Real estate in Sigil? - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Real estate in Sigil?

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
zombiegleemax
Aug 10, 2004 4:34:08 So I've been trying to get a rough idea of how Sigil's economy works, because my players are interested in buying or renting property in the Cage at this point in our game. I've looked through the books, but it hasn't been any help yet. I could just make something up, but part of the fun of being the DM is making the world realistic and consistent, so I thought I'd solicit other opinions. Two questions:

1. How much would you say buying land in Sigil would cost? It's quite geographically restricted, which means it'll definitely be dear. Varies quite a bit per ward, of course.

2. What sort of property taxes would the Fated charge every month (or two weeks)? According to the Manifesto, increases in taxes have to be approved by the Hall of Speakers, so the answer isn't just "whatever they can get away with", at least not officially.

Thanks!
#2
Shemeska_the_Marauder
Aug 10, 2004 5:02:25 I'll assume that you're running a pre-FW campaign? If it's post FW, then taxes by the Fated won't be much of an issue ;)

Land is going to be sodding expensive to buy. Leasing on the other hand won't be as expensive, but it'll be higher than most any place. Best place to get land to own in Sigil is by either being given it by the current owner for some deed done for them, inheriting it upon a person's death, etc. On the open market in Sigil one of the Golden Lords (Jeremo, Estevan, Zadara) or one of the not so 'golden' lords (Shemeska) will snap it up like plucking grapes off the vine, cost be damned.

Of course, some wards will cost more than others:

Lady's Ward: effectively impossible to buy, and terribly expensive to rent

Lower Ward: less prime property, but demand is high from different sorts of people. Renting will be fairly easy if you can get past the soot and smog.

Clerk's Ward: Somewhere inbetween the Lower Ward and The Lady's Ward in terms of cost and availability. Areas near the border with the Hive will be much easier to get and cheaper to get.

Market Ward: Land is less an issue of ownership then space is an issue. In the Great Bazaar you can pitch a tent for a day and sell stuff for a while without much of a problem, just don't expect to be there permenantly. The downwards (as opposed to Spireward) end of the ward is also going to have open land as many merchants (including the Planar Trade Consortium) move out of Sigil and no longer need many of the land now occupied by their wharehouses.

Guildhall Ward: Difficult to own or rent without guild sponsorship, and they probably have been buying up most of any land that hits the market in order to fill their coffers by renting it out. If a guild likes you and what you want to do, you can probably rent easily.

The Hive: A squatters paradise. Possession is 9/10 of the law, especially here. You own it if you can keep it in your hands. A legitimate establishment will probably need city sanction for 'ownership' just to make sure you have legal protection if anyone tries to burn it down around antipeak. Certain districts will be easier to buy or rent: the gray district being the high end most likely, and the Xaos district the low end (The Slags being a seperate entry here).

The Hive (The Slags): umm... you barmy? Uhh... go right ahead and go in there and own whatever you like. I'm sure Kadyx will be a pleasant neighbor *tout goes running for their life*
#3
zombiegleemax
Aug 11, 2004 5:36:43 I generally allow a small, modest bit of property to be bought for at most, several thousand gold (price varies according to the size of the plot and the ward) fairly easily, if the characters are willing to stomach the time-consuming beaurocracy involved in the whole deal. Commoners live all over the place in Sigil (aside from the lady's ward) so I figure it must be possible to move into the city. I also figure most people don't want to live permanently in Sigil, since there's undoubtedly an outer plane that would suit most people better. If you're a nice, upstanding, hard-working reputable fletcher for instance, why would you live in Sigil, when you can live on Bytopia, in a town near a portal to Sigil?

The Hive has tons of crappy land anyone can squat on, but I can't imagine the rest of Sigil (sans Lady's War) is so expensive that only the rich and PC-class characters can afford it. If it was so expensive and so rare, there'd be virtually no stationary population. Space is limited, but much of the population currently in the city at any given time is transient. If people can make a living staying in Sigil and selling fish, selling pies and other baked goods, selling their time as carpenters, etc. Then I assume that PC adventurers, people who are several thousand times richer on average than most of the commoners already living there, can certainly buy property. A couple grand ought to get a plot, with a house, and if need be, let one family of commoners retire for the next 17 generations.

