How To Calculate True ROI in Mob Wars?

If the calculator zephyr links to is to be believed, villas and land are always a bad buy compared to buildings.

So: The actual question. Is it ever effective to invest in landDo you mean "is it ever wise to purchase land other than for the purpose of immediately purchasing a building"? If so, yes, of course it is. Specifically, when the time it would take to recoup the cost of a lot is less than the time it would take to recoup the cost of a building. Note that there is definitely such a point, because the time it takes to recoup the cost of a building always increases (with more buildings purchased), with no upper limit. Still, that purchase of ten lots may make your next best purchase be buildings. But that, in turn, will drive the recoup cost of buildings even higher, and simultaneously drive the recoup time of lots back down to its original level. So you'll soon get in the same situation again - your best purchase is ten lots. Then ten buildings. Then lots. Then buildings. And so on. But eventually, due to the ever-increasing recoup time for buildings and the (essentially) static recoup time for lots, you'll get to a point where it makes sense to buy ten lots and never use them to buy buildings. You will still buy buildings after that, but not with those lots. You'll buy more lots, then buildings with them, always retaining some nonzero number of lots. And in the long term, that nonzero number of lots will always increase, without limit.

@zephyr_words: I have used/examined over two dozen calculators, but none get that deep into the details. @Flunkie: You understand the question perfectly. I believe there IS a point where it will become economically efficient to invest in permanent land - land that will NEVER be used to purchase buildings with. Every single ROI calculator, without exception, assumes that land is NEVER a good investment other than a means by which to buy property. So, the real question is: what IS that point? I'm sure it can be formulaicly determined - I just need to figure out what that formula is. The tricky part, I think, is the long term view. The base price of Empty Lot is, as I mentioned $5K. In groups of ten, this is $50K. This means any purchase of 10x Villas is increase by $50K. But lets say I decide to purchase 10 permanent Empty Lots. This means the land purchases for Villas are $55K. The price for each Villa has increased by $5K, forever. Every time I purchase 10 Villas, I suffer this $5K penalty. Therefore, I can see why there may not be a point where permanent land is efficient - or that point may be far far off. But, I want to know where that point is, if it exists.

This is my current portfolio:Land Type Income # Owned Total Income Current Cost Turns to pay for itselfEmpty Lot $100 10 $1,000 $10,000 100 City Block $300 10 $3,000 $100,000 334 Downtown Square $2000 10 $20,000 $2,000,000 1000 Beachfront Lot $8000 10 $80,000 $8,000,000 1000 Container Yard $12000 10 $120,000 $12,000,000 1000 ------Villa $300 286 $85,800 $301,000 1004Restaurant $700 225 $157,500 $710,000 1015Apartment $5000 244 $1,220,000 $5,130,000 1026Hotel $10000 245 $2,450,000 $10,250,000 1025Highrise Apt $50000 95 $4,750,000 $52,550,000 1051Office $150000 84 $12,600,000 $151,400,000 1010Luxury Hotel $200000 86 $17,200,000 $193,000,000 965 Casino $300000 62 $18,600,000 $289,000,000 964I do hold the beachfront lot and container yard as investments since I'm forever away from being level 120 (where buildings can be built on them), but on the lot, block and square vacant land types I hold ten for convenience. You can see that I'm just now breaking into the return on investment territory for most of the various land types, where holding land might make some sense. Early in the game the concept of the "land bank" is important so you can stash money out of reach of other players. I'm making $55M every 54 minutes now, so I don't really worry too much about people fighting me and grabbing $100K a shot (if they do it frequently, I put a hit on them, which stops it, generally). But early on, those lost fights can be a real drain of cash. You'll note that each of the properties double in value on the initial investment of ten of a kind. If you sell those ten all at the same time, you get all your money back because they sell at the current price minus 50%. As a bonus, you make a bit of money by holding them, so it's an interest-bearing account. In this way you can stash $50,000 (ten lots) + $500,000 (ten blocks) + $10,000,000 (ten squares) and make a few percent interest, whereas the bank charges 10% to safeguard your money. If you're trying to hold land as an investment, you can't use it as a bank. In short: By the time holding land might make sense from a ROI perspective, you're too busy buying other stuff to bother with it.

Well, I might be at that point already. Here is my current portfolio:Land Type Income # Owned Total Income Current CostEmpty Lot $100 0 $0 $5,000 City Block $300 0 $0 $50,000Downtown Square $2000 10 $20,000 $2,000,000 Beachfront Lot $8000 0 $0 $4,000,000 Container Yard $12000 0 $0 $6,000,000 ------Villa $300 710 $213,000 $720,000 Restaurant $700 550 $385,000 $1,680,000 Apartment $5,000 590 $2,950,000 $12,000,000 Hotel $10,000 600 $6,000,000 $24,400,000 Highrise Apt $50,000 240 $12,000,000 $125,000,000 Office $150,000 220 $33,000,000 $368,000,000 Luxury Hotel $200,000 230 $46,000,000 $480,000,000 Beachfront Hotel $222,000 170 $37,400,000 $540,000,000Casino $300,000 190 $57,000,000 $800,000,000 There is no point when I'm too busy with other stuff. I built my own worksheet to make sure I'm doing things as efficiently as possible - I'm just not sure how to write a formula to account for the long tail effects of permanent land investment.

I'm schooled by a master. Well, maybe not schooled, but you're a couple of orders above me. Probably at the point you're at, the extra cost of the land as you buy and hold is a relatively minor part of the overall building purchase prices, so you might as well start accumulating it. I know you want your own chart, but the calculator in the first link will at least give you the ROI numbers so you know when to chill on the land versus buildings.