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What is the deal with property trading?


Slamdance

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In the beginning of the server, houses were competitive but attainable. No real costs associated with owning them, and they could be very easily monetized (rent was not highly monitored by admins/was much more loose by script). True to form, they were an asset. There was the well-known high probability they would appreciate in value as the server grew (which was extremely correct). There were no price controls, and you could sell a home for as much as someone would buy it. Very profitable for some people.

 

The thing is, you don't really have to be a good role player to be an efficient salesperson or scalper, and the admins saw this. A lot of people got OOC rich and did not use it to add something unique to the server. Houses were meant to be server features that add an experience, or improve players' environments when they're doing unique things, not to be currency. That's the root of where all the price control, rent oversight, property management stuff came from, I think.

 

But now, the server's just huge. The price controls reduce the value of these homes below what capable people would pay in liquid currency, period. This is good for some new players and for the "attainability" argument in theory. But there is also no active incentive for anyone to sell or trade their home, because they incur no associated costs with its ownership. They have an incredible position of leverage.

 

Inactivity removals create poor sentiment among some people. I'm one of them, I've lost many properties to inactivity removals, which I'd take accountability for. A lot of people have suggested negative cash flow, and I think that's the right answer, at this stage.

 

There's a few ways I see this could work:

1. Price controls stay basically as they are, but comparatively higher negative cash flow is incurred by standalone properties (more than would be in an apartment complex). I would say this is relatively realistic, too. This would artificially reduce the value of some of those homes, in my opinion.

 

2. Price controls are modified on specific standalone properties to a higher value, and the same rate of negative cash flow is added across all properties. I don't think there is any reason to be heavy handed on this with apartment units, though.

 

3. Price controls are removed on specific standalone properties (the houses in the city, the county), it becomes a competitive high-cost situation instead of a competitive OOC friend circle trade situation, and no negative cash flow is added.

 

One way or another, people need to be able to exchange their stuff for something they think is of equivalent value. You either have to allow them to attain that somehow, or reduce the value of their asset by way of things like utilities expenses, other sources of outflow.

 

 

Edited by pogoyo
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If you think taxing these players is going to motivate them to sell their properties you need to put the bottle of vodka away. They'll just do a few extra shifts at any generic nightclub. As long as the value of the property is much, much much more than the maximum amount of money you can ask for it due to the limit? People will be willing to do whatever little extra thing they have to do in order to retain their property. Taxes or extra costs won't scare them off. Just bragging rights alone for owning a stand alone house is worth the extra effort. You're absolutely never going to fix this issue unless you open up the economy. Anything else is just a band-aid solution.

Edited by Martyn
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2 hours ago, Martyn said:

If you think taxing these players is going to motivate them to sell their properties you need to put the bottle of vodka away. They'll just do a few extra shifts at any generic nightclub. As long as the value of the property is much, much much more than the maximum amount of money you can ask for it due to the limit? People will be willing to do whatever little extra thing they have to do in order to retain their property. Taxes or extra costs won't scare them off. Just bragging rights alone for owning a stand alone house is worth the extra effort. You're absolutely never going to fix this issue unless you open up the economy. Anything else is just a band-aid solution.

Per character, per account? Just a couple of extra hours on their main might be enough, but that couple of hours multiplies with each character, and moreso of they're using alt accounts to hold more.

 

Spending a quarter of a day every day to pay for a house is a lot of work.

 

That said, the taxes already seem to be coming, according to staff. With any luck, taxes will increase dramatically per house owned, to make hoarding houses difficult and extremely costly.

 

This is a positive turn.

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2 hours ago, Martyn said:

If you think taxing these players is going to motivate them to sell their properties you need to put the bottle of vodka away. They'll just do a few extra shifts at any generic nightclub. As long as the value of the property is much, much much more than the maximum amount of money you can ask for it due to the limit? People will be willing to do whatever little extra thing they have to do in order to retain their property. Taxes or extra costs won't scare them off. Just bragging rights alone for owning a stand alone house is worth the extra effort. You're absolutely never going to fix this issue unless you open up the economy. Anything else is just a band-aid solution.

