Architect Archive
Thread: Topic: Architect Open for Business Selling House Deeds etc KAURI
What about the Architects/crafters below you who understand to not flood that now have no choice but to craft/destroy?
You'll be rich...and bored.
Heh yes...I too am wondering where this guy is getting all his resources. I have 2 accounts...7 ore harvesters, 3 steel, a few others placed, and am pulling in enough ore per day for 4 houses. (5-6 if I macro sample with one account).
Really the only thing slowing down my progress is resources. Once I get to large harvesters the rest will go *really* fast.
But unless this person has multiple accounts or a pa providing his material, he isn't gonna be making any 10 houses a day.
I'm an arch on same server, I don't see the problem with his approach - if somebody really feels strongly they can simply work out deal to buy everything he puts out and resell it. Personally I'm selling them for 10k, that's approx 3c per resource or however you want to work it out and have 4 or 5 orders so far today, which is more than I can do having no PA feeding me 
Which means I'll probably raise the price to where I get orders about the rate I can fulfill them. I think that we will see a long term market settle in though because of the maint costs and people being people and wanting to do things like move the house or get a different look etc. Not to mention the battle related structures and when resources all swap around things like that.
I happen to be on Corellia - Kauri if there are interested people in the small house or equipment factory deeds.
Jeez.
Ok lets calm down a sec.
I am not trying to ruin a marketplace. The fact is, once I get a PA Hall I will probably stop making houses at all.
I am not "flooding the market". I too can only realistically make3-5 houses a day, with some guildmates donating lots for harvesters. The point about 10 harvesters was an example, not what I am really doing. In the next few days I wil be making a factory or two and will not be making houses much after that. There are going to be hundreds of houses placed on this server in the comming months, and I will only get a small percentage of that business.
As for what a "good" price is for a house...who's to decide this?
I enjoy making things for people. I dont want to sell "1 house a day to pay for my harvesters". I like selling to as many people as possible. I like repeat customers. I like referrals. I like people thanking me for their house.
I don't want to make enemies of the other architects either though. Your threat to "run me out of business" is hollow, as I can price as cheaply as anyone.
However, I will raise my prices on all new orders. After today I willincrease my price to 10k.This I will do untilthe point when I start loosing orders to other architects, which I bet will be within the next day or two.
It was never my intention to try and make life hard on other architects, and I know that what I am doing is sustainable and profitable, because I am doing it now. When I hear sob stories from other architects about ruining thier business and pricing too low I know its BS...I am making plenty of money selling at the price I have.
Here is my costs so you can see the profit I am making:
15 Harvesters: @ 1100/day = $16,500/day
8@ 63% Ore = 14541 ore = 6 houses/day
6 houses x 7000cr = 42,000cr
25,500cr a day in profit
Is that too little to live on?
Lets assume you have no one donating lots :
10 Harvesters = 11,000cr/day
5Ore Harvesters at 60% = 8640/day = 3.5 houses per day
3.5x7000= 24500cr
13500cr profit
Your saying 13500cr profit per day is going to put you out of business?
People keep teeling me to price things accordingly...well I'm open to reason here. What is the RIGHT price? How much profit is the right profit?
If you want me to raise prices in order to restrict the amount of houses placed on the server you are fooling yourself. If there is a demand, it will be met, by me, you , or someone who makes an architect next week. It is IMPOSSIBLE to keep people from getting what they want.
I actually think alot of this is based on playtime and amount of help architects are getting. I have another person helping me place, but he needs the resources to advance too, so I'm mostly using my own. Your equations simply aren't correct just listing ore, you know it takes more than ore to build a house. So you have less ore harvesters. A person with a harv in each of the required minerals with the rest in ore is NOT going to make but ONE house a day. And that's if they play alot.
I was going to try to sell my houses at 10k, but it's not worth the work and resources I put into them. Look at armorcrafters. They get like anywhere from 4 to 10 credits per piece of armor. AND they can craft them a HELL of alot faster than we can make a house. People are paying those prices. This suggests that people would be fine saving up for a house. I mean really, it IS a HOUSE. It's permanent, it's a spot in the world for them. Anyone that played UO knows how important your house is to you.
I understand the getting XP part, we all need that right now. But, we need to find a median between too much, which leaves us no customers, or too little, which undercuts our fellow architects.
I and many others feel 20k is a good price for our effort. I think people that have access to more resources and harvesters feel that 10k is good for their effort. I'm spending 1800 right now on a trip to another planet to search for more ore, it'll be 1800 for me to get back to my home planet. 3600. A house isn't worth a third of a trip to another planet, on any sort of scale, so there's something off.
At least thanks for agreeing to sell at 10k.
I'm not here to offend anybody... Shen i like your thinking and your determination.. I would love to have someone like you in my clan one day
Yes of course it takes more than ore to build a house. It takes steel and a dab of chemical. But the ore is the limiting factor because it is hard to find, and you need so much of it. If you have the ore, the rest is easy.
A lone architect can make 3.5 houses a day with a 60% ore spot. Thats 7 houses every 2 days, or 21 a week.
