Real Estate Ideas
Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 4:14 am
I think that real estate and buying/selling land is a great feature of the game. I have a few suggestions on how to expand the real estate functionality in Cap Lab and offer improved realism.
Sale/Leaseback
It would be great in the early game when strapped for cash if you could sell a building to AI then lease it back for say a 5 year term. You would retain the use of all training invested up to that point, but could possibly lose it if you do not buy back the building or renew the lease at the end of 5 years. For retail stores, perhaps there could be a percentage rent component where the landlord receives a cut of the retail sales above a certain threshold. Alternatively, players with excess cash could buy up retail stores and factories from AI and lease it back for steady cash flow. Rents should be correlated to interest rates, the state of the economy, and of course supply and demand.
Ground Lease
In order to be able to buy up land without locking up a bunch of money, it would be nice to be able to lease a parcel of land to a competitor or local firm to generate some cash instead of solely relying on price appreciation. These leases should be long term like 10 to 20 years and at the end of the term the landlord keeps any building or improvements built on the parcel.
New Property Types - Mixed Use and Hotel
Finally, to expand the Real Estate component of the game, how about new property types like Mixed Use centers and Hotels. Mixed use could have a mix of apartments and office with the ability to sell one or two retail products. They would need to take up a large parcel like 5x5 or so. Hotels could be placed near service or tourism businesses if these were ever offered, and like it real life would have extremely volatile earnings based on the state of the economy.
Sale/Leaseback
It would be great in the early game when strapped for cash if you could sell a building to AI then lease it back for say a 5 year term. You would retain the use of all training invested up to that point, but could possibly lose it if you do not buy back the building or renew the lease at the end of 5 years. For retail stores, perhaps there could be a percentage rent component where the landlord receives a cut of the retail sales above a certain threshold. Alternatively, players with excess cash could buy up retail stores and factories from AI and lease it back for steady cash flow. Rents should be correlated to interest rates, the state of the economy, and of course supply and demand.
Ground Lease
In order to be able to buy up land without locking up a bunch of money, it would be nice to be able to lease a parcel of land to a competitor or local firm to generate some cash instead of solely relying on price appreciation. These leases should be long term like 10 to 20 years and at the end of the term the landlord keeps any building or improvements built on the parcel.
New Property Types - Mixed Use and Hotel
Finally, to expand the Real Estate component of the game, how about new property types like Mixed Use centers and Hotels. Mixed use could have a mix of apartments and office with the ability to sell one or two retail products. They would need to take up a large parcel like 5x5 or so. Hotels could be placed near service or tourism businesses if these were ever offered, and like it real life would have extremely volatile earnings based on the state of the economy.