Watch: Second Life Land Baron Who Hates Evicting Tenants Featured on HBO's How To With John Wilson

How To with John Wilson is an acclaimed and quirky quasi-documentary comedy series on HBO -- think a handheld video version of This American Life, but even more nasally -- where John explores New York, attempting to accomplish various everyday tasks. (Not always an easy or non-ridiculous goal, since this is after all New York). In the first episode of Season 2 which recently premiered, we find John trying to buy a house in New York, opening up the zany hellscape that is real estate in that merciless metropolis.

Which is why John also pays a visit to a New York-based landlord also named John -- who as it happens, manages real estate in an even more expensive and wacky market: Second Life:

 

I grabbed (not great quality) video of the segment above, but you should watch the whole episode on HBO. A member of Second Life's RGF Estates holding group, John tells John about his life as a virtual landlord, which is not too dissimilar from the corporeal kind:

"Occasionally we'll get a tenant who doesn't pay, and we'll have to go and talk with them and eventually evict them, which I really don't like to do... They'll explain like, 'Oh, my cat had surgery and I can't pay this month...'"

"Wait, their real cat got surgery? So it's a lot like getting physically evicted from like a real place."

"It is, and it can be as traumatic. And I really feel for the people that we do this to."

My main question (well, two) is why RGF is charging up to $400 USD for real estate when Linden Lab charges only $229 for a full region? (You may audibly hear me say "WTF" at that point.) And for that matter, why is Linden Lab still depending on a revenue model that artificially inflates the price of server space, especially when the whole world's now on the Amazon cloud?

I've messaged RGF about the first question. No point asking the Lindens about the second question, since we know the answer there. (Spoiler: if they suddenly stopped charging so much for land, real estate barons and finally Linden Lab itself will go out of business).

Hat tip (and screengrab above) by Cajsa.

Comments

[Jane Theadres]

This is some utter bullshit and a violation of the Terms of Service!

[Zidders Roofurry]

"I really feel bad for these people I suckered into paying twice as much for property they could save a lot more money on by buying it from Linden Labs." Landlords suck.

[Dally the Dog]

It's those unspoken "introductory" prices that gets them netted a lot of times. "Oh wow! A homestead for 4500L$!" In the words of Timmy Turner of Fairly Odd Parents... "What could possibly go wrong?"

The bastards don't tell you that they'll wait a month (if even that) and jack your price up waaaaay higher and keep it there until the renter is smart enough to pick up their shit and leave. The problem is, many folks would rather just keep paying ratfucked prices than simply grab their stuff and MOVE. Hell, buy your land from LL directly, as others are saying here. Don't fall for RGF's bait and switch tactics.

If you do insist on renting your island, check the estate owner of the land and avoid anything owned by "Rich Grainger" just to be safe. Even if the person subleasing it under him wants to keep your rate low, they're not gonna rent at a loss when he eventually raises THEIR tier.
Peace.

[Maddie Corvid]

These crooks banned me from my HS rental and held my objects hostage.

I had gone into arrears by less than a day remaining, which I had never done before in the many months I'd been there, and I was thinking of downsizing and picking up my things anyway but found I was unable to even access the land without paying for more weeks. What I didn't know was that they were already attempting to resell the parcel. I wouldn't have even known, in such short notice, had a potential buyer not messaged me and asked if I wanted any of the (many no-copy) items on the land before she purchased it.

When I arrived on an alt, I discovered they appeared to be just reselling my landscaping, everything was exactly as I had left it but my main (object owner) was banned from the parcel still. Needless to say, she did not buy the land after I explained to her what had happened, I returned all of my stuff, and we both left. I've seen some shady business practices in SL, but have never had something like this happen in all of my years renting land in SL. Do not trust RGF!!