Virtual Homes, Real Estate

Industry Standard, The, Dec 18, 2000 by Leslie Gornstein

Two months ago, Gary Kidd quit his full-time job as a Sears appliance salesman to sell houses that don't exist. Now people are paying hundreds for his properties, and the Reno, Nev., resident estimates he'll make up to $50,000 selling them this year.

Kidd's sales region is Ultima Online, one of the Internet's most popular role-playing environments. Players can crawl into virtual characters such as warriors or merchants and live out fantasy lives in sprawling castles, adorned with magical items.

Kidd builds the virtual houses on Ultima and auctions them on eBay and similar sites. His biggest sale so far: $900. "After 22 years of selling things on concrete floors, my legs were starting to turn into jelly," says Kidd, 43.

He isn't the only person auctioning Ultima Online items (virtual gold pieces are also popular), but the only other full-time UO salesman he knows of specializes in magical trinkets, not houses. Kidd says most of his customers are doctors, lawyers and other wealthy professionals who want to play Ultima but don't want to slave away in a virtual mine to earn the virtual gold needed to buy a virtual tower. "For them to spend $300," says Kidd, "in all likelihood, it's a day's pay." Not bad for posh digs.