Could somebody explain land ownership?

I am a few days into my trial membership and I have definetely decided to continue. Could somebody explain land ownership, or point me to a resource that explains it?

For the $10 monthly fee, I am entitled to own a small parcel of land, but I don't actually get the land ... I have to find and buy that myself for some amount of L$ right? Or does it cost real $?

Any tips on finding a good piece of land (are they all taken or very expensive?) and are there zoning restrictions as far as what you can build in certain areas?

Any other information about finding, buying and developing land would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

MP

512m2, to be precise. I'd suggest hitting P and right clicking a few plots to get an idea of how small that actually is.



Right.



Either one.



The in game Find tool is handy, as is the Auction page on this website, though the auction page has the added risk of you not having a clue what your neighbors are going to be.


PG sims can only have PG material in them. M sims can only have M material in areas that aren't easily visible by fly-by-ers. Other than that, I think they did away with all the zoned sims.

If this is your first time owning land, you can get a "First Land" plot. It only costs L$512. You can access it from the Find window, I believe.

Thank you both.

Just to clarify the size issue ... by 512m2 are we talking about a plot of land slightly smaller than 70 feet by 70 feet? If so, that is quite small indeed.

Is there a restriction on how high you can build?

MP

As someone who has not owned land before, you are entitled to claim one of the First Land lots.

Go to Find / Land sales, select First Land from the drop down menu, and hit 'Search'.

You will get a list of 100-200 available lots, all 512m2 for $512. Most will have pictures.

Have a look through for any that look nice to you, then hit the 'Teleport' button and go scope them out in person.

Once you've made your decision, Right click on the land, choose 'About Land' and hit the 'Buy Land' button. It's yours!

If you change your mind later, you can put your land up for sale - offer it to your neighbors first, to be friendly - and make sure you research the going rates for non-First Land in your sim before you set a price. Sorting the Land for Sale list by L$/m2 is a good way to do this.

You will almost certainly get a higher price for your land than you paid. This will set you on the financial road to owning a different, and/or larger piece of land elsewhere.

Once I get in-world, I'll be scheduling another Land Ownership 101 class that will answer these questions, and more!

You can use up to 117 prims on your 512m2 land, and they can be placed anywhere from ground level to 768 meters high. Note that many prefab houses will be built with so many prims that you have none left over for furniture! So build wisely, conserving prims where you can.

First Land lots are usually 16m x 32m, which is about 50' x 100'. It's a small surburban house lot.

Dunno 'bout 70x70 feet, since in game scale is wacky, but it IS a small plot. You can right click, Edit Land, and bandbox a square area and check to see if the area you've selected is 512m2 in size. That'll give you a good idea. Or just check out one of the First Land plots.

As far as how high you can build, it's hard to fly about 200m higher than the land you're over, without a flight script, but you can build up to 512m without having any problems related to scripts that move objects in any way, 768m without running into problems with the Edit window, and, from what I vaguely recall, up to something like 4096m without having your objects returned to you (but good luck getting them up there).

My first week, someone gave me a nice notecard with lots of tips for first-time land buyers. Find me in-game and I'll give you a copy.

Owning land is definitely a good thing if you want to build a home or host events. I've found getting in with a group so you can pool resources is quite helpful. You also get a 10% land allocation for group tier, so it's cheaper to own larger plots of land.

The best way to find good land is by networking. I made some friends, and they let me know when some good land was available. Took me over a month to find a good spot and work out the purchase, but now I have a great location and I'm near my friends and have room to build.

And finally, while it might not be pleasant to talk about, I should mention that there are a few unscrupulous residents who will try to burn you on land deals. It's easy to avoid being burned if you educate yourself and are careful about what you do. These days you shouldn't be spending a lot more than L$5/m, unless there's something that makes the land more valuable than that (location, terraforming, neighbors, etc). Also, when you're ready to move up to a larger plot, don't sell your First Land for cheap (under L$2K-ish) - a lot of n00bs have been burned that way.

Thank you all for your help. Cory, I will definetly look you up in-game. It definetely sounds like I should take advantage of the First Land offer. I want to build for myself ... so I don't think I will use any prefabricated houses. However, I will probably want to study building techniques that can help me maximize the 117 prims that I can use. I guess I see the 117 prim count as more limiting than the plot size.

Thanks again!

MP

Oh yeah, 117 prims isn't all that much to work with. But you can actually do quite a lot with that much - you should see my first build I did on my first 512m lot. Only 50 prims, and it had tons of space and a really nice feel to it. Now I have a lot more prims to play with, and I'm kinda going nuts with extravagance.

There are a lot of things you can do to create low-prim builds. Textures are very important, and textures with alpha (transparency) can create some nice effects that help keep to a low count. Also, learn what you can do in terms of torturing prims - cuts, hollowing, etc. can let you get by with 1 prim where you might otherwise need a few. Check out the Ivory Tower of Primitives for a self-paced in-world tutorial on working with prims.

Cory, where would I find the Ivory Tower of Primatives?

Even though the question wasn't for me...

Noyo (208,189) - that's what I have landmarked for the Ivory Tower, and if it's not right in front of its door, it's very close at the least

There's a branch in Natoma too, but I haven't visited it yet, so I can't tell you much about it.

Thank you. Some kind sole was good enough to send me the landmark in-game. The Tower looks like a great way to learn the basic building skills. Thanks for all of your help.

MidnightPackage