If you want property in the Lady's Ward, that's going to turn into a series of adventures with huge amounts of money being manipulated and fought for.
#4
zombiegleemax
Aug 11, 2004 8:44:18 Let us not forget that Sigil itself is quite capable of expanding to provide more space, if needed.
#5
ohtar_turinson
Aug 11, 2004 10:26:59
Originally posted by mrgoat
The Hive has tons of crappy land anyone can squat on, but I can't imagine the rest of Sigil (sans Lady's War) is so expensive that only the rich and PC-class characters can afford it. If it was so expensive and so rare, there'd be virtually no stationary population. Space is limited, but much of the population currently in the city at any given time is transient. If people can make a living staying in Sigil and selling fish, selling pies and other baked goods, selling their time as carpenters, etc. Then I assume that PC adventurers, people who are several thousand times richer on average than most of the commoners already living there, can certainly buy property. A couple grand ought to get a plot, with a house, and if need be, let one family of commoners retire for the next 17 generations.

Most of those people don't own property. They rent it from the Golden Lords, or some other landlord- like they would living in a city now. New York City is very expensive to live in, but that doesn't stop it from having a population of around eight million. The vast majority of people living in New York City rent property, no matter how long their family's lived there. The deal is the same in London, or Tokyo, or any other major city you can think of- the land is extraordinarily expensive, and in the hands of the people with lots of money, unless its in a poor neighborhood (sort of like the hive).

The PCs are wealthy perhaps... but they aren't spending all their time making money. If Zadara, or Estavan or Shemeskra was to get in a bidding war with even an epic character, they'd crush them like bugs. They've got the jink to do whatever they choose, and no PC can match it unless they run similar operations- which would be a unique campaign, like none I've ever played.

Did that make any sense at all? I'm a little tired here.
#6
Shemeska_the_Marauder
Aug 11, 2004 14:20:08 It's pretty accurate. Land is typically rented or inherited, or in rare cases gifted to a person by one of those few overwhelmingly wealthy persons. Not hard to live there, but that's when renting, not buying. The various conditions vary by ward.
#7
zombiegleemax
Aug 11, 2004 18:14:37 That's why I charge a few thousand gold to outright buy some property in Sigil. That's more money than most commoners will ever dream of their entire family ever having. PC's tend to be very, very high on the scale of wealth, just from the fact that they deal mainly in gold an platinum, not shaved coppers and bits of barter. Why shouldn't they be able to buy property? If I had a couple million sitting around in expendable income, I bet I could manage to eventually buy a little tiny bit of space in NYC. Extending the analogy, the few silvers, or even a gold, maybe two(!!) a month the commoners can afford when renting property is like the 800$ a month someone might pay in rent for a crappy squat in NY. An adventurer can make a couple hundred thousand times that silver in a week, if they're canny and they're really trying to make a profitable life for themselves. (And they're not really low-level at the time).

Your regular commoners, who don't adventure, and don't gain levels can be assumed to have a steady 5-20 gold. (According to the DMG). Let's assume a hundred-fold inflation on wealth and rent in sigil. 500-2,000 gold? We'll keep the PC's at reccomended wealth levels, (making them effectively 100 times "poorer" than they would be if they stayed exclusively in Sigil at equivalent levels.) At 10th level, according to the DMG, they should have 49,000 gold. A commoner can then pay about 100 gold a month, for the lowest non-hive residence (all this still assuming wicked inflation, just 'cause it's sigil).

These are all rough numbers, but if you can pay the first year's rent in cash, up front, and still have 47,800g in assets left over, I'd say if you wanted to, you could probably buy a small kip. This, assuming your commoners are a hundred times richer than they probably ought to be, just because they're living in Sigil.

I always figured that for the average 0th level commoner, who's supposed to have less than 10 gold available, rent might be a couple gold a month, which is still hellishly expensive by medievil standards. Taxes might be another gold, maybe 5 silver.

People who pay the rent by making wicker baskets rent property in sigil. PCs are many thousands of times richer than those people. PCs can pay thousands of months worth of rent without it even beginning to affect their disposable income.

