownership and pricing are in effect? Because of people with realty companies trying to pry 400 grand for a trailer out in the county.

 

Another thing that maybe you haven't considered? The most successful realty companies? Banks. That's where I got mine - because they offer the best lending rates and don't charge a commission, because they can see my money. We also don't have that ability either.

Moving on. We're not a hardcore RP server. We might say we are, but we are not. There are things that get thrown out the window and things that get allowed for whatever reason but it kills the notion that we're a hardcore realism server.


You're saying that you want a company that will hold the risk for the commission or whatever. Well you're sunk from there. Because we have OOC rules about scamming and they clearly say you can't scam on properties or vehicles. So you've taken the risk out before it was even put in.


I understand where you're coming from, but you saying that it's powergaming to sell your own house just really seems like you're trying to force your very niche suggestion into a market that doesn't want it.

So no. I don't support this. Not for the reasons you want it done. You can't adapt to the game, so you want a rule change. 

 

Link to comment

https://forum.gta.world/en/index.php?/forum/64-properties/

 

There's a few people that do it the right way, list pictures, prices, bidding etc and that's something that should be promoted, make a rule where people can't just post an ad IG? Sure, makes them actually do some work in putting up a thread on the forums to show off the property they're actually selling. @Kuma pretty summed up what I was going to say next.

Link to comment

I think you are expecting too much. I don't support this for the simple reason that today is the property, tomorrow someone will say that nightclubs should not be opened at 6-10PM, then someone will say that police officers need to roleplay maintaining a physical condition, and it will just make it feel like a chore, not fun.

Link to comment
  • effion locked this topic
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...