Topic

Managing items when selling a home

Hi,

I realized when I sold my first home in-world today that I apparently lost the items that I hadn't remembered to grab. Part of it was stupidity - my own fault, I fully admit :) - but I do think others can and will run into this issue when they "move" in-world.

Could we perhaps have a warning that we will lose items? Perhaps with an option to cancel and grab the items before selling the home? If not, another option could be that all of the items belonging to the owner could be returned upon sale of the home. I realize that this causes some issues, because the reason I stored items in my home was that my bag was full. But I do think there needs to be some sort of method to return most (if not all) of the items to an owner once they leave the home - or at least a warning that they're about to lose their stuff.

I'm hoping the current owner of my old home will be online at some point so that I can ask him or her if I can have my items back, but I know in a real-world environment, people would capitalize upon their good fortune and immediately sell the "free" items for a profit.

I understand it's in alpha - no harm, no foul. :) Just a suggestion.

Posted 2 years ago by Aerin Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Sorry I forgot to remind you of that before I pointed you to the sell button. :(

    I think one possible solution would be to have all items in the house get saved when you sell your house, and then when you buy your next house all your items will appear in a little (or big) pile by the entrance for you to organize accordingly?

    --Removed a rude, off topic, remark that was here. Sorry, Aerin.--
    Posted 2 years ago by Catriona Subscriber! | Permalink
  • --removing this post because poster above me decided to edit their response which made my response look strange/out-of-place/weird--
    Posted 2 years ago by Aerin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think it was mentioned earlier that there could be a "moving" service. Or perhaps a storage service? It offers to hold it for you for X currants before you sell, and when you get a new house, you get your stuff back.
    Posted 2 years ago by Bingobar Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't like the idea where items left behind in a sold house appear at your new house. I think a warning message and storage service is better. If you sell your home with stuff in it, too bad.

    I'm just a sucker for the realism aspect :P
    Posted 2 years ago by Jeff Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I learned my lesson by selling my home...You could hear that head slap all around Glitch land...
    Would I move from my real home and just leave it all behind...Not all....As I have left tons to peeps who did buy my houses.. by choice.....but......This is a game based on thinking...So I took my loses and put up a posty note...lol and added one for my group under discussions.
    Posted 2 years ago by Tilly TrinkleHouse Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Dizzy, I actually had luck waiting for the new owner to come online. I was able to get all of my stuff back just by asking. The benefit of a small community right now is that people are more likely to say, "Sure" when you ask if you can have your items back. :) This obviously won't persist when the game goes public (you'll get more of a "too bad, so sad, I'm selling/keeping your stuff" reaction), but my hope is that they'll refine home sales before everything goes public.
    Posted 2 years ago by Aerin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree Aerin,,,they did nod to some possible solutions awhile back. I had to just accept my loss because I had not written down the addy and had just purchased it before new run....But I did get a full current refund when they reset...so I was very grateful for that! Now I write down the addy and remember to pack up before I sell.....If I did buy a house and it had extras in it....I would ask previous owner if they left it by accident......or hope they would contact me to retrieve,but I know I would leave gifts behind cause it's always a pleasant surprise for the newbie owner too..Which maybe the button idea would give that choice too!
    Posted 2 years ago by Tilly TrinkleHouse Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I just realized that an effective solution could be to have the sell button grayed out until the player checks a check box labeled "Yes, I understand that if I still have items in the house, they will be sold with the house unless I remove them."

    When a player checks the box, the button becomes available for clicking.

    It's a quick fix (just adding a sentence to whatever source page has the sell button and a few tags and some lines of javascript), and it'll work... for now, at least. ^^

    Oh, and by the way, I'd like to apologize for how I was acting on Sunday, Aerin. I hope you can forgive me?
    Posted 2 years ago by Catriona Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I just did this same thing, sold my house and purchased a new one with items still left in the old one. Now they are gone? There has got to be a better way!
    Posted 15 months ago by JosephPaul Subscriber! | Permalink
  • That was close, sold my new house and re-purchased my old house and collected my things. Waste of money? Maybe, but what I left was worth more than the loss.
    Posted 15 months ago by JosephPaul Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Whew.. I'm glad I read up on the forums before selling my house. This thread was started 14 months back, and yet... hmmm.
    Posted 14 months ago by Asid Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yeah, I'm glad I checked first.. Although, it is odd there's no way to move your things automatically, if you're moving into a house with an equal or greater amount of storage.
    Posted 14 months ago by Azh Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Someone posted a tip on the general board that you can list most of your belongings on the Auction Hall at ridiculous prices and then just cancel your auctions when you get to your new home. You will pay a small listing fee for doing this, but it might be worth it.
    Posted 14 months ago by TRB4 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @TRB4: On a side-note, one of my friends did that - only, while she was moving house, someone actually bought the item at the ridiculous price.  Dunno if that's a good or bad thing - but at least she made back her listing fee!
    Posted 14 months ago by Lara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • In real life, some people make use of temporary storage facilities to stash their stuff in between moving out of one house and moving into another—because it's not possible to carry all of your possessions together in real life either;)

