I’ve been seeing a few questions recently on the different types of foliage, as well as the “right price” to buy someone else’s parcel. I wrote this guide to help others make informed buying and selling decisions.
Select a topic, below.
Identifying Foliage
Theories on Pricing
Supply and Demand
TL;DR; Conclusions on Parcel Price
Identifying Foliage
Before we can consider what properties to buy and sell, we need to identify what they are! Below is a list of parcels I’ve documented and their respective rarities.
Side Note: This is an ongoing list. If you plan to buy or sell parcels, check back for updates! Forgive me if I don’t accept pictures from other people. I want to 100% make sure that I know which picture goes with which rarity. I hope you understand.
Common
These are easy to identify. No foliage.
Rare
This rarity typically has just flowers, though the occasional rock might pop up.
Epic
Aside from the rock in the corner (which is curiously smaller than one of the Rare pictures I captured), Epics have one or two trees and sometimes a cactus. Take note of the tree pattern and its simplicity. As we’ll see, Ledendaries add an extra layer to the tree look. Epic also contains a singular cactus.
Legendary
The “golden tree” is the most sought out version of a Legendary. However, notice that compared to the Epic variety, Legendaries have an extra layer of branches. However…if you see the 4th image (above), the thin tree legendary looks just like the Epic thin tree, adding confusion to the mix. The sixth picture contains two legendary plots side by side. The seventh looks like an Epic single pine.
Also, if you pull Legendary within a road, it could alter the foliage look. If you see the examples below, the first appears Rare while the second appears Epic. Unfortunately I could not get the road inside the third screenshot.
I also happen to own a glitched version of the golden tree as pictured, below.
Alternatively, you can purchase a legendary parcel upgrade for 2,500 AB and use it to examine parcel rarities provided that you don’t apply it to a parcel. Bear in mind that you’ll only view your parcels, not anyone else’s.
See screenshot, below, from Coyt:
Theories on Pricing
Now that you’ve become a prolific botanist, it’s time to think about setting terms on your price! After all, aren’t you here to buy or sell parcels? You were just here for the foliage? …Ok. Well…Maybe one of you is here for the price. This section is for you!
Before I begin, allow me to refresh your memory on the restrictions that Atlas Reality placed on buying and selling:
- The minimum selling price is 150 AB for a parcel of land. Since a random parcel is 100 AB, good luck with offloading your Common parcels!
- Atlas Reality takes 20% of the sale and gives you 80% of the proceeds. For example, if you sell a Rare parcel for 150 AB, you’ll receive 120 AB for the sale.
- You cannot create multiple accounts and buy/sell to yourself. You will get banned for this. Don’t try it.
Side Note: Be careful when it comes to buying Epic and Legendary parcels from a single person. Some people have reported getting banned because they bought Legendaries from family and sold them their Commons, which has the appearance of owning multiple accounts.
In addition, the prices I recommend buying and selling are my theories and opinions on the matter. Do not take them as Gospel, but as thoughts to chew on and consider. Always chew before you swallow ideas!
First Buying Theory – Sub-150 Buyers Who Won’t Exceed 150
Folks who own less than 150 parcels are interested in reaching 150 parcels. However, some of them aren’t interested in exceeding it. In part, because earnings from 150 to 220 are paltry at best. Therefore, they are only interested in buying Legendary parcels and will pay extra to get them. Rare and Epic are out. Therefore, I will not theorize about them under this scenario.
The absolute maximum that they would pay is 2000 AB. Why? Because, on average, it will cost them 2000 AB to pull 20 parcels, with one of them as the ominous Legendary. However, let’s compare this to someone who used that 2000 AB to buy random parcels and, eventually, reach the 2X tier level.
Assuming you don’t sell your free parcel, you could buy 149 Legendaries at the cost of 2000 * 149, or 298,000 AB. However…298,000 could get you 298,000 / 100, or 2,980 parcels.
Based on calculations at https://atlasearthcalculator.com/, and assuming 64 hours of Super Rent Boost per month, 0 badges, and 1 Common with 149 Legendary, you could expect to earn ~$55 per month.
Based on calculations at https://atlasearthcalculator.com/, and assuming 64 hours of Super Rent Boost per month, 0 badges, and average distribution of 2,980 parcels, you’ll make $77 per month if you bought random parcels instead. Therefore, 2000 AB is too expensive to buy parcels.
