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Land Value Abuse:
- Land can be bought and sold freely and instantly. There is somehow always a ready buyer for land regardless of it's location or the time of day.
- Buildings can be constructed instantly. A skyscraper can spring into being overnight to the shock and wonder of anybody who went to bed with a clear view out their window.
- Buildings change the value of the land around them: Apartments, Retail, and Commercial buildings elevate it, but Farms and Mines lower it. Often this effect is subtle, sometimes it is not.
And nobody cares.
It's free money, and that's what matters!
But skyscrapers are expensive. You can offset a lot of the construction costs in this way, but can you truly profit?
Also, if it is to be repeatable, you're going to be doing a LOT of demolishing, so you can't use skyscrapers. You need something cheaper.
My initial forays into abusing the land value mechanics began when I saw that R&D centers placed near HQs caused a noticeable jump in land value in the area between. I was unable to reliably profit from this though, since R&D centers are expensive. The repeated construction and demolition of Research Labs tanked my monthly profits though, incurring massive write-offs even though any losses in my actual cash value were minimal. (This caused a -50% drop in my stock price over the next few months despite no monetary losses, allowing me to more easily buy up stock to consolidate company ownership, but that's it's own separate exploit)
Listed here are the successful Land Value Abuse techniques I've been able to develop.
- Farm Fraud.
My first major success happened when I tried playing the land-value game in reverse: I built a farm, bought the reduced-price land around it, demolished the farm, and then after the land values sprung back to the city default, sold the land for profit . Building and demolishing the farm incurred a write-off of about $1 million, but the impact in the tiles surrounding the farm (up to 4 tiles distance) was enough to cause a land-value rebound worth about $3.5 million, giving a net profit of $2.5 million. If I do that 400 more times I'll be a billionaire!
-To do this on a large scale, find the most expensive city on the map, and build a row of farms gapped at least 4 spaces apart. Mass-buy all the land within 4 tiles of a farm, then demolish them all. Sell the rebounded land at a profit. Annoyingly, you have to keep opening and closing the firm menus, and switch back and forth between construction, and land buying and land selling. Is there a lazier method available? - Computer/Sports Store Demolition
I experimented with finding land-value synergies between different buildings, and found the most potent effect came from the 3x3 Commercial building. Building any retail store nearby resulted in large land value gains in the areas of overlapping influence. Computer and Sports stores are half-priced compared to regular 3x3 buildings, so they were ideal for minimizing my demolition write-offs while maximizing the affected land. However, in my first test, because of the habits gained from Farm Fraud, I placed the Sports Store before buying the surrounding land. With the land value already inflated, it was pointless to buy anything, so I demolished the store. But I noticed something: The land sale was higher than what it had been when I bought the store. Not a lot, so I still lost money, but it gave me an idea: what if build the store next to the Commercial building? When a Firm gets demolished, the land somehow gets sold BEFORE the demolition completes and lowers the land value.
So...if I can maximize the price difference under the firm's footprint, I can buy and sell the land in two easy actions!
-To do this on a large scale...you can't really. Just one store at a time. But it's quick! Just build it next to the Commercial Building, then immediately demolish it. Earn yourself a nice $2-3 million profit while minimizing your clicking. Apparently you sell the land before the building vanishes, like the magic trick of pulling a tablecloth out from underneath the plates and glasses of a set table. - Mansion Popping
Earning money from demolishing your own stores is all well and good, but this only increases your COMPANY's assets, not your personal cash! We all know that the true purpose of your business is to funnel cash directly into your personal bank account, but your salary dribbles in so slowly, and Dividends give some of your profits away to other people.
If only there were a more direct way...
What if...what if you take the Store-Demolition trick...but use it on your personal Mansion!
Do mansions even benefit from Commercial Buildings? Yes. Yes they do.
Build a Mansion next to your commercial building, and then immediately demolish/sell the land. You of course want to make sure you do this with the building that gives you the largest land area for the lowest price, so Mansion #3 on the list will do. A 3x3 for as cheap as you can get.
Build it and then demolish it for another $2-3 million in profit (depending on the city). But this time it's your personal cash!
Repeat this as many times as your wrist will allow, and you'll earn more than enough money for your carpal tunnel surgery. - Hybrid Method
Personal profit is great, but if you can make a profit from the Mansion's footprint alone, then how big is the effect on the surrounding land?
Substantial.
Buying the land in the overlap zone before building the Mansion earns you a 60% gain in value in the adjacent 2 squares! (though this falls off with distance) All told, I could gain about $15 million in company profit from selling the land after building the Mansion (in a cost 84 city). My company profits when I build the Mansion, and my wallet profits when I demolish it.
The only downsides are that your company no longer gets to pretend its losing money from demolition write-offs (the expenses are all coming out of your wallet), and it's also a lot more clicking. It's not nearly as quick as the Build/Demolish cycle for mansions alone, but it does create the highest land value spike that I've been seen so far, and it would be a shame not to let your company profit from that.
Aside from the initial thrill of being able to earn enough cash to buy my company 100%, they were boring, repetitive and not very fun. Not sure I'd recommend it to anybody who values their wrists and sanity. But if you want to create money from nothing, then this is your ticket.
In conclusion, all of this works because land is instantly and infinitely sellable, and you can freely manipulate its price while the clock is frozen.