And I'm being told they can't afford to buy property in Sigil. That's like being told that I could rent a place now for 800$ a month, but if I had $3,920,000 I still wouldn't be able to afford to buy a similar residence. That's the kind of wealth difference we're talking about.

(Could you, in NYC, potentially buy a small, modest property, in one of the not-so-great areas, for less than 4 million dollars? I bet you can, or no one would be able to afford rent there.)
#8
sildatorak
Aug 11, 2004 21:11:00 When the landlords are extremely long-lived that several thousand gp that you're willing to pay is going to be a loss to them in the long run. When you're talking about titans and yugoloths, the timescale goes out the window. Some of the golden lords would also take a small loss of profit to avoid loosing a little bit of influence. If you own someone's property in a system with few legal protections, you practically own them.

That said, I don't think that it is a horrible thing for a renter to rent a property with a contract that says that he or she has unlimited control of remodeling, demolition, etc. You'd be expected to pay the value of any damages to the property, but any improvements you make technically belong to the person you are renting from. Shemmy would love to get you in a deal like that.
#9
zombiegleemax
Aug 11, 2004 21:33:17 You know how long someone has to not just live, but be actively renting the property for to justify not selling it for twice what you'd get in rent for the next thousand years? A really long time. And I'm still baffled as to why Zadara cares about a 3 room house in the clerk's ward.

Which is worth more: a pittance in rent on a continual basis, or more money up front than the property is likely to generate in a thousand years? The rent money isn't even worth squat. The people who rent from you, who you supposedly control, aren't worth squat. (They're basic commoners)

And the best reason to let your players buy land? It gives them a concrete stake in the game world, and potential hooks for future adventures. So it's good for the story, and the economics make sense. I don't see what the problem is.
#10
zombiegleemax
Aug 12, 2004 3:24:38 Supposedly Sigil is changing slowly all the time. An effectively immortal creaure can thus expect the dabus to come *at some point* and make a rebus to the effect that, "We're putting in a new road. In the name of the Lady pack up and move out within the next week."

If this model real estate becomes more of a volitile commodity. PCs who buy a place for a song and a dance may find out three days laters that they've been peeled when the dabus start to tear half of it down. Ouch. Making real money in real estate probably comes down to buying low and selling high rather than rents. Anticipating the slow change in borders between neighborhoods becomes a worthwhile art and investment strategy. The large amount of turnover in Sigil's populations should making finding buyers an easier prospect than in most prime world cities.

As a small aside I've always assumed that land in the lower class sections tends to get run down sooner and thus "eligible" for renovation Sigil style at a higher clip. This reinforces its low value and encourages flintskins and cheapskates who don't invest as much in their infrastructure to move in (meaning it tends to get run down faster...wash/rinse/repeat). I don't believe things change much in the high end part of town where the opposite occurs. I've always thought though, it might be a cool idea to generate some adventures if some of the Golden Lords all had to move at once for something along the lines of "new sewers" being put in. Lots of chaos and hard feelings in that change of estates.

To answer the original question it probably ought to be somewhat expensive to purchase most land outright, so that low levels PCs can't afford that option and mid level PCs treasure it more than any single (magic) item they own. But it should be far from impossible. And as a judge there are benefits worth pondering. You ought to be able to think up several interesting plots that relate to the fact that the PC's residence is know a known commodity (to be traded among their friends and enemies). I'm sure your PCs would like to know where some of their enemies sleep every night. Far less extreme, what would your PCs be willing to do in order to stop Kylie the tout from leading clueless drunkards by their house at antipeak to take a leak on their doorstep after bar crawling?

-Eric Gorman
#11
zombiegleemax
Aug 18, 2004 3:46:30 My answer to this is much the same as in another thread.
Land cost in Sigil

I have looked over the PlHB at Sigil. Given what I read under "Architecture" and "Laws and Society" for Sigil, I came to one conclusion. It is a free for all.

If some resident falls upon misfortune, you could be in for free plot of land or building material. You might have to beat other greedy people to it.

