I'm sure everyone is EXCITED... the October 2024 financial report is now up on the website!
But... really... there is a new feature. Page 5 is a new and useful chart, but it requires a bit of explanation; thus this post. It is called "Parcel Occupancy As A Percent Of Tier", which is really a short explanation for a longer concept. We've been using this concept for a few years now in the Land Information Summary, which is where the data comes from, but we've never looked at how it changes over time.
The idea is that occupancy and the payment of tier of a certain amount of our land by citizens becomes, at a certain point, enough money for the community to pay its monthly tier to Linden Lab. If enough land is owned and paid for, the total adds up to be enough to pay our LL obligation.
If the money from occupied land adds up to be EXACTLY what the community owes to LL each month, we call that 100%. We're not counting here whether or not citizens actually pay their tier... we're just counting the tier that the occupied land is supposed to yield. It turns out that MOST people pay their tier on time, but actual tier payments don't always correspond to actual months, so we're not looking at it that way here. We're just looking at what the land is supposed to yield to the community coffers IF it is occupied.
Why is this important? Our tier payment to LL each month is by far the hugest expense we have. We are blessed with a substantial reserve, but if we find ourselves not paying attention, that reserve will disappear pretty quickly if the number displayed on this chart dips below 100% for too long. In fact, of course, it needs to average ABOVE 100% because we have other expenses too. But LL tier is the big one, so we use that as a reference.
Looking at the chart, you can see that up until 2020 we were doing pretty well... numbers tended to stay over 100%. But since then its been a struggle. Tor and Moon and others have been struggling mightily to devise promotional efforts to attract more citizens and increase the numbers on this chart, and it appears that may be paying off, but the task is surely not over. So keep an eye on this chart in coming months. And by all means do what you can to bring new citizens to the CDS!
Sudane...................
