FYI: Time for FPC to reclaim the abandoned apartments

thoreau

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I went apartment looking this evening and I found a lot of apartments that were abandoned and the maintenance fee hadn't been paid in years.

deed.jpg


Allowing these apartments to continue to be abandoned is something that FPC should no allow to continue.
 
who was the owner? if its Marcus The Estate Broker, then its MA´s own avatar.

regards
 
why not?

Why not? If the deed holder still has an active account, there is nothing wrong here. Yes, the apartment is not able to be entered, but it's still owned by the person holding the deed. Besides that, it might already be owned by the estate broker, but the terminal does not show it since that only shows up if the thing is claimed...

The ownership of the deed certifies ownership of the estate...

deed2.jpg


Since the estate's ownership is certified, there's nothing wrong with the monthly fee not being paid. In the future, maybe on other planets, new estates may not have deeds like this?... but since deeds exist, and they certify ownership, as long as the participant that owns the deed is active, there's nothing wrong here. Move along.

I too think it'd be nice if everyone paid their monthly fees, but the truth of the matter is some people just use apartments as big storage boxes, long term storage of sorts, and they pay when they want access only... so it's kind of like a vault with a 10 ped a month fee to unlock the vault... and there's nothing wrong with that.
 
I too think it'd be nice if everyone paid their monthly fees, but the truth of the matter is some people just use apartments as big storage boxes, long term storage of sorts, and they pay when they want access only... so it's kind of like a vault with a 10 ped a month fee to unlock the vault... and there's nothing wrong with that.

Except it reduces revenue for FPC and it inflates the market price of those apartments that are currently being used.
 
If accounts are no longer active then by all means FPC should reclaim them, but i dont think the fact that i havent paid the fee on my apt in probably 18 months means i no longer have the right to it.


cc
 
Lol. I would like a fee for neurons that are not used. That would save the world from poverty. Above average neuron users should be payed by the ones below average for the effort of keeping the trend over that of the monkeys.
 
Except it reduces revenue for FPC and it inflates the market price of those apartments that are currently being used.

maybe they should reclaim all the unused weaponry, armor, clothes as well ;) as they're not generating decay.
 
Why should I pay the fee and open up any of my apts, when decorating still is a part that is not working at least a bit more reliable?

Given that there is so much more important stuff for MA to finish first I don't believe I'll be able to open up any of my apts within the next half or even full year.

And with "being able to" I mean I want to have more different and also more reliable decoration elements that don't change from VU to VU and also I want useful and affordable light sources.

I spent a whole weekend once to create a party apt and it was good fun, now I could spend the same amount of time and would not even get anything remotely as good looking done.

Until MA fixes the stuff so this area of the platform is reliable I predict the amount of apts in use will go down even more, BUT this really should be something that gets attention when the more important aspects are finished.
(Even though I'd like to decorate again *sniff*)
 
From what I have heard/read, many apartments are unused because a few ppl bought up a lot of them when they came and then never claimed them, thus never having to pay the fee... and then keep them to sell them off a few at the time at much higher prices :dunno:
 
Ok...at least give me squatters rights. If I find an abandoned apartment let me live there for free until the owner pays the fee.
 
From what I have heard/read, many apartments are unused because a few ppl bought up a lot of them when they came and then never claimed them, thus never having to pay the fee... and then keep them to sell them off a few at the time at much higher prices :dunno:

Most of the G apartments (the ones with double rooms and balconies) all got bought by investors before anyone else got a chance. Then the single room with balcony apartments went and that left the single room apartments for the rest of us but I think all the remaining ones of those got bought by a single person / company in a bulk purchase from MA a few years ago. I might be wrong just what I remember from the time as apartments used to cycle on the auction for several months and then they all disappeared overnight.
 
Most of the G apartments (the ones with double rooms and balconies) all got bought by investors before anyone else got a chance.

Not true really, there were quite a few G appartements still available for quite some time after the release.


But the idea about MA reclaimining them is totally BS. 99% of people don`t really need the appartements on a regular basis, unless you are a hair/body stylist or doing something along those lines.
 
I went apartment looking this evening and I found a lot of apartments that were abandoned and the maintenance fee hadn't been paid in years.

Ok...at least give me squatters rights. If I find an abandoned apartment let me live there for free until the owner pays the fee.


Are you serious?!?!?

If you want an apartment, buy one. :rolleyes:
 
From what I have heard/read, many apartments are unused because a few ppl bought up a lot of them when they came and then never claimed them, thus never having to pay the fee... and then keep them to sell them off a few at the time at much higher prices
Currently my apartment, 1D in the Delta Tower at Omegaton is on the Auction. It's priced at a price that's actually about 100 peds below the price I paid for it. If you want to keep this type of argument up, why don't you buy it, and start paying the rent fees on in monthly? ;) There was no bidders on it last time I looked in auction. I think a lot of estate owners are in the same predicament. We want to sell, but no one is buying... and might even be willing to take less than we paid for it. The reason I'm not using it is I have a booth and a shop downstairs from there, and don't have time to keep 3 estates fully organized. If I had a ton of shopkeepers, I might change my mind on that, but just like you, I am not made out of money.