This has the makings of a credit card commercial.
Fancy Dining Hall 12,000 GP
Luxury Study 15,000 GP
Luxury Bedroom Suite 25,000 GP
Some wizard falls 10 stories from his tower into a patch of razorvine....PRICELESS!
:heehee :heehee

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Aug 10, 2004 4:34:08	So I've been trying to get a rough idea of how Sigil's economy works, because my players are interested in buying or renting property in the Cage at this point in our game. I've looked through the books, but it hasn't been any help yet. I could just make something up, but part of the fun of being the DM is making the world realistic and consistent, so I thought I'd solicit other opinions. Two questions: 1. How much would you say buying land in Sigil would cost? It's quite geographically restricted, which means it'll definitely be dear. Varies quite a bit per ward, of course. 2. What sort of property taxes would the Fated charge every month (or two weeks)? According to the Manifesto, increases in taxes have to be approved by the Hall of Speakers, so the answer isn't just "whatever they can get away with", at least not officially. Thanks!
#2 Shemeska_the_Marauder Aug 10, 2004 5:02:25	I'll assume that you're running a pre-FW campaign? If it's post FW, then taxes by the Fated won't be much of an issue ;) Land is going to be sodding expensive to buy. Leasing on the other hand won't be as expensive, but it'll be higher than most any place. Best place to get land to own in Sigil is by either being given it by the current owner for some deed done for them, inheriting it upon a person's death, etc. On the open market in Sigil one of the Golden Lords (Jeremo, Estevan, Zadara) or one of the not so 'golden' lords (Shemeska) will snap it up like plucking grapes off the vine, cost be damned. Of course, some wards will cost more than others: Lady's Ward: effectively impossible to buy, and terribly expensive to rent Lower Ward: less prime property, but demand is high from different sorts of people. Renting will be fairly easy if you can get past the soot and smog. Clerk's Ward: Somewhere inbetween the Lower Ward and The Lady's Ward in terms of cost and availability. Areas near the border with the Hive will be much easier to get and cheaper to get. Market Ward: Land is less an issue of ownership then space is an issue. In the Great Bazaar you can pitch a tent for a day and sell stuff for a while without much of a problem, just don't expect to be there permenantly. The downwards (as opposed to Spireward) end of the ward is also going to have open land as many merchants (including the Planar Trade Consortium) move out of Sigil and no longer need many of the land now occupied by their wharehouses. Guildhall Ward: Difficult to own or rent without guild sponsorship, and they probably have been buying up most of any land that hits the market in order to fill their coffers by renting it out. If a guild likes you and what you want to do, you can probably rent easily. The Hive: A squatters paradise. Possession is 9/10 of the law, especially here. You own it if you can keep it in your hands. A legitimate establishment will probably need city sanction for 'ownership' just to make sure you have legal protection if anyone tries to burn it down around antipeak. Certain districts will be easier to buy or rent: the gray district being the high end most likely, and the Xaos district the low end (The Slags being a seperate entry here). The Hive (The Slags): umm... you barmy? Uhh... go right ahead and go in there and own whatever you like. I'm sure Kadyx will be a pleasant neighbor tout goes running for their life
#3 zombiegleemax Aug 11, 2004 5:36:43	I generally allow a small, modest bit of property to be bought for at most, several thousand gold (price varies according to the size of the plot and the ward) fairly easily, if the characters are willing to stomach the time-consuming beaurocracy involved in the whole deal. Commoners live all over the place in Sigil (aside from the lady's ward) so I figure it must be possible to move into the city. I also figure most people don't want to live permanently in Sigil, since there's undoubtedly an outer plane that would suit most people better. If you're a nice, upstanding, hard-working reputable fletcher for instance, why would you live in Sigil, when you can live on Bytopia, in a town near a portal to Sigil? The Hive has tons of crappy land anyone can squat on, but I can't imagine the rest of Sigil (sans Lady's War) is so expensive that only the rich and PC-class characters can afford it. If it was so expensive and so rare, there'd be virtually no stationary population. Space is limited, but much of the population currently in the city at any given time is transient. If people can make a living staying in Sigil and selling fish, selling pies and other baked goods, selling their time as carpenters, etc. Then I assume that PC adventurers, people who are several thousand times richer on average than most of the commoners already living there, can certainly buy property. A couple grand ought to get a plot, with a house, and if need be, let one family of commoners retire for the next 17 generations. If you want property in the Lady's Ward, that's going to turn into a series of adventures with huge amounts of money being manipulated and fought for.
