Does Linden Labs enforce private estate covenants?

Perhaps the worst thread ever will be "Help, I had an affair with my landlord, and cheated on him, so he snatched away my land. Can he do that?"

The thread will probably be titled "Is it just me?" so perhaps we'll be mercifully spared from reading it.

That's a strange comment Raymond. You treat your sim like it is an estate. I don't see how it would make much difference to you morally whether you owned mainland or estate as your setup is purely straight rental.

If it's okay to speak for Raymond, I thought he meant he sleeps well because he's secure, not because he's doing right by his customers.

I'm sure he sleeps well for that too, but I don't think that's what he meant here.

You missed my point. I'm talking about my own peace of mind from having LL as MY landlord. Not a moral issue. Anyone who rents from me runs the same risk as they do when renting on an estate.

Yes it's ok to speak for me, especially when you give the same answer I do.

And I'm still missing your point, LL would be your landlord if you owned an estate too.

Then I'd have two landlords. I sleep better because right now I only have one. And last time I checked, they did not reclaim land like an estate owner can at any time for any reason. Sigh. Time for RL.

If you're the estate owner you have one landlord, LL.

Sorry Ray, I'm going to speak for you again.

He's talking from the perspective of a consumer of land, not as a land owner, Ciaran. As a landowner, yes we all agree, estate or mainland, it doesn't matter: your risk is equal, and we all sleep fine.

But as the consumer of land, it makes a big difference. If Raymond were renting his land from an estate owner to run his business, he wouldn't be sleeping as well at night. The fact that Raymond happens to own the sim and rent out properties is simply an irrelevant coincidence here that is totally confusing the argument.

Did I do alright, Raymond? (Do I get pie for that?)

All the crab pie you want.

I'm tired of arguing that LL is a safer bet for landlord than a resident. Most resident estate owners are trusted and worthy of people's business. I have had great experience with Kandee Herrey, Darien Caldwell, Wildefire Walcott and Sarah Nerd before I got my mainland sim. But the fact remains that on any given day, any estate owner can kick you of thier land for whatever reason. Since I don't have to worry about that possibility, I sleep well, as I did when renting from the aforementioned Estate owners.

Land in SL is a poor investment. It does not matter if you are mainland or on an estate island. Of course being on an estate island is even worse in respect that the estate owner can boot you off at any time. But on the mainland what may be nice today could be an eye sore tomorrow. Do not ever forget that unless you are a Linden, you are nothing more than a renter in SL. If you think you own anything in SL you are sorely mistaken. Only the Lindens own anything here.

Sure some of the mega land barons out there make money in SL. But land ownership in SL is no place for the little person. I have tried to sell my land with no luck, I have tried to rent the land with little luck. I had a renter and despite bending over backwards to make them happy, they left. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. It doesn't help that we have little control over what our neighbours do and when your neighbours create an eye sore, the renters are in the drivers seat and they relocate.

No my land is nothing more than a monthly tier money pit. The Lindens and the mega land barons win ... in 10 days when my current tier payment expires, I am out. I will abandon the land and strike it up a lesson learned in SL. You win. You mega barons have suceeded in taking money and you have created a world where only you and your select friends can succeed. The rest of us were doomed to failure from the start. DO NOT BUY LAND IN SL UNLESS YOU ARE WILLING TO LOSE 100% OF YOUR INVESTMENT, because chances are you will be losing something with your investment. Sure you can wait until the next sucker comes along to buy your land. But how much money in monthly tier payments will you lose in the meantime.

No land in SL is a poor investment.

Jessica,

I'm sorry the rental business didn't work out for you, but I don't think land in Second Life is billed by Linden Lab as a guaranteed investment. The intent is that a person buys as much land as they can afford, and pays for their own enjoyment of it, just like most people do with land in RL.

Just as in RL, it's unfortunate that the big guys have some business advantages over the little guys, but that's just a fact of real life and virtual life.

I don't believe there is any price break for tier beyond 1 sim (I know this is true for estate, not sure for mainland). So if you consider an owner of 1 whole sim a "baron," then okay, but as far as I know, a huge 20-sim "baron" doesn't have any business cost advantage over the 1-sim "little guy." Below one sim, the smaller you get, the more expensive the land is per m, and more importantly, per prim.

Well if you paid a mainland landlord a lump sum to rent his land yes, or you probably mean LL holding your lump sum.
The difference is LL holding your lump sum is a tad more secure than some 3 month old avatar you met last week.
Personally I would possibly hand over rent with a few weeks in advance for private land but that is all.
And with mainland I can leave half built stuff in the yard, it doesn't have to look like a tropical idealic island setting. I get ammusement from watching cars drive by crashing into things and meet lots of people exploring SL.

I own 20 sims atm and I get no price breaks at all. They are all private islands, and all but one are $295 USD a month. Unfortunately for me and for others, LL has refused and/or is unable to split up private islands to make buying its land just like mainland. So, you either have to buy an entire private island, "buy" part of one, or rent part of one.