5 harvesters on 60% ore spot = 8640/day
2 harvesters on a 80%+ steel spot = 4608/day (for the metal and steel components)
Spend 2 hours a week on a chemical spot sampling and you have your chemical.
Thats it, easy as pie. No fuss no muss. Don't tell me this is HARD.
Shen,
The reason your houses are underpriced is your not looking at the profit margins properly.
You need to remember that the Resource gathering is a seperate step. The fact that you do it yourself is a bonus to you, but you are still working for too little money.
Your profit margin should be 100-200% for the Resources, then from that cost, 100-200% for the final cost.
If it costs you 3500 credits in Maintenance, etc. to gather the resources, then you should count the cost of the resources as 7000 to 10,500. So then when you build the house you will be using resources with the adjusted cost of 7000 to 10,500, meaning you will sell the house for 14,000 minimum, and 31,500 maximum.
The reason for this is if you are doing two jobs, you should get paid for them. If someone else was supplying you with the resources then you would be able to make twice as many houses. And you would have to pay at least 2 times the cost to mine resources in order to buy them.
Shen please stop this madness. Yes you are right you don't have to price your houses right, but if you don't I will do everything within my power to undercut you and drive you out of buisness and then once you are out of buisness I will start priceing houses correctly.
If this happens niether one of us wins. You probably have poeple that help you out on resouces, but I do too. I was hoping you would listen to reason and price things accordingly.So again please price things correctly you are hurting all Architects on Kauri.
You know you can sell one house and pay for all your harvesters if you price them right. A house should not be a door prized, they should be earned.
All Architects on Kauri pls lets drive this guy out of buisness if he doens't stop this madness. Because if we don't our profession is in big trouble. I am sure Shen that you have played EQ and you have seen the prices of Armor drop drasticly due to irresponsible crafters undercutting.
Pls Shen I hate to "threaten to drive out of buisness" but come on man pls be kind to others of your profession. I don't want this to be an EQ economie and be screwed .
Armand Nightstalker
Novice Architect
Server-Kauri
Planet Naboo
City Theed.
Ah, GuiJan - but that's where your own logic kills your argument. Shen has cut out the middle-man. Therefore he can afford to charge much lower prices.
Come on folks - in the "real world", we don't get 100-500% profit margins. If we're lucky, we get 20% profit margins. Don't tell me all of you are junior high school kids and don't know this.
The market will settle down to an appropriate price. If we charge too much, people won't buy, if we charge too little, poo on us.
The only "bad" price is to charge less than it costs you to make. And even that can be good for the short term in a competitive market.
Shen's already seen that he can probably easily make more money upping his price. After he meets the committment's he has already made, he'll be responding to market demand. Wow. Capitalism at its best.
I am a new architect on Kauri, so I am in direct competition with Shen. But honestly im not the least bit upset with his pricing. The more houses he sells, which at best will be 3 per day because of resource constraints, the more folks will want them. With 10,000 people on a server it would take Shen 10 years to make everyone a house, I doubt most people willing to wait more than a week to get a bargain, when cash is so easy to come by.
One flaw in the material list ive noticed is there is no mention of power, to run 5 ore harvesters, and 2 steel haveresters youre going to need at a minimum 2 good power producing generators, also, thank God it doesnt happen a lot, but youre going to have critical failures, not only of the sub assemblies, but occasionally of the final combination. Thats 3388 resources gone ina heartbeat, not to mention the power used to produce all that.
Shen is also tying up 9 of his 10 plots by doing things this way, if he wants to set up a shop and have a vendor sell the deeds, thats number 10, no palacial home plot left.
Shen can spend his time in game doing what he enjoys, personally for me running to collect power to distribute to harvesters, collecting materials from harvesters, surveying the rest of the stuff and all the combinations are too time intensive not to make some good money from it.
I am happy to let those that want cheap houses buy from Shen, get on the list now. Want a house in a day or 2 give me an email, but don't whine when you seea 15000 price tag on it.
Nyca
Ah but Tamber in the real world we don't have a chance of a critical fail destroy that house we just had built either. (I suppose an earthquake or hurricane might count but most people carry insurance for that reason.)
Also you have to allow some profit to be spent for training costs. Finding player trainers in master professions is not as easy as finding them in novice professions, and unless they are in your PA, more likely to charge at least a little bit.
When you factor in those two things, that so called 100-200% profit margin drops drastically.
Then you have to consider how much your time is worth. Architects do spend quite a bit of time running around to harvesters and hand sampling. If you are going to compare this game to real life, then that 20% maximum profit margin would have to include labor right?
Let's forget the real life economics since they don't really apply here. Look at the game economy. With expert skill in any weapon (most fighter types are beyond that by now), you can do 2 easy destroy missions paying 1200 credits each in a half hour or so. That's 4800 credits an hour give or take. So thats what you need to base prices on to find a market. How many hours are people prepared to "work" to buy your product? And how many hours SHOULD someone have to "work" to afford your product?