Hello again :)

That's pretty much it, except for the details. The devil is in the details.

You don't _need_ the group, but it will make building easier if there's one group owning both parcels.

You could have one of you create the group, the other join as an officer or owner so you're both members, and both donate all your tier to the group.

THEN buy the land for the group. When you go to buy the land one of the options in the dialog is "buy for group". That will allow you to buy the land into the group directly without having to juggle separate parcels, or look for two 512s side by side. [Edit: what Eli says in the following message. ]

If you are buying for a group there is no reason to buy two 512s (or 560s). Just buy a 1024 or an 1126.

When I was having bunch of confusion over group creation for purposes of land owning, deeding, etc., I joined the group inworld 'SL Land Answers'. Those people know everything and are very patient in explaining to you, if you haven't gotten it, here. In my case, I found that because the land I was asking about was on an estate, all my questions about deeding to group, and making contributions and such didn't even apply, because it wasn't mainland I was asking about. You just join the group and ask your questions in the open group chat, and somebody answers. They are really good, and patient. Good luck to you, sounds like you understand, though.

The more land you own on a mainland sim, the more prims you get to use on that sim.

If you have, say, a 512m2 you can put a little skybox or what-have-you on it, and use a holodeck system to only rez the things you want at that moment. Example: your skybox is a tiled Persian temple with a fountain and cushions, but in the holodeck you have a Japanese teahouse, the bridge of a spaceship, and a meditation place deep in a forest. Choose the teahouse and the Persian details go poof, to be superceded by the teahouse.

And NO, Sunny, although someone did respond to this question, just want to reiterate, estate owners cannot 'take your stuff'. They can return it to you it there's a problem with it. I returned a wall to a resident on my estate recently, after repeated requests to get it off the land line, move it in a tad. But take it, no one has the ability to 'take' your stuff, it's set to you as owner.

This is true but confusing.

Because you can right-click -> BUY LAND on parcels on a private island estate. You become the "owner" in the "about land" popup. But in real terms, you're still just renting, because the sim owner can boot you and reclaim the land for no reason without notice at any time. (Most generally don't, because it's just not good business. But they can and sometimes do.)

These days, many private sim owners set the buy cost to a trivial amount. It's nice to be the owner so you can set the parcel name, text, and picture, set the landing point, control permissions for others to rez objects, ban people, etc.

It's confusing, because many landlords have both "buy" and "rent" options; in the second case you don't have the owner priviliges. But in both cases you can be booted at any time. When you buy mainland, only SL can boot you.

However, when you have problems on mainland, only SL can help you. When you have problems on a private island sim, the estate managers can often help quite a bit.

About prim count: as I understand it, private island sim owners have the option of increasing the ratio of prims per plot size, but most do not.

One more nice little factoid. If you have a 512 plot, you get your 117 prims. If you buy another 512 plot in the same region, your allotment doubles, and you can use that allotment on either plot, even if they're not adjoining or connected somehow. In other words, as an owner of any number of plots in a region, you get a pool of prims to use, and can use those prims on any plot.

If you're a premium member, your best bet might be to get a 1024 plot on mainland, because half your tier is already paid. If you're not a premium member, you cannot buy mainland.

I admit that 117 prims is a challenge to live on. I suspect that the prim allotments are out of date and could be raised without impairing performance dramatically. I mean, my goodness, many people have more prims than that in their hair.

There are plenty of respectable landlords where this is not a problem. IM me ingame for a short list of some I can recommend.

Though if they abandon the sim everything in it is just flushed down the drain... not returned.

Yes, true. Even in that instance, they didn't 'take' it which implies they somehow stole it. Of course, we just recently here in this forum read about a case like that, where the owner abandoned the estate and at the request of a resident of that estate, LL rolled it back so the person could get their stuff. It does happen but so many don't know of their options. I have to say I am truly SO sorry that estate living has such a bad name due to these types of shenanigans. It's really a nice situation to be in, people usually choose it for the peace, quiet and beauty; but the bad apple owners who have done such as you all describe really make it hard on those of us who would never do such. And there's no refuting it, all I can do is just cringe every time it starts up, cause I know it's true....

Fair enough, but the end result to the poor renter is the same.

A Whitelist for trustable estates would be smart thing to have, and might also clear the bad reputation of estates. Unfortunatly a little few give the large estate business a bad name.



Yes we can, but the total prims on any given sim cannot exceed 15000. So in order to do so for a parcel, we need to keep other parcels clear.
If I would rent/lease out my land on my sim, and would keep half totally empty, then I am capable to offer a 2.0 bonus, otherwise, if I lease out every single sqm, I am simply not capable of doing so.

In the past I seen sims we now call homesteads being leased out with 4.0 bonus factor, making the residents believe it was a full sim.

Prim Bonus factor shows up in object tab in 'about land'

Ps. Yes I own a sim, but I do not rent or lease out.

There's at least one sim with a 20,000 prim limit in SL.

I bet it's not a private estate

You'd lose that bet. It went up for sale last year some time. I have some snaps on my Wintendo.

You will save money by buying a small piece of mainland, than renting from a private estate, over the long term.

With mainland, you have the upfront cost of "buying" the land, and then paying your monthly tier on top of it. With a private estate, you do not have that upfront cost, just the rent payments.

However, estate rent is almost always (or just always?) going to be higher than mainland tier. Plus, if you are premium, you get your first 512m tier-free.

Plus, you can always sell your mainland when you are done with it, and recoup some of that upfront cost. Unless you are lucky (or perhaps skilled), you won't recoup your entire purchase price, but you can recoup something.

Find some estate parcels worth renting, then do the math as compared to mainland. Figure out your total costs over 1 month, over 3 months, over 6 months, over a year. On the shorter durations, estate land is probably less expensive (in the 1-3 month range). When you get to around 6 months or more, mainland is going to be your less expensive option.

Two years ago, I had 8000+ sqm (1700 prims or so) for my home on a private estate. I never used all the land or anywhere near all the prims, and the estate owner ended up screwing me to a loss of several hundred dollars US.

Today, I have my little 512 sq m mainland that is tier-free with my premium account. I am quite happy there, with 117 prims. It means I have to be cautious about what I put on my land to preserve the prim count, but I'm happy there.

If you really, really, can't live with less than 234 prims, buying a 1024 sq m piece of land is a fine option. Since your first 512 sqm is tier-free, you are only paying for the excess 512 sq m.

Hey sunnygirl, I just wanted to thank you for your questions; I'm thinking of buying a little plot of land myself and you've gotten a lot of answers to the questions I've had rolling around my head for the past couple months.

Not a problem. I've had all these questions rolling around in my head for a couple weeks. Wasn't even sure how to ask.

Everyone has been really helpful tho and I really appreciate it. Math really isn't my strongest suit...but I really think I understand enough now to seriously consider all my options.

thanks again everyone!


p.s. LL would be stupid to discontinue this forum. fwiw.