Upland, the property trading game, has managed to intrigue me in a way few other online games (crypto or otherwise) have. Here's a rundown of some early experiences.
As I noted in my intro column, I've found that playing Upland on my desktop computer (via my Opera browser) is a decidedly better experience that playing via a mobile phone.
For example, the outstanding website UPX.world is a must for anyone playing the game, especially early on for newcomers. You can sort by property designated as FSA (Fair State Act) and mint price in a given city, which is critical in finding the best options to fit your needs.
FSA land is only available to players below Pro status, which prevents whales from hoarding while providing newbies a chance to get established.
And while you can access UPX.world on a mobile phone, swapping between the Upland app and a web browser tends to get unwieldy. Whereas with my desktop setup, it's just switching tabs.
Having a giant monitor versus a small phone screen also makes a considerable difference, particularly going for a wide city view.
But the really big disparity is that you can buy property with fiat in the form of U.S. dollars, but only on the web browser version as of this writing. There are limited opportunities for that from what I've seen, and I'm not exactly sure how selling for fiat works.
It's worth the effort to do some digging. It took some work, but I was able to find what I considered a remarkable deal, paying $42 USD (with the seller getting $40) for 210 Townsend St. in San Francisco.
That property has a real-life restaurant and is remarkably close to both Oracle Park (home of Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants) and the only Upland train station in San Fran.
If the listing price had been 42,000 UPX, I strongly doubt that it would've stayed on the market as long as it did, going all the way back to early June 2020. But it's essentially the same as $42 USD, only without me having to buy a fixed amount of Upland coins.
The seller nearly doubled his or her initial minting investment of 23,100 UPX. And perhaps I stumbled across an Upland anomaly, a chance one-off with a cash listing for a great piece of property in an ideal spot.
But who knows what might go on the market tomorrow? Keep a careful eye out and perhaps you will have similar fortune.
Like Japanese pro wrestler YOSHI-HASHI says, everything can change in an instant!
Earlier this week, Upland opened up a new territory, the city of Clovis, California. It's adjacent to Fresno and was a logical extension as the game developers carefully roll this out.
I practiced what I preach as far as targeting new FSA land. It would be foolish to do otherwise as long as I'm still at Uplander tier, and absent a geographic need (e.g. property near a train terminal) the FSA lots are going to net you the best gains on short-term flips. That's especially helpful for players who just started.
This is where I gained some experience using Sends, the Upland command to move your explorer (the term for your in-game avatar) to another area in your current city. There is some clunky gameplay with this element, in part I suspect a trade-off to make the game available for mobile devices.
But the new city, in turn, created a buyer's market. Suddenly my Upland property listings, which I had priced fairly and sold at a rather good return rate, were not converting into sales.
So I waited. Patience is a virtue in Upland, as in life.
And finally today, seemingly rather quickly, I had three lots sell in rather fast succession. Boom boom boom.
Now I have some UPX to spend, which means I have some scouting to do. Go find the best FSA property out there... before I do.
If you found any of this helpful, I invite you to try out my referral link: https://r.upland.me/6TSQ