It also does not help the fact that MA does not let us "drop" deeds in estates, so they can only be sold in person to person sales, on auction, or in a shopkeeper, but not in a real in game shop or booth...
 
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Most of the G apartments (the ones with double rooms and balconies) all got bought by investors before anyone else got a chance.

If I'm not mistaken, there have been two or three "G" apartments available on auction within the last moth or so.

It's amazing what you can find if you actually watch the auction on a regular basis for particular items.
 
Who owns an estate that costs monthly fees has to pay the fees or lose the deed. If in RL just ANYONE could buy everything and wait until it'll get more expensive... yeah, nothing to say about that... And if someone can't pay his fees in RL... you know what happens - and it would be in auction...
 
Why not? If the deed holder still has an active account, there is nothing wrong here. Yes, the apartment is not able to be entered, but it's still owned by the person holding the deed. Besides that, it might already be owned by the estate broker, but the terminal does not show it since that only shows up if the thing is claimed...

Since the estate's ownership is certified, there's nothing wrong with the monthly fee not being paid. In the future, maybe on other planets, new estates may not have deeds like this?... but since deeds exist, and they certify ownership, as long as the participant that owns the deed is active, there's nothing wrong here. Move along.

I too think it'd be nice if everyone paid their monthly fees, but the truth of the matter is some people just use apartments as big storage boxes, long term storage of sorts, and they pay when they want access only... so it's kind of like a vault with a 10 ped a month fee to unlock the vault... and there's nothing wrong with that.

Um most the negative replies are missing the point... although I agree with OP... he made a post with a picture showing a user whose owned an apartment for almost 5 years and not paid fees once.... that IMO is unacceptable.... first of all like has been stated it robs MA, and possibly the rest of EU of PEDs... 2nd of all... it causes prices to remain high on apartments or causes an increase...

Now people who've closed shop or what not recently due to MA lack of fixing stuff is understandable... but 5 years without fee's... thats some BS....

Currently my apartment, 1D in the Delta Tower at Omegaton is on the Auction. It's priced at a price that's actually about 10 peds below the price I paid for it. If you want to keep this type of argument up, why don't you buy it, and start paying the rent fees on in monthly? ;) There was no bidders on it last time I looked in auction. I think a lot of estate owners are in the same predicament. We want to sell, but no one is buying... and might even be willing to take less than we paid for it. The reason I'm not using it is I have a booth and a shop downstairs from there, and don't have time to keep 3 estates fully organized. If I had a ton of shopkeepers, I might change my mind on that, but just like you, I am not made out of money.

It also does not help the fact that MA does not let us "drop" deeds in estates, so they can only be sold in person to person sales, on auction, or in a shopkeeper, but not in a real in game shop or booth...

Now heres my issue.... Im guessing when you bought your apartment maybe demand was up? Maybe there were very few around maybe price was high... not 100% sure... or it was low and you bought it...

I understand that it sucks because prices are essentially going down, but for most things prices are dropping... people dont want to pay shit loads of money for deeds... theres so many deeds out there and so many that could be made available if MA did something... the current issue right now is... people paid $XXX for their deeds... they want at least $XXX for it... but most peopel these days think and want the same deeds for less... which doesn't sit well with owners who wont sell for less usually... and does nothing for buyers....

With so few deeds around and even less being traded price remains high... where usually buyers wont pay... and sellers cant sell... which usually causes what could be a nice real estate market to just remain frozen....

Personally Id love a booth... but prices for most remain extremely high IMO.... With my belief that prices are to drop in time I dont want to buy at par because I believe prices to drop soon... and if I buy at par... I believe in future Ill be screwed while the seller/owner will be happy since he got what he needed/wanted... leaving me with the risk....

Its a double ended sword... I understand both sides... What needs to happen is MA needs to open up more frozen estates that they hold.... this might fuck over current owners... since it could cause price to drop... but... at the same time itll help MA out with possible people who will pay their rents or then again maybe more prospectors will come in.... Either way... I think prices are due to drop.... problem is no one enjoys selling at a loss... and if their is no rush to sell and no fees to pay to keep the estate then they can sit on it FOREVER until price goes up... thats what I hate....

I think in the long run... MA will have to release more PC shops... and if not... RT will release shops... so that will IMO drop the price down overall... only time will tell.... just my arguement for a shop is... I can go around sell my stuff where I want with no fee's and no costs or on auction for a bit of a cost.... or I can invest 5k and do the math to see what my savings are on auction... but then I have to lower price in shop to attract customers... I gotta do math still before I can see the value in the booth for myself...




