land value

[Sunseeker]

Where are you buying houses at 50 grand? And can I move there?

Gang violence tends to run down property values pretty quick. I know a couple places around Chicago where you can get a 5 bedroom, 3 bath, 3000sqft home for 12k. The place is a dump, the neighborhood is violent, jobs are non-existent and crime is through the roof....but housing is cheap.

As for prices in a campaign, forget the real world. And remember that land that is completely unclaimed is gonna be sold cheap - it's called "homesteading". Here in Canada, even in the present day, if people buy territory in Yukon, they actually get a homesteading tax break.

The same is true in Alaska. There are places (not even far from civilization) that you can simply go out to an put a house on and after 5 years of homesteading it's yours.

Anyway, Wik is generally on point here with psuedo-medieval land ownership. Land ownership was largely defined by "can you defend it", so a Lord who claimed a certain area as his own but couldn't control it or get people to live on it really owned nothing. Land was often "granted" by nobles who "owned" it to people they wanted to be their friends.

So honestly I wouldn't "sell" adventurers land. I'd let them meet up with Noble McFancypants who is in need of "homesteaders" to basically kill all the dangerous stuff on his land so that he can secure it and call it his own. If the players fail, the Lord loses nothing. If they succeed, they now have earned themselves a rival/ally, depending on if the Lord is good natured and lets them "keep" the land so long as they secure it, or tries to take it back once they clean it up.

I've sold land to players before though, but it's still generally a preface to some kind of plot hook. IE: they have to find Child McNobleson who was the last owners great-great-grandson (and now is the default owner) and get that person to sign off on the sale. Or maybe get a forger to attempt to forge a signature and possibly get themselves hooked in with a bandit or crime lord. The actual "exchange of money" isn't the point of giving players land, it's to give them tangible investment in the gameworld.

 

[SwivSnapshot]

China I am thinking has been filled up for quite as well, just the same for Europe and Japan. I threw in Australia in comparison since it is quite the opposite.

But, filled up applies to habitable or positionally valuable land. I would think there are huge swaths of desert and mountain which are rather empty and would be cheap to acquire.

Thx!
TomB

Take a look at western China on Google Maps- the parts that aren't desert are mountains, so it's more like Australia then you might think.

 

[aramis erak]

Given that the GP is roughly one shilling from the Domesday Book's prices... A small holding, Thaxted, was £30 to £60... and would be a 7 acres or so... it was associated with a town, in Essex...

a little math 20s per £, so 600 gp for 7 acres of manor... looks like about 85 GP per acre for the manor.

City land was considerably more (about 10x as much as manorland).

Note that purchase still meant owing military service, and tax revenues, as well... So the value of land was highly depressed by owed services, and was essentially purchasing a perpetual lease... with annual payments owed often half to double the cost of initiation...

So, for game terms ...

I'd put property without service owed at about the same as the value, so double the cost. Without your peasant's having to contribute, base value again.
So about 3x...

call it 250 GP an acre... for manor land, no strings attached.

Urban land would routinely go for 10x that inside the walls, 5x that outside

Renting would be about 1/6 to 1/2 the purchase price... plus an initial down of half that.

It's one data point, sure... but it is a data point that matches several others, but others I cant find at the moment, and is consistent with Gygaxian pricing modality.

And, given the 10 GP income per person for vassals in D&D OE... that's about £1 per two persons... that's also not too far out for Domesday Book incomes, so...

 

[aramis erak]

The same is true in Alaska. There are places (not even far from civilization) that you can simply go out to an put a house on and after 5 years of homesteading it's yours.

Not true. Homesteading was ended some time ago. Last one awarded was 1988. https://www.alaskacenters.gov/homestead.cfm

 

[Hand of Evil]

There is a saying, location, location, location... I think I would come up with a system based on population density, where pop is equal to X.GP per Acre. Example: if you have a wilderness area where there is 1 person for every 100 acre, an acre of land would be 1SP. Now, you can then add to that as demand goes up, example would be resources that the land provides.

Also, don't confuse homesteading with squatter rights.

 

[aramis erak]

Also, don't confuse homesteading with squatter rights.

Which also don't exist in Alaska...
http://www.landlordstation.com/blog/what-are-squatters-rights-in-alaska/

Which said linked article gives a good (if brief) overview of the concepts of adverse possession.

 

[S'mon]

For my new Nentir Vale game I'm working in Manors of 1 square mile, 640 acres, that being enough farmland to support a Lance - a mounted armoured knight & 4 infantry/hobilars, with around 100 peasants. Being Points of Light the main restriction is population, not land, but a manor will have a nominal income of around 1,000gp/year (using OD&D's 10gp/person/year), and I guess is likely worth around 20,000gp if you wanted to buy a manor for cash.