Land occupancy & prices in CDS, and generally in SL
We have continued to significantly outperform SL.
We added a net of 21 new citizens during the current (11th) government term, roughly Sep. 2009 - Jan. 2010, and enjoyed a net gain to rental tier revenue of about L$100,000/month. Rose has provided additional detail to Sudane for our financial reports. We continue to operate well in "the black" (positive net cash flow) with adequate reserves.
Our three month experiment in offering L$0 purchase-price land, to clear out inventory, worked. It mostly applied to our less popular regions and locales. And we haven't destroyed value: There is no "yellow map" land for sale, at this writing, presumably indicating than all persons who wished to sell privately have done so. A handful of parcels remain, mostly in Locus Amoenus where we lost a large development; most sims have one or two lots open, and the other half are sold out.
Prices for CDS land, when bought from our government, have as of 1 February returned to their original statutory prices My recommendation to the next RA is that prices be unified (to apply a single-prim price) across all the regular-price sims, and a price across all the non-profit sims (which bear a different cost from Linden Labs).
All this is in stark contrast to other parts of SL. Go take a look at the Linden Labs in-world maps of other estates that reveal properties for sale. Azure Islands, Dreamland, and others, even some close friends of ours. (Caledon does not show theirs, but has many open lots. But they don't LOOK like losers .. proves to me, once again, that Des' strategy of not yellow-mapping the open parcels is good marketing.) Or look anywhere on the majority of LL mainland.
Read this, from tenant-beloved SL landlord Ener Hax, closing up her estate due to the economy.
http://blog.iliveisl.com/the-best-party-ever/
Read this from "Hamlet" Au:
We owe our success to three things.
(1) Stability. CDS is designed to keep going even if the founders leave. The rare safety that this creates is becoming more and more precious. And our government and citizens interact like a community, to keep it that way.
(2) Beauty. We have gorgeous physical land features and builds, thanks to many talented artisans, and unusually sound strong enforcement of reasonable zoning. Again, as time goes on, this makes us stand out more and more.
(3) A handful of selfless key volunteers, who do far more for us than we deserve. It only takes a few; and for almost 6 years, we've been lucky always to have a few. Some of the earlier ones have streets named after them. During this last year, by far, it's been Rose Springvale and Sudane Erato. I can't say thank you enough.
Next term, CDS should be ready to grow again, and may want to look into two places: (a) East of Neufreistadt, to facilitate a larger Altstadt, with room for more of the popular fachwerk lots and an expansion for the Schloss ... and (b) OpenSim.
Regards JP