#4 zombiegleemax Aug 11, 2004 8:44:18	Let us not forget that Sigil itself is quite capable of expanding to provide more space, if needed.
#5 ohtar_turinson Aug 11, 2004 10:26:59	Originally posted by mrgoat The Hive has tons of crappy land anyone can squat on, but I can't imagine the rest of Sigil (sans Lady's War) is so expensive that only the rich and PC-class characters can afford it. If it was so expensive and so rare, there'd be virtually no stationary population. Space is limited, but much of the population currently in the city at any given time is transient. If people can make a living staying in Sigil and selling fish, selling pies and other baked goods, selling their time as carpenters, etc. Then I assume that PC adventurers, people who are several thousand times richer on average than most of the commoners already living there, can certainly buy property. A couple grand ought to get a plot, with a house, and if need be, let one family of commoners retire for the next 17 generations. Most of those people don't own property. They rent it from the Golden Lords, or some other landlord- like they would living in a city now. New York City is very expensive to live in, but that doesn't stop it from having a population of around eight million. The vast majority of people living in New York City rent property, no matter how long their family's lived there. The deal is the same in London, or Tokyo, or any other major city you can think of- the land is extraordinarily expensive, and in the hands of the people with lots of money, unless its in a poor neighborhood (sort of like the hive). The PCs are wealthy perhaps... but they aren't spending all their time making money. If Zadara, or Estavan or Shemeskra was to get in a bidding war with even an epic character, they'd crush them like bugs. They've got the jink to do whatever they choose, and no PC can match it unless they run similar operations- which would be a unique campaign, like none I've ever played. Did that make any sense at all? I'm a little tired here.
#6 Shemeska_the_Marauder Aug 11, 2004 14:20:08	It's pretty accurate. Land is typically rented or inherited, or in rare cases gifted to a person by one of those few overwhelmingly wealthy persons. Not hard to live there, but that's when renting, not buying. The various conditions vary by ward.
#7 zombiegleemax Aug 11, 2004 18:14:37	That's why I charge a few thousand gold to outright buy some property in Sigil. That's more money than most commoners will ever dream of their entire family ever having. PC's tend to be very, very high on the scale of wealth, just from the fact that they deal mainly in gold an platinum, not shaved coppers and bits of barter. Why shouldn't they be able to buy property? If I had a couple million sitting around in expendable income, I bet I could manage to eventually buy a little tiny bit of space in NYC. Extending the analogy, the few silvers, or even a gold, maybe two(!!) a month the commoners can afford when renting property is like the 800$ a month someone might pay in rent for a crappy squat in NY. An adventurer can make a couple hundred thousand times that silver in a week, if they're canny and they're really trying to make a profitable life for themselves. (And they're not really low-level at the time). Your regular commoners, who don't adventure, and don't gain levels can be assumed to have a steady 5-20 gold. (According to the DMG). Let's assume a hundred-fold inflation on wealth and rent in sigil. 500-2,000 gold? We'll keep the PC's at reccomended wealth levels, (making them effectively 100 times "poorer" than they would be if they stayed exclusively in Sigil at equivalent levels.) At 10th level, according to the DMG, they should have 49,000 gold. A commoner can then pay about 100 gold a month, for the lowest non-hive residence (all this still assuming wicked inflation, just 'cause it's sigil). These are all rough numbers, but if you can pay the first year's rent in cash, up front, and still have 47,800g in assets left over, I'd say if you wanted to, you could probably buy a small kip. This, assuming your commoners are a hundred times richer than they probably ought to be, just because they're living in Sigil. I always figured that for the average 0th level commoner, who's supposed to have less than 10 gold available, rent might be a couple gold a month, which is still hellishly expensive by medievil standards. Taxes might be another gold, maybe 5 silver. People who pay the rent by making wicker baskets rent property in sigil. PCs are many thousands of times richer than those people. PCs can pay thousands of months worth of rent without it even beginning to affect their disposable income. And I'm being told they can't afford to buy property in Sigil. That's like being told that I could rent a place now for 800$ a month, but if I had $3,920,000 I still wouldn't be able to afford to buy a similar residence. That's the kind of wealth difference we're talking about. (Could you, in NYC, potentially buy a small, modest property, in one of the not-so-great areas, for less than 4 million dollars? I bet you can, or no one would be able to afford rent there.)