To be honest, I'd rather sell private island land and then be done with it. However, under the current system, you are still responsible for the tier payment every month. I think people like me perform a valuable service to allow most people to live or work on a private island, instead of having to save up $1675 USD and then pay $295 a month. Of course, most people don't need an entire island.

I'm going to look at JIRA to see if there is a proposal to make buying and selling private island land exactly like mainland.

on edit: Now there is

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-937

You only lose 100% of your investment if you abandon your land. Set it for .1 less per meter than the base price on land search. Right now that would mean setting it for $L7.1 a meter. It will sell within an hour and you will recoup some of your investment.

Sorry you have had bad experiences with land ownership. Most people have positive experiences, otherwise SL would have folded two years ago.

Agreed and I have 10 days to pray some naive person comes along to buy the land (now priced at L$1.7 per meter though it was once listed much higher and I originally purchased it at L$9.0 per meter). But after 4 months of this crap, 2 months trying to sell, 2 months trying to rent, how many more months of tiers is the land worth? Every month I am throwing RL money out the window on something obviously very few people are interested in.



This won't work. It's land on a private estate island. You know land that you and others continue to say DON'T BUY. I was a fool to buy it in the first place, but I didn't know better. Now I do. Of course we know not all estate owners are not corrupt money hungry sharks. But there is no shortage of weekly threads where someone whines about a estate owner doing them wrong and no shortage of "only do business with so and so" responses and the little person is basically left out to dry.



I am actually not abandoning all my SL real estate. I am just talking about abandoning this private island estate 4k parcel I have in my name. I also have a small 512 mainland parcel (it's currently still in a nice area of town, but that can change anytime and when the landscape does get ugly the plan is to take to the skies). My point in all of this, is that SL real estate (outside of recreational purposes) is a poor investment. I originally purchased my private estate island with the intentions of using it as a residential SL home. But the estate owner allows ban lines and I am surrounded by nothing but ban lines (3 of the 4 borders of my land have ban lines up and the 4th border is the water sim border). So I chose to relocate to a friends island where it is much friendlier and I tried to sell and then rent this original estate 4k land parcel. Of course, unless another naive SL newbie comes along, I do not have a hope in hell in selling and how many more months of tier payments must one endure before one says "enough".

No I stand by two statements:

1) Unless you are a Linden, you don't own squat in SL.
2) SL real estate is a poor investment. The monthly tiers make it a money pit for residential parcels, so only invest what you can afford to lose.

I'm not arguing I'm just confused and remain confused as to the difference between Raymond owning a mainland sim and Raymond owning an Island (besides the financial implications of the extra 100 dollars a month).

Raymond deals in straight rental. No sales, so it doesn't matter with that model if you own an island or mainland, if you can't meet tier you lose either way.

LL are the most trustworthy landlords here.

However Raymond, if you were the estate owner your business model would be the same as the one you have on mainland. LL would be the only people you pay and only they could reclaim the estate land.

Oh. Oops. Ahh. Good luck to you...

Yes, but I'm sure we'll all agree - there's a much more important question that desperately needs answering.

*Is* it cheating?

I was not talking about Island ownership. I was talking about renting from an island owner.

How much is tier, how much would rental be and have you tried putting out a classified? I find classifieds work from around L$107.

Tier is L$7000/month and I sub-divided the lot into 2. I had a someone renting one of the lots for L$1000/week for a couple of weeks bending over backwards to provide them with virtually anything that they wanted/needed and yes I ran classified ads for L$50 up to L$500 and very few people would come to even look at the 2nd property.

The entire 4k parcel used to border another sim (it is on a network of estate islands sims) and for the longest time this sim was actually an ocean property. Now while I was never allowed access to the ocean (the owners of the ocean banned virtually everyone in SL from entering the water) it was still a very nice thing to look at from my land and gave the appearance that the land was on a corner ocean lot. But the owners of the ocean sim decided they need to sell their land and the ocean is now gone and replaced with a barren landscape and god only knows what will replace it. So my renters decided the property was now not worth their while, they left and well I am tired of paying RL money for something nobody wants to buy or rent (sure hope all you ban line supporters enjoy the walls you insist on living behind).

In summary, please don't not confuse my post with a whiners post. I am okay with the SL real estate lessons I have learned and I can live with my losses. Had I know then what I know now, I never would have bought this land. But one often doesn't learn these lessons without experiencing them. My point in posting here is two fold:

1) None of us non-Lindens owns anything here in SL.
2) SL real estate (that does not allow commercial businesses) are not a good investment. The tiers make SL real estate nothing more than a money pit.

Amity, you are technically and legally correct, right down the line. But the fact of the matter is, the sim owner can do whatever he or she darn well pleases, covenant or not. There is no "contract", in the legal sense of the word, no matter what the word on that tab says.

Which is, I agree a problem. I'm currently multi tasking from a meeting on SL banking and the bottom line is, people need to be held responsible for taking RL money from people. Ok the L$ isn't technically RL money, but they have value and as long as people can get away without penalty of ripping people off, then this nonsense will continue.

As a business owner I'd rather I was held accountable for my actions. It would encourage trust and it would make me stop having to have petty feuds with people I like!