ANYWAYS... tahts a long rant :D.... hopefully MA figures this out... would be nice to see more trading of property to happen.. as Im sure many people want to run shops/aprts/mall shops.... but the cost remains so high that most players cant afford to do it without heavy investing....
 
I think MA/FPC should remove the monthly fee (or reduce it by like 90%) to encourage people to use them. More decorations and furniture would be crafted and bought.

I have an apartment that I don't use, cause of the fee.
 
It`s nothing more than artificial market creation. There used to be a flood of them and they were`nt worth alot. Now there are only so many so the price stays up a bit more.
 
Um most the negative replies are missing the point... although I agree with OP... he made a post with a picture showing a user whose owned an apartment for almost 5 years and not paid fees once.... that IMO is unacceptable.... first of all like has been stated it robs MA, and possibly the rest of EU of PEDs... 2nd of all... it causes prices to remain high on apartments or causes an increase...

If the game rules is that you can own an estate without paying the rent, the user just utilising the system. I see no fault in that.
Yes MA/FPC can create new estates with new rules, but they should not change the rules for the existing ones.

Maybe the buyer had an intent with his estate that you doesn't understand. I own three estates, and I pay the fees when I need access to them. I use them for different reasons and I have another long term plan for them(not investment).

As other say in this thread, if MA hadn't fucked up decorations of your estate due to VU10, there might have been more things going on. I see the estates as a force in the ingame business. If decoration, furniture etc had bigger divercity and you could use your estate in better ways, the ingame markets for estates and estate related items should boom.

The problems with estates is NOT unpayed rent. And as others say, if u wan't an estate buy one.

I would like to see small basic estates for all users, for free!
Example, something like a small box, underground.

Or let us live in tents/plants or whatever is available.


Free basic estates with room for 15 items or so would make a market for decorations, the ones who need mnore space should go buy a real one.
 
Thanks LeWolf for understanding my point.

Sure there are some apartments for sale. But the price those apartments are being sold for is based on an inflated value.

I'm not going to pay +400 PEDs for a 1 room apartment when thousands of them have been abandoned for 4+ years.

Here is a challenge - if you have an apartment that you're not using and you want to sell it - list it for TT+250 PEDs with no buyout and let the free market decide the price.
 
Why should I pay the fee and open up any of my apts, when decorating still is a part that is not working at least a bit more reliable?

That's the first good reason I've heard for a long time. I am in the same position. I have an apartment which I would like to decorate, but as there are still things not working I do not want to waste my PED when I know I will not be able to produce the effect I want.

I think MA/FPC should remove the monthly fee (or reduce it by like 90%) to encourage people to use them. More decorations and furniture would be crafted and bought.

I have an apartment that I don't use, cause of the fee.

I still think the suggestion of making the monthly fee compulsory but making it (say) one quarter of the current fee would be an effective way of opening up the apartments with no extra costs to those who only use them a few times a year.
 
Here is a challenge - if you have an apartment that you're not using and you want to sell it - list it for TT+250 PEDs with no buyout and let the free market decide the price.


You obviously do not watch the auction. Just this past week there was an apartment that was initially listed well below TT+250... in fact, I bid on it somewhere around TT+150.

The free market determined the price. ;)
 
Personally Id love a booth... but prices for most remain extremely high IMO.... With my belief that prices are to drop in time I dont want to buy at par because I believe prices to drop soon... and if I buy at par... I believe in future Ill be screwed while the seller/owner will be happy since he got what he needed/wanted... leaving me with the risk....

Prices for booths are not all that high... 5k is very cheap compared to the price of shops, especially mall shops!

If you got 10k, since you are a friend, I might let you rent my booth for free, or very cheaply with the 10k as collateral... if there's a fee it'd be small (how about 12 ped a month, just so I can cover my shop's rent and get whatever profits I end up with as profits instead of having to lose 12 ped automatically to the landlord)! I'll just cycle the 10k peds on auction at tt+0 bids til you are ready to hand the deed back over to me. This would free up some peds for me and give you a chance to see what you could do with the place. If it worked out, I might start buying up more deeds in the area to make Omegaton the suburban shop heaven it was meant to be... slowly acquire all deeds and rent them out like the mall shop owners should have done but did not (well, all except Emerald Lake's owner - who is horading the top floor for some silly reason, and not even renting them out)

Its a double ended sword... I understand both sides... What needs to happen is MA needs to open up more frozen estates that they hold.... this might fuck over current owners... since it could cause price to drop... but... at the same time itll help MA out with possible people who will pay their rents or then again maybe more prospectors will come in.... Either way... I think prices are due to drop.... problem is no one enjoys selling at a loss... and if their is no rush to sell and no fees to pay to keep the estate then they can sit on it FOREVER until price goes up... thats what I hate....