#8 sildatorak Aug 11, 2004 21:11:00	When the landlords are extremely long-lived that several thousand gp that you're willing to pay is going to be a loss to them in the long run. When you're talking about titans and yugoloths, the timescale goes out the window. Some of the golden lords would also take a small loss of profit to avoid loosing a little bit of influence. If you own someone's property in a system with few legal protections, you practically own them. That said, I don't think that it is a horrible thing for a renter to rent a property with a contract that says that he or she has unlimited control of remodeling, demolition, etc. You'd be expected to pay the value of any damages to the property, but any improvements you make technically belong to the person you are renting from. Shemmy would love to get you in a deal like that.
#9 zombiegleemax Aug 11, 2004 21:33:17	You know how long someone has to not just live, but be actively renting the property for to justify not selling it for twice what you'd get in rent for the next thousand years? A really long time. And I'm still baffled as to why Zadara cares about a 3 room house in the clerk's ward. Which is worth more: a pittance in rent on a continual basis, or more money up front than the property is likely to generate in a thousand years? The rent money isn't even worth squat. The people who rent from you, who you supposedly control, aren't worth squat. (They're basic commoners) And the best reason to let your players buy land? It gives them a concrete stake in the game world, and potential hooks for future adventures. So it's good for the story, and the economics make sense. I don't see what the problem is.
#10 zombiegleemax Aug 12, 2004 3:24:38	Supposedly Sigil is changing slowly all the time. An effectively immortal creaure can thus expect the dabus to come at some point and make a rebus to the effect that, "We're putting in a new road. In the name of the Lady pack up and move out within the next week." If this model real estate becomes more of a volitile commodity. PCs who buy a place for a song and a dance may find out three days laters that they've been peeled when the dabus start to tear half of it down. Ouch. Making real money in real estate probably comes down to buying low and selling high rather than rents. Anticipating the slow change in borders between neighborhoods becomes a worthwhile art and investment strategy. The large amount of turnover in Sigil's populations should making finding buyers an easier prospect than in most prime world cities. As a small aside I've always assumed that land in the lower class sections tends to get run down sooner and thus "eligible" for renovation Sigil style at a higher clip. This reinforces its low value and encourages flintskins and cheapskates who don't invest as much in their infrastructure to move in (meaning it tends to get run down faster...wash/rinse/repeat). I don't believe things change much in the high end part of town where the opposite occurs. I've always thought though, it might be a cool idea to generate some adventures if some of the Golden Lords all had to move at once for something along the lines of "new sewers" being put in. Lots of chaos and hard feelings in that change of estates. To answer the original question it probably ought to be somewhat expensive to purchase most land outright, so that low levels PCs can't afford that option and mid level PCs treasure it more than any single (magic) item they own. But it should be far from impossible. And as a judge there are benefits worth pondering. You ought to be able to think up several interesting plots that relate to the fact that the PC's residence is know a known commodity (to be traded among their friends and enemies). I'm sure your PCs would like to know where some of their enemies sleep every night. Far less extreme, what would your PCs be willing to do in order to stop Kylie the tout from leading clueless drunkards by their house at antipeak to take a leak on their doorstep after bar crawling? -Eric Gorman
#11 zombiegleemax Aug 18, 2004 3:46:30	My answer to this is much the same as in another thread. Land cost in Sigil I have looked over the PlHB at Sigil. Given what I read under "Architecture" and "Laws and Society" for Sigil, I came to one conclusion. It is a free for all. If some resident falls upon misfortune, you could be in for free plot of land or building material. You might have to beat other greedy people to it. This has the makings of a credit card commercial. Fancy Dining Hall 12,000 GP Luxury Study 15,000 GP Luxury Bedroom Suite 25,000 GP Some wizard falls 10 stories from his tower into a patch of razorvine....PRICELESS! :heehee :heehee