Thread: Profiting From Virtual Real Estate?

Before you read further, just so I don’t misrepresent myself, I want to come out and say that I am working on the upcoming launch of the website involved in this post. So if you think it’s unfair for me to post, please don’t continue. To avoid spamming the forum, I won't include the link, so if you do decide to read on, you’ll have to find the site for yourself.

The site is called Weblo. The idea is that players can buy, sell and trade online copies of pretty much any property in the real world using real money. This includes buildings, famous landmarks, cities, states and even countries. As the site grows in popularity, property values will undoubtedly increase just like in the real world. At that point, users can sell and turn a profit. There is a lot more to this like the ability to own domain names, celebrity personalities and social networking, but for the purposes of this forum, I wanted to stick to the idea of virtual real estate.

So what do you think about this? All legal issues aside, do you think something like this could actually catch on? Will people buy into virtual properties?

Sorry I don't get it...are you brokering virtual properties like domains?

Why would you pay $$ for a virtual property? It does not exist right?

there is someting like this on 2nd life. ... seems wierd

Would it be like a game or am I confused?

Can you give an example on how it works ?

Sounds intersting and like a lot of fun. Good luck in working out the legal contraints.

Well, in the real world, the value of real estate is based almost entirely on location. Virutal real estate, or the value of it, is based on traffic and notoriety, PR, age, etc.

Just having a domain means nothing. However, if you can build traffic to it, and establish the site on the internet, the name of the site almost means nothing. "xyzpdq.com" with 50,000 unique real-estate visitors a day will claim a hefty price tag.

That's why SEO is so important, and the good practictioners can charge $150 per hour. Targeted traffic is everything.

As an older person I don't understand the whole virtual property thing. I would rather own real land than binary code. that being said, I'm old so you'll probably be fine.

I checked out Weblo for the first time earlier today.......I just don't see the potential for anyone other than the site creators to really cash in on this idea.