That depends, though. There would definitely be people working one, two, even three extra shifts in order to cover for the tax increase (or addition, rather). However, that's not necessarily the case. It would 100% guaranteed get boring really quickly either way. People used to grind aluminum back in the day too, but most of these people didn't actually enjoy doing it. Most of them were doing it for cash, and lots of them were buying cars that they could drive around in and actually show off. It's not the same with real estate.

 

Opening up the economy won't fix it though. The whole idea of supply and demand is finding an equilibrium, a place where both parties are happy. Unlike in real life, you can't actually build any more houses. The supply itself is highly limited, physically speaking. You literally cannot add more houses to the market.

 

You can't compare the GTA:W economy to a real-life one in the slightest. It's only an economy in a very basic sense. There is a supply and there is a demand. Yes, it is somewhat realistic and it is definitely closer to reality than anyone's ever managed to achieve. It is not an economy though. It is also, unfortunately, something that no role-play game will ever be able to achieve. The reason behind this is very simple - unlike real life, decisions are influenced by meta factors. People are willing to spend fortunes to get into poverty (because of various characters) than to get out of it. A huge chunk of money goes towards creating new characters, the vast majority of them being poor in one way or another (homeless, gangsters, law enforcement, journalists etc.). In real life, people are working to get out of poverty. Someone going homeless or a gangbanger stepping into the street for the first time doesn't throw money into the economy (buying clothes, haircuts, cars, a house, items etc.).

 

The main reason why we will never achieve a real economy is because there is no economic policy, no institutions to supervise any part of the economy whatsoever, there are no banks, no insurance companies, we don't have anyone controlling the inflation rate, no monetary policy, no fiscal policy, the unemployment rate is irrelevant, the money supply is not being controlled whatsoever and so, so, so many more. A realistic economy, especially one that's not based on a 3rd world African country, isn't as simple as "supply and demand". Imagine five gears spinning together, then multiply that times a few tens of thousands. They're extremely complex systems where everyone - people, businesses, institutions - play a role. Lots of real-life cities can't get it right even. More than that, GTAW has money pouring in out of nowhere and flowing out back into the void in an unknown and uncontrolled way. This is much more than any of us can comprehend or control.

 

The only way to fix this would be to:

a) Let the economy be. Set out the basic principles and let the money flow around. If houses end up costing millions, deal with that organically, ICly. Control that inflation. It's possible. For that, however, you will have to put a tremendous amount of work in, stabilizing everything, knowing what, how, and why each component of the economy works. Remove all price caps, have a set amount of money. Make it so that everyone contributes to the economy, directly or not. Remove all rules regarding selling and buying properties, businesses, everything. Make the market truly free, let the government decide the actions to take ICly (even if it's through server staff).

b) Wipe all of the money and assets. Which will never be done. If you want to achieve a realistic economy, you can't start when some people are broke (new players, for instance) while others have everything and then some. If the caps are removed now, new players will find it absolutely impossible to buy a house. It will be messed up.

 

 

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On 6/9/2021 at 4:06 PM, DasFroggy said:

Per character, per account? Just a couple of extra hours on their main might be enough, but that couple of hours multiplies with each character, and moreso of they're using alt accounts to hold more.

 

Spending a quarter of a day every day to pay for a house is a lot of work.

 

That said, the taxes already seem to be coming, according to staff. With any luck, taxes will increase dramatically per house owned, to make hoarding houses difficult and extremely costly.

 

This is a positive turn.

OK, so with the tax Nervous mentioned the prices will depend on how many hours you've been online. If you've been online for more than 20hours its a very low percentage of money you'll pay. Neglectable since you'll have received that money back through the 20 unemployment checks you'll have earned. In the event that someone is not very active, yet still wants to keep their property? The taxes will increase, and like I said before. Someone will just do a few extra shifts wherever to make that money. Lets assume for a second thats not the case, as you point out. Maybe its too much effort. I can guarantee you, this will STILL not encourage people to sell their property. They might lose 30-40k a month to hold onto their property. But in the long run, this is well worth it. Losing 400k over a 10month span is still better than selling your house for the maximum 700k you can ask while in reality you could sell it for double if not triple that in an open economy. The land itself is simply worth more than the house. 

