Rental Homes: skyboxes, or ground houses?

Which do you find that most rental tenants prefer? Skybox, or houses on sky platfroms, or houses on the group, maybe laid out in a little community if you own enough land to do it? The ground is flat green and attractive, so we don't need to go to the sky just for aesthetics. I just wondered if people prefer the novelty and privacy of the sky, or would rather be part of a neighborhood on the ground. I have a number of attractive houses to put out that were either free or low cost.

Princess Ivory

I offer renters a choice. So far all but one couple have chosen to be on the ground. That could be because it's oceanfront and nice views down there. One thing's for sure. It's a lot less laggy up at 700 meters.

I don't offer the choice for any private sky-dwelling, myself. Some customers will want that, I'm sure. I bill my place as a community, though, so no one has asked me for a secluded place. Renting skyboxes, in my opinion, sends the signal right up front, "Come rent my crap mainland. Yeah it's trash, but at least you're high enough you don't have to look at any of it."

Here's a shameless plug for our profession, if you're just starting out, Princess: the wonderful thing about having us landlords around in SL is that there is an incentive for us to beautify the land. So I would suggest that you build on your land if you can. You probably paid more than average for it if it's attractive, so don't waste it by not building on it. Your land, and all the land around it will only become more valuable if you build a community on it.

Others are bound to disagree, but that's my 2 Lindens worth!

-Avion

For sure. I'd like to think the landscaping and features like Lilith Heart trees, protected sailing lanes, pools, dance and romantic poseballs etc. really make a difference. Basically, I created a place that I wanted to live in myself since i have pretty high standards.

Thanks everyone - you are confirming my own opinions!

The area I bought was broken up into 1024 lots. Should I restructure and keep some of the land as public for walkways, a park, maybe a pool, and set up some 512 plots for houses? Which size tends to be most popular for rental homes, 512 or 1024? I know the 512 would be more affordable for many people.

Princess Ivory

It's a bit small...most of the renters on my sim want bigger than 512. I do like the idea of common areas if you can allow for them. It keeps people from being on top of each other and you can offer more prims as a result.

Princess,

I only rent houses and apartments, and not the land, so for my dwellings no one cares about the square meters of land below them, only how big their house is, and how many prims they get. Someone who rents whole parcels like you describe, can better answer what size is more popular.

I cut my parcels up so that house dwellers can have their own internet radio. I also cut the land beneath my hotel so that fewer tenants have to share the radio. In my high rise hotel, you share media settings with everyone above and below, but not next door, basically.

I'm all for parks, pools, and walkways, definitely. You just have to be sure you don't go crazy with them and run out of prims for the tenants. Plan out how many prims the tenants will use, and consider those spent before you start laying down all the fun stuff.

Like Raymond says, if you build a place you would want to live in, you'll get customers who also want to.

By the way, this past weekend was crazy-awesome for business. I spent nearly every in-world moment showing apartments and getting new tenants set up. My neighbors' rental houses seemed to be filling up too. Are other landlords also falling on good times?

-Avion

Nope. My weekend was slow. *sobs quietly*

/me totally sympathizes with Raymond.

Though it is good to know I'm not the only one. I had tons of traffic to both my places, but really light on takers. Maybe those affected by VAT are looking for value housing, not premium?

Getting back to the OP, I tend to make the ground the attractive feature, and only one tenant lives full time in the sky... though they do park a boat on the water below their skybox

Just by way of contrast, my few tenants can build only above the cloud layer, and are required to maintain at least a 20m "chat buffer" from their neighbors. That separation is a lot easier to achieve in the sky. They're on dedicated parcels, mostly deeded each to a separate group to give them near-owner parcel permissions. (I should mention, though, that the rent is very low... somewhere around tier-recovery, if that. Not at all sure this approach would work if one were trying to clear any kind of profit.)

I probably overhyped my comment, really. I still have more units to rent before I'm in the black over tier. And just as Sammy mentioned, there were way more browsers than buyers, as one would expect with an SL "big-ticket" item such as choosing one's living space.