The sub-150 person will want to buy at a price where they could earn $55 per month for 149 Legendary but not at the opportunity cost of earning more than $55 per month in the same AB on random parcels.
After some finagling with the calculator linked in #4, I found the ratio of average Common, Rare, Epic, and Legendary that, based on the assumptions in #4, reached 2125 parcels as the breakeven point in terms of opportunity cost. We’ll round this down to 2000 to make the math easier.
2000 parcels cost 200,000 AB which, when divided by 149 Legendary, leads to an adjusted price of 1342 AB per Legendary (rounded down). This should be the absolute maximum that anyone who is sub-150 should pay for a Legendary.
Second Buying Theory – Post-150 Buyers
This applies to anyone who owns 150 or more parcels. The boost multiplier doesn’t matter because the math holds at all levels.
For someone who has 150 or more parcels, they are going to compare the price of buying a Rare, Epic, or Legendary parcel and their respective income values to the expected value of buying a random parcel. These are all known values, which are $0.0000000016, $0.0000000022, and $0.0000000044 per second for Rare, Epic, and Legendary, as well as $0.00000000158 for the expected value.
The price that the buyer should pay should be based on the ratio of rarity rent value and expected value. Translation: divide rarity value by expected value and multiply by the cost of a random parcel.
Rare is ($0.0000000016 / $0.00000000158) * 100, or 101 AB. But…you can’t buy a Rare for 101 AB. Womp womp.
Epic is ($0.0000000022/$0.00000000158) * 100, or 139 AB. Once again, you can’t buy an Epic for 139 AB. However…you might have bad luck and are willing to pay 150 AB for an Epic. Thus, a mere 11 AB more for a guarantee might be more attractive than rolling the dice. Even the sub-150 people might be willing to take that deal! However, who would sell an Epic at 150? If you are looking for an Epic, you might be willing to pay for more to guarantee your purchase. The seller is also trying to benefit from the sale and is willing to risk losing some rent to sell Epics at, say, 200 AB each. That seems like a fair price given these factors.
Legendary is ($0.0000000044/$0.00000000158) * 100, or 279 AB (rounded up). But, who would sell a Legendary at that price? Much like we talked about with Epic, you might be willing to pay more to get a guarantee than roll the dice with less cost. When we consider the seller’s situation, about 400 or so AB is a good price for Legendary parcels.
Third Buying Theory – Emotional Attachments
Some people buy for emotional reasons. Whether it’s for specific location, to support a certain player, or because they really want that parcel, they will just buy. If that’s you, you do you. You’ll get no judgment from me.
First Selling Theory – Get Rid Of Commons?
Good luck with that one! However, you might be able to sell to the occasional noob (or someone who accidentally buys a Common parcel) by putting all your Commons up for sale at 150 each. At worst, you lost some time trying to sell your Commons. At best, you might snag a sale!
Second Selling Theory – Selling Rarer Parcels
What price should the seller set for Rare, Epic, and Legendary? They should consider both buying scenarios that I laid out earlier, especially the second one, and sell based on two factors:
- Expected value to repurchase parcels
- Buyer’s willingness to buy your land for guaranteed parcels
Below are my thoughts on each rarity.
Rare
You have a better chance of selling a Rare for 150 AB than a Common. You’ll receive 120 AB for the proceeds, which is a shot at a random parcel + 20 AB for your troubles. On paper, this will produce a slightly higher average rent.
As I stated earlier, the expected value of average land is $0.00000000158 per second. If you sell five Rares and get 120 AB for each one, that means you are removing $0.0000000016 per second rent per sale. If you sell five of them, that is $0.0000000016 * 5, or $0.0000000080 per second lost. However, this will also give you enough AB to buy six random parcels. On average, you should get $0.00000000158 * 6, or $0.00000000948 per second gained.
Bear in mind that these calculations are for the average parcel. You could lose rent selling Rare parcels. The absolute worst case is $0.0000000011 * 6, or $0.0000000066 rent per second. However, this all assumes you can even sell your Rares for 150 each which, if your potential buyers are reading this article, they will avoid like the plague.