 

And then I haven't even mentioned yet how people are simply going to rent out their properties to people for the exact amount of money the tax is. So they can keep their property, not sell it, they won't lose any money. And they were rarely using it anyway. Like I said before, band-aid solutions. You won't fix the housing problem if you don't make it an open economy. The whole "New players don't have any chance to buy one then" is all cute. But right now NOBODY has a chance to buy one unless you're lucky enough to know a friend whos quitting the server or something similar and is willing to sell to you. People have mentioned this a thousand times on this thread but some people are really adamant about not wanting to see this. You have to pick the lesser of the two evils, I'd rather have an open, active market that is super expensive. Compared to absolutely NO market at all. I don't blame ANYONE for wanting to trade, money becomes useless at a certain point because you have nothing to spend your money on. Like people said before, properties are becoming the new currency. 

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31 minutes ago, Martyn said:

OK, so with the tax Nervous mentioned the prices will depend on how many hours you've been online. If you've been online for more than 20hours its a very low percentage of money you'll pay. Neglectable since you'll have received that money back through the 20 unemployment checks you'll have earned. In the event that someone is not very active, yet still wants to keep their property? The taxes will increase, and like I said before. Someone will just do a few extra shifts wherever to make that money. Lets assume for a second thats not the case, as you point out. Maybe its too much effort. I can guarantee you, this will STILL not encourage people to sell their property. They might lose 30-40k a month to hold onto their property. But in the long run, this is well worth it. Losing 400k over a 10month span is still better than selling your house for the maximum 700k you can ask while in reality you could sell it for double if not triple that in an open economy. The land itself is simply worth more than the house. 

 

And then I haven't even mentioned yet how people are simply going to rent out their properties to people for the exact amount of money the tax is. So they can keep their property, not sell it, they won't lose any money. And they were rarely using it anyway. Like I said before, band-aid solutions. You won't fix the housing problem if you don't make it an open economy. The whole "New players don't have any chance to buy one then" is all cute. But right now NOBODY has a chance to buy one unless you're lucky enough to know a friend whos quitting the server or something similar and is willing to sell to you. People have mentioned this a thousand times on this thread but some people are really adamant about not wanting to see this. You have to pick the lesser of the two evils, I'd rather have an open, active market that is super expensive. Compared to absolutely NO market at all. I don't blame ANYONE for wanting to trade, money becomes useless at a certain point because you have nothing to spend your money on. Like people said before, properties are becoming the new currency. 

As much as I agree, we are roleplaying inside a game, this ain't real life. I mostly agree with this, except I don't want to see a house in Grove or even worse area be sold for more than it's worth like another community had it. Lets be honest, you cant' have a Mansion in an area like Davis/Rancho where gangs are prevalent that's unrealistic and such is the pricing of those houses.

 

Moreover, I do believe that Houses Market Price compared to Apartments is lower, as here a few examples I found of Apartments costing more than a few houses I saw the MP(One was 205k) of:

Spoiler

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Explain to me how an Apartment is more valuable than a House.

Edited by Vash Baldeus
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22 minutes ago, Vash Baldeus said:

As much as I agree, we are roleplaying inside a game, this ain't real life.

 

 

Yet we are here to discuss why people are "unrealistically" trading houses among each other. The same argument could be applied then. "We're roleplaying inside of a game, this ain't real life". Either stop complaining about people wanting a guarantee to still own a house, therefore they trade. Or open the economy and let people sell their houses for what they're actually worth. Statistically speaking this is going to increase the odds of someone owning a house like that ten fold compared to the situation we have now.

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Just now, Vash Baldeus said:

I'd rather not, should be a max as a house in Davis/Rancho ain't worth the same as in Mirror Park or any other location.

 

 

"worth" is determined by what someone is willing to pay for it, not what you imagine a house in Davis should cost.

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