Virtual land values plummet more than 40 percent, to $1,000 even.

(Would you buy land from this leprechaun? Image: Markbaard Meredith)

In Second Life, there’s a sucker born every minute (give or take). Some virtual land barons, for example, are finding out that what they’ve got ain’t worth much–since the supply of their product took another step toward “unlimited.”

To-date, some landowners have gotten rich selling parcels at similarly inflated prices.

But hoping to reboot waning interest in its virtual world, Linden Lab this month will make more islands available, at a fraction of what users have been paying lately for the make believe property.

Of course, land is limitless when it exists only on a server somewhere. And there are going to be more than one virtual world to visit and park it in the near future. But you knew that already.

Reuters/Second Life » Linden to increase land supply, drop prices
Linden Lab announced on its blog yesterday it would be increasing the land supply in Second Life for the second quarter of 2008.

Linden has seen average prices for land drift from about L$6.3 per meter in Q1 to around L$11.5 per meter currently. Strong demand for virtual land — essentially dedicated CPU time on Linden Lab’s servers — is a bright spot for Second Life’s in-world economy amidst flagging overall growth.