Tips on purchasing a full island from another resident?

I am considering purchasing a full island from another resident (not directly from LL) What are some tips and things to watch out for?

One big one that I know directly: pay current owner directly, not a third party broker.

Would I as the buyer, have to do anything, other than provide payment details to LL for tier - do anything to facilitate transfer?

To transfer the island, both buyer and seller need to raise a support ticket with LL. There's special ticket types for "I'm buying an island and accept the fee" and "I'm selling an island and agree to pay the transfer fee".

As a buyer, you would probably want to move and rename the island - these are included as part of the transfer fee paid by the seller, so you would tell LL where you want the island and the name, the estate name you want, what terraforming you want doing (if any - you can pick one of the default 4 shapes, or flat, or leave it like it is, I would imagine), stuff like keeping existing parcels (useful if you're taking over a sim with current tenants, for example).

Get the seller to submit their ticket first, then include their ticket number in your ticket (there's a box to enter it)

Things to watch out for - well, agree beforehand if the price includes the US$100 transfer fee or whether the seller is expecting it to be added on. If it's near the billing date, agree on what to do if the transfer happens before or after the billing date - I've had one island transfer overnight, another took 9 days.

Absolutely be sure to get the person to set the land to sell only to you, I have heard horror stories lately of bots swooping in and buying out land right from people in a matter of seconds. You can set any parcel to a private sale based on the avies name, and nobody else can buy it but you. No eggeration on the bots here, check the blog, there have been instances of people switching rights to land via selling it back and forth, one instance it was set to zero and a bot swooped in within seconds and bought it right our from under the 2 people's noses. Unfortunately the new owner didn't think this was wrong and offered to sell it back at a ridicously high price,

Good advice, but not relevant to private island transfers, really.

Just KNOW

When you pay the avatar for the island, until that transfer is complete, the seller can backout and not refund your money. Is that legal, no...but it happens. I have not found a company to guarantee virtual property. Even had one well known Realtor scammed out of 1,000USD for an island when the seller sold the island 3 separate times and did not deliver. The seller had another island, but LL confiscated that one. 2 people were left without an island.

Best of Luck to you.

Interesting you should say "don't pay a broker" because basically, the exchange is a matter of trust.

An example: two people I know (who didn't know each other whatsoever aside from business) wanted to transfer an island between themselves.

Both were comfortable with me, and asked me to hold the $L in escrow as a favour. So I did.*

In less than a week the island changed hands, I got notification to transfer the $L, and shortly after that all of it was settled. And no, I didn't get paid for this. Just friends helping friends.

So... would you blindly trust someone you never met, ahead of a friend? In the current business climate of the metaverse, friends are all ya got.

Of course, don't blindly pay someone you don't know to be a 'broker' - that's just askin' for trouble.





* For anyone wondering, no, I won't hold escrow for YOUR island transfer.

Actually, once both tickets have been raised with LL, it needs *both* parties to back out, otherwise the transfer goes through. Supposedly, anyway (according to the knowledgebase article on the subject).

But that's just as risky, Stephen, but for the seller. The transfer goes thru, but the buyer never pays the seller the money...

Yes, but only if the island is transferred before payment is made. Otherwise, you still need to trust that the ticket number raised by the seller is actually valid and hasn't just been made up.

Without some type of escrow, because the sale isn't atomic like regular land sales are (should be...), you either transfer the island first and trust that you'll get paid, or pay the money first and trust the island will be transferred. Or if you pay half first & half afterwards, you're both taking a chance that the other person will follow through. No way around it apart from escrow.