But being new at this, every additional tenant brings a giddy thrill, so it's hard not to get hyped!

Sadly, I feel better by reading this thread. I'm not the only one in the red!

Here I have this picture of you all being so successful... nice to know I'm not alone.

I am dismayed by the amount of full sims that cropped up, no landscaping, with just a huge farm of prefabs and with razor thin margins. I have to wonder about it, really - are they full? Looks like I need a week or so of market research.

So far as a renter, I've definitely been more interested in a home that is part of a community; someplace where I have enough space and prims to make the place my own (I'm not one for the pre-furnished places) but in an attractive or interesting area. I suppose I can see how the privacy of a skybox might be a draw for others, but I like to occassionally bump into my neighbors, and like the idea that passersby might actually glance in and notice the art that I've hung, etc.

And speaking of attractive areas, my current landlord, a certain Avion, has done a great job of creating a beautiful area with lots of amenities. You can pay me later, Avion

The Necros (and Dimitrios now) Community that I'm part of offers rentals on the ground and in the sky. However, as lush and feature rich as the grounds are, people tend to fall in love with the space station. It's still very community oriented with lots of amenities on the station (and of course they have access to all the community amenities on the ground -- and vice versa).

I really think it has more to do with the aesthetics and beauty that is provided. Just offering a plain old sky box is ho hum, but a space station? Now that's cool.

Make it pretty and feature rich, like Raymond said, and they'll come

I think most people prefer houses on the ground because we are all used to living on the ground. It's realistic and comforting. On the other hand, it's useful to have a skybox as well for working in and privacy. So ideally, one should have both.

Slightly off topic but.... I have my own land and have always lived at ground level despite it being a bit laggy because of the stupid megaprim rotating ad nearby. But I have a platform up in the sky for building and have a skyclub and other structures I've made that can be rezzed if need be. For a long time I had a (aher-ahum) unofficial second sky home in an abandoned and forgotten sim that was set to open build. It must have been there 4 or 5 months undisturbed but then the owner cleared everything!!!

Hi,

I take the opposite view, and the opposite approach.

My sims are divided into a 4x4 grid, ie 16 plots of 4096sqm, and above each of the 16 plots are 16 SkyHomes (not skyboxes, we use really beautiful homes, designed by one of the best architects in SL, ArchTX). This leaves the ground completely free, and it is beautifully landscaped, with tropical island paradises, or lagoons and old sailing ships, and are for the enjoyment of ALL our tenants. We tell them that they have the use of the biggest beach in sl, the whole sim!

We have no lag, whether that is because of the height they are at, or because we use private island sims, or because we are Class 5, I don't know. But there are several private island sims near to us on the large Map, and the houses there are on the ground, and when we have visited the lag is immediately noticeable.

One of the biggest benefits of SkyHomes is that we can space them to be not only out of chat range of each other, but also out of shout range and normal camera distance range, hence a greater degree of privacy. SkyHomes are also out of normal fly range too. Of course, all of these security and privacy benefits can be defeated by a determined savvy griefer, but we have had no problems so far in 17 months of operation.

Meanwhile our tenants can use all of the ground facilities, which are extensive, and are not limited to a few who ring-fence their bit of land on the ground as in other sims, with ban-lines and other ugly-looking walls etc.

Having lived in both ground-based homes and SkyHomes myself, before I started my own sims, I am in absolutely no doubt whatsoever which I prefer, and as most of my tenants are long-term, and we are full, I guess they feel the same way too.

Rock

That sounds great, Rock. Fantastic idea.

I think, in the end, it's a matter of matching the tenant to the tenancy. There are so many different types of rentals available, that there is something for everyone. I don't think everyone is the same and all wish the same experience. And that's a good thing

Sounds lovely, Rock. The only drawback for me personally is the view of the horizon rarely changes up there, but this should change once Windlight launches.

16 skyhomes over *each* 4096?
/me doesn't like the prim math

I found that I get affected by the magnetic fields generated by the levitrons that keep my sky structures up, so I can't stay up too long LOL.