The views in this piece exclusively reflect the opinions and experiences of KangarooJackNicholson, and do not reflect other staff writers, nor the Earth2 team.
While much of the Earth2 community prepares for the upcoming opening of the United Arab Emirates (and by extension, Dubai), I have been one of many people scouring the marketplace, in hopes of finding competitive deals from those who want more buying power for the UAE. I tend to go through each nation at least 2-3 times per week, to look at the cheapest overall deals and cheapest class one properties available. I recently noticed that I am in the habit of completely skipping over one nation, for cost and liquidity reasons, and that is the United States.
Those fortunate enough to buy tiles during November and December saw the white hot ascent of United States tiles, which recently passed the $50 USD threshold per tile. The next most expensive nation at the time of this writing is Italy at $15.194 per tile. With such a high price relative to other nations, many of those holding United States tiles see an opportunity to make a tremendous profit, but are also competing with others trying to do the same. There are multiple pages of discounts exceeding 70% against new tile price. Large discounts aside, many of these properties are hundreds, or even thousands of dollars, reducing the number of potential buyers.
To try to grasp how the United States tile market has changed in the last three months, I found a 12 tile class two plot in Manhattan, which had most recently sold for $250.00 ($20.83 per tile) on January 10th. Meanwhile, there is a seven tile class two plot currently being offered for $100 ($14.286 per tile) as of March 12th. These are similar plots in term of shape (largely rectangular but not perfect), surrounded by other properties, and in the heart of Manhattan. No two properties are alike, and any particular buyer might find one property interesting compared to another for personal reasons, but I still find this comparison fascinating. If that 12 tile plot were listed at $250 today, the property would find itself multiple pages behind the top discounts.
What does this mean for those of us holding United States tiles? Are those who bought in the United States most recently doomed to sell at a loss? The answer is no, if you’re willing to hold true to a common rallying cry in the official Discord and hold (err, HODL). The marketplace is going to continue to be tough for sellers of the United States, but there are three major events which will help generate movement for United States tiles, and return the marketplace to lower percentage discounts. First, the opening of the UAE will be a tremendous pressure release. Those holding onto cash at the moment may not get all of the tiles they had planned to get, and will return to the marketplace to look in other nations. Second, the upcoming Easter Egg hunt may generate new activity among the current user base, or bring in new users entirely. Last, the continued purchasing of tiles in other nations will continue to push prices closer to the United States (albeit slowly), reducing the extreme disparity and relative cost of the United States.
To argue that United States tiles are too expensive is not new or interesting, but to consider the future of that particular tile is important, especially as new users join (including new users from the USA). In the interest of full transparency, I avoided buying United States tiles back on 12/19 because I thought it was too expensive, yet yesterday I bought six class three tiles in America at a tremendous discount. That’s one less heavily discounted property on the front page, a bit of money for the seller to invest elsewhere (yes, maybe even Dubai), and hopefully some future profitability for me. All I have to do is HODL.
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