There really are tons of estates MA never released... don't believe me come take a look at Beta and Alpha buildings in Omegaton. I'd honestly love it if prices wen down since I could buy up more real estate cheaply. I suspect Rocktropia and other planets will cause lower prices due to supply/demand... but only for a while. Then prices will come back up since the number of deeds in the entire virtual universe is still limited in quantity...

I think MA/FPC should remove the monthly fee (or reduce it by like 90%) to encourage people to use them. More decorations and furniture would be crafted and bought.
I completely agree with you on that. What I think they should do is move away from a pay x amount per month deal and move towards a pay some %... make the payment to MA sort of like an extra "federal" tax on top of the local LA tax that already exists for all shop sales... This would work well for all places except maybe the apartments since they don't automatically have shopkeepers... for those, MA should put shopkeepers in the Trade Terminal with a zero ped value and make it so that you cannot TT the new versions of the Shopkeepers... That way you can repair them, and pay MA in the form of decay instead of in the form of rent fees.

I would like to see small basic estates for all users, for free!
Example, something like a small box, underground.
That's called storage, and it already exists... there's 500 on Calypso, 500 on each astroid, and 500 on other planets I think... there's literally tons of item slots you get free, far more then there used to be.


Thanks LeWolf for understanding my point.

Sure there are some apartments for sale. But the price those apartments are being sold for is based on an inflated value.

I'm not going to pay +400 PEDs for a 1 room apartment when thousands of them have been abandoned for 4+ years.

Here is a challenge - if you have an apartment that you're not using and you want to sell it - list it for TT+250 PEDs with no buyout and let the free market decide the price
Of course he understands your point since he's in the same boat you are in. You are both looking for a cheap place because you both potential buyers. 400 peds is cheap... when they first came out they were 300 peds or so I think.

As mentioned above with my booth, if you want to, talk to me, and I might "rent" you my apartment deed if it does not sell on the auction in the next couple of days... Just pay me about 2k ped collateral... I'll simply cycle the peds on auctions with +0 start bids, and pay you the collateral back later if you want the peds back. You win since you get an apartment. I win since I get more peds to cycle in auction. We both win since we can trade back later.

We also both win since we can stay in contact. I think the biggest mistake original estate owners made was selling their places instead of just renting them out, even though the game does not really let you rent stuff out since all trades are final - but with trust, anything is possible. I love having more than one estate in the same building. It makes it possible to do a lot more than just having multiple estates scattered all over the continent. The original owners of the LAs should have taken that in to account and used it, but did not so now god knows who owns what, especially since the estate terminals lie up until the time that a place is claimed.
 
Of course he understands your point since he's in the same boat you are in. You are both looking for a cheap place because you both potential buyers. 400 peds is cheap... when they first came out they were 300 peds or so I think.

From the VU notes for 7.2:

The apartments will be available through the auction and have the buyout price set to 250 PED for the small apartment

In addition to everything else having apartments actually being used creates a PED sink that helps to keep inflation in check.
 
I agree...

I own an apartment on CND, but, I don't mine much there anymore. Sometimes for as much as 6 months, I don't go, so...why should you want MA to take my apartment?

Seoul:scratch2:


Why not? If the deed holder still has an active account, there is nothing wrong here. Yes, the apartment is not able to be entered, but it's still owned by the person holding the deed. Besides that, it might already be owned by the estate broker, but the terminal does not show it since that only shows up if the thing is claimed...

The ownership of the deed certifies ownership of the estate...

deed2.jpg


Since the estate's ownership is certified, there's nothing wrong with the monthly fee not being paid. In the future, maybe on other planets, new estates may not have deeds like this?... but since deeds exist, and they certify ownership, as long as the participant that owns the deed is active, there's nothing wrong here. Move along.

I too think it'd be nice if everyone paid their monthly fees, but the truth of the matter is some people just use apartments as big storage boxes, long term storage of sorts, and they pay when they want access only... so it's kind of like a vault with a 10 ped a month fee to unlock the vault... and there's nothing wrong with that.
 
I think MA/FPC should remove the monthly fee (or reduce it by like 90%) to encourage people to use them. More decorations and furniture would be crafted and bought.

I have an apartment that I don't use, cause of the fee.

how about adding much more different parts of furniture, with lower tt value and cheap to craft? :)
 
how about adding much more different parts of furniture, with lower tt value and cheap to craft? :)

It would not change my behaviour, I'd still not pay my rent.
I (hardly) play Entropia without depositing, and with something in game having a monthly fee is very contra productive in a 'free' game.
 
From the VU notes for 7.2:


Quote:
The apartments will be available through the auction and have the buyout price set to 250 PED for the small apartment
I'm curious how much of a startbid Neverdie is going to put on the apartments on the Rock? I suspect it'll be above 300 peds but under 1k...?
 
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