Out of curiosity, I calculated the minimum price you’d need to sell your Rare parcels for to guarantee zero-risk buying. This is calculated by finding the ratio between rent from a Rare parcel and rent for a Common parcel and multiplying it by the cost of a parcel. ($0.0000000016 / $0.0000000011) * 100 AB, or 146 (rounded up). However, this is after the sale, so you’ll have to add the 20% tax you’ll be paying through the sale and pass that on to your customer! You don’t multiply by 1.2, you divide by 0.8. Thus, 146/0.8, or 183 (rounded up) AB is what you’d need to charge for zero-risk selling.
Epic
We can also set Epic price based on expected value. Keep in mind that some people are willing to pay a small premium to avoid randomization in parcels. However, if you looked at the math in section “Second Buying Theory – Post-150 Buyers”, 139 AB is the “fair price”. However, how much premium should you charge? There will likely be some risk of losing overall rent by selling your Epic parcels, so you’ll want to gain a premium above 139 post-sale to mitigate the risk.
If you charge 200 AB for an Epic, you’ll get 160 AB from the sale. If you sell five of them, you’ll lose $0.0000000022 * 5, or $0.0000000110 rent per second. However, you’ll also have 800 AB to buy random parcels. That’s eight parcels. Based on expected value, you should expect to gain $0.00000000158 * 8, or $0.00000001264 rent per second. On paper, this is a small gain. However, You could lose rent selling Epic parcels at this price.
Much like with Rare parcels, I wanted to know the minimum price you’d need to set for zero-risk Epic selling. We can calculate the same way we did for Rare.
($0.0000000022 / $0.0000000011) * 100 AB, or 200 AB. Dividing by 0.8, you’d need to charge 250 AB per Epic for risk-free selling.
Legendary
Ah yes, the rarity everyone wants!
In my commentary in section “Second Buying Theory – Post-150 Buyers”, I stated that about 400 or so AB is a good price to buy Legendary. For you, that means you’ll get 320 AB from the sale. As with the other rarities, if you sell at this price, you could lose rent selling Legendary parcels. However, as a homework assignment, I’ll let you work out the math this time for expected gain, the absolute worst loss for selling 5 Legendaries, and minumum you’d need to charge for risk-free selling. See if you can do it!
The answers should be $0.00000000328 average gain, $0.0000000044 lost if all Common are pulled, and 500 AB for selling risk-free.
Third Selling Theory – Emotional Attachments
If you buy at certain locations that you think will go for a premium, experiment! Try setting a price and see what happens.
Supply and Demand
In basic economics, the price that something is worth is whatever the buyer is willing to pay for it. Buyers wants to purchase things for as low as possible and sellers wish to sell things for as high as they could get for it. A sale happens when the buyer and seller can both agree to a price, usually somewhere in between the buyer’s minimal price and the seller’s maximum price.
What does supply and demand look like for parcel selling? In short, I don’t know. There’s not much reliable data to go on to make any educated guesses in terms of the amount of available parcels for sale and how much demand there is for them. Almost all sales I’ve seen on Reddit and Discord (as well as DM’s from some of you) are from multiple accounts (bannable), family, and friends. There are very few reports of people successfully selling their parcels to a stranger. Whatever data we have is anecdotal at best.
Part of the problem is that you have to be on location where property is available to purchase them. Unless you’re visiting a major city, good luck finding property for sale!
TL;DR; Conclusions on Parcel Price
The key points on buying and selling parcels are:
- You’re probably not going to sell any Commons, except by tricking people, bribing them, finding a noob, or breaking Atlas Reality Terms of Service.
- Rares might go for 150 AB if the buyer really wants to pay a lot to avoid the RNG gods of Atlas Earth. The seller will probably benefit in the long run by selling their Rare parcels, but could possibly lose rent unless Rares are sold at 183 AB+.
- Epics will likely range from 150 to 200 AB, depending on buyer’s risk aversion. Again, the seller will probably gain rent from the sale and rebuying random parcels, but they’d need to sell for 250 AB+ for risk-free selling.
- Legendaries could sell between 279 and 1342 AB, with the actual sale price most likely around 400 AB. The risk-free price to sell is at 500+ AB.
Updates
07/18/2024 – Added legendary upgrade as a way to view parcel rarity. Also added table of contents.
06/18/2024 – Added more Legendary foliage pictures for Legendary with associated commentary, adding yet more confusion.
05/19/2024 – Added more foliage pictures for Epic/Legendary with associated description that adds confusion to differentiate between the two.
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