    How about a similar in-game location where items can be stored, for a fee in currants? Items can be placed there before selling your existing house, and can later be retrieved when you've bought a new house; the fee could be charged at this stage.
    Posted 14 months ago by Leo Spaceman Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like both the Moving Van idea and the Storage Unit idea. 
    Posted 14 months ago by ✰ Lorelei ✰ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Please consider implementing some change to help us move. I'd like to have secure storage when I'm homeless or a way to move without a period of homelessness or both. There are several related threads in this forum and General.

    With some desirable houses selling quickly and not coming on the market often, we need to be able to move quickly to get them and can't schedule one of the player-created moving and storage businesses and won't necessarily have friends online. If I have more than I can carry, I have to sell the excess, place it on auction, hide it, or trust someone with it and sell my house without knowing if I'll be quick enough to buy the new home I want.  Or I do all that ahead of time and go homeless while I wait for a house to come up for sale.

    I think the simplest solution is an atomic (in one action) buy-and-sell on the realty page, with the moveable contents of the old house auto-moved to the new.  If that's out of the question, storage-even inaccessible storage-or temporary access to both homes would also make me happy. Any change would make moving more attractive and I think the real-estate market more fluid.

    If there were more houses on the market or if houses didn't have a physical location this would be less important but not irrelevant.  If street projects or group hall projects encourage us to stockpile large quantities of items this may be even more important.
    Posted 13 months ago by Zauberberg Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Can you drop stuff at a friend's place?

    Having a rentable short-term storage facility for DIY moving, or the 3 Crocs & A Truck moving van service (with some breakage and tips expected, of course) would be interesting.
    Posted 13 months ago by Tsu Dho Nimh Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Maybe one day we can purchase Portable Holes to store stuff in while we move households. :)
    Posted 13 months ago by ✰ Lorelei ✰ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Another option would be to have one of those Pods that people use for moving. You can borrow one when you start looking for a house, fill it up, and pay rent on it while you look. Then when you move the pod and everything in it gets taken to the new house. Everything outside of it is left. It has the advantage of letting you be ready for a quick buy and still be able to leave something for future buyers.
    Posted 13 months ago by Bookwyrm Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i agree- I am having nightmares about considering moving , just because of this " cant- carry- all -my- stuff " issue. And yes stockpiling affects, i'm saving some stuff for a group hall project,and have no place for it.
    Posted 13 months ago by serenitycat Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The Moving Pod would be an excellent idea ... with one rule to prevent it from being used as random storage. It has to go into a house, and things in it can't be removed until it shows up at the new house.

    Maybe it would be easier to just transfer all the stuff from House A to house B, and pile it in the living room for the Glitch to sort through. When you sell, your stuff from the sold house goes into limbo, and it pops up in the new place.
    Posted 13 months ago by Tsu Dho Nimh Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Perhaps Moving Pods would be time-restricted to 2-3 Glitch days, after which your stuff reverts to your current home. That would be more than enough time to settle on a new home and move.

    If you remain homeless, then only as much stuff as can fit in your slots would come back to you, so you need to be warned about the possibility when renting a Pod.
    Posted 13 months ago by ✰ Lorelei ✰ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • One thing we *desperately* need is the ability to put a down-payment on a property you want to move to, then have, say, 15 minutes in which to sell your old place and complete the transaction. I finally went through the pain to assemble trusted friends and dozens of big bags and stuffed everything in them, only to find that the houses that had been available just 5 minutes earlier, which I'd wanted to buy, were suddenly gone.  So.... no house, stuff in too many bags to carry, good thing we can have friends give us keys to their place now so I can pile up my bags somewhere while I wait for a place to become available.

    I would have been happy to put down even a non-refundable deposit, if it could have held the property for me for a few minutes.  I'm bummed.
    Posted 13 months ago by Eleanor Rigby Subscriber! | Permalink