Premium member or Rent? Stats you need within...

The Big Land Question...

An answer to the question: Should I become a premium member or rent land?

Allow me walk you through the maths some people don't want you to think about! I'm only addressing land costs here. Additional support and any other benefits you get for being a premium member is something else you might like to consider.

First lets check out the joys of being a premium member. 300L$ per week in your account 512m2 of land with no tier payments to make gives you 117 prims to play with. Membership costs vary depending on your payment choice: 9.95$ per Month or 2.30$ per week 22.50$ per Quarter or 1.73$ per week 72.00$ per Year or 1.38$ per week

Your 300L$ stipend is paid direct in world so you don't pay a transaction charge on it like you would if you transfer money to rent land. For the purpose of comparison I'm going deduct it from the membership cost at a rate of 268L$ per $ or $1.12 per week. In theory because you don't pay the transaction cost it's worth more than that. But it's better if you consider the transaction fees for renting depending on how many L$ you buy at the time rather than try and account for it here. As a guide, at the time of writing you have to pay about 1.43$ for 300L$ in a single transaction (209.8L$ per $). If you shift a comparable sum to being a premium member per month into L$ it's more like 255.5L$ per $. Anyway. On with the stats!

So to own your first 512m2 of land and the 117 prims on it per week:
0.27$ or 71.08L$ if paid Yearly so 0.61L$ per prim per week.
0.61$ or 163.85L$ if paid Quarterly so 1.40L$ per prim per week.
1.18$ or 315.37L$ if paid Monthly so 2.70L$ per prim per week.

You pay tier as a premium account holder on land above the first 512m2. For the sake of compressing the data I've skipped a few steps here to bring you the comparisons.

If you pay Yearly:
512 m2 = 0.27 $ per week / 71.08 L$ per week = 0.61 L$ per prim per week
1024 m2 = 1.42 $ per week / 380.31 L$ per week = 1.63 L$ per prim per week
1536 m2 = 2.11 $ per week / 565.85 L$ per week = 1.61 L$ per prim per week
2560 m2 = 3.73 $ per week / 998.77 L$ per week = 1.71 L$ per prim per week
4608 m2 = 6.03 $ per week / 1617.23 L$ per week = 1.53 L$ per prim per week
8704 m2 = 9.50 $ per week / 2544.92 L$ per week = 1.28 L$ per prim per week
16896 m2 = 17.57 $ per week / 4709.54 L$ per week = 1.22 L$ per prim per week
33280 m2 = 29.11 $ per week / 7801.85 L$ per week = 1.02 L$ per prim per week
65536 m2 = 45.27 $ per week / 12131.08 L$ per week = 0.81 L$ per prim per week

If you pay Quarterly:
512 m2 = 0.61 $ per week / 163.85 L$ per week = 1.4 L$ per prim per week
1024 m2 = 1.77 $ per week / 473.08 L$ per week = 2.02 L$ per prim per week
1536 m2 = 2.46 $ per week / 658.62 L$ per week = 1.88 L$ per prim per week
2560 m2 = 4.07 $ per week / 1091.54 L$ per week = 1.87 L$ per prim per week
4608 m2 = 6.38 $ per week / 1710 L$ per week = 1.62 L$ per prim per week
8704 m2 = 9.84 $ per week / 2637.69 L$ per week = 1.32 L$ per prim per week
16896 m2 = 17.92 $ per week / 4802.31 L$ per week = 1.24 L$ per prim per week
33280 m2 = 29.46 $ per week / 7894.62 L$ per week = 1.04 L$ per prim per week
65536 m2 = 45.61 $ per week / 12223.85 L$ per week = 0.81 L$ per prim per week

If you pay Monthly:
512 m2 = 1.18 $ per week / 315.37 L$ per week = 2.7 L$ per prim per week
1024 m2 = 2.33 $ per week / 624.6 L$ per week = 2.67 L$ per prim per week
1536 m2 = 3.02 $ per week / 810.14 L$ per week = 2.31 L$ per prim per week
2560 m2 = 4.64 $ per week / 1243.06 L$ per week = 2.12 L$ per prim per week
4608 m2 = 6.95 $ per week / 1861.52 L$ per week = 1.77 L$ per prim per week
8704 m2 = 10.41 $ per week / 2789.22 L$ per week = 1.40 L$ per prim per week
16896 m2 = 18.48 $ per week / 4953.83 L$ per week = 1.28 L$ per prim per week
33280 m2 = 30.02 $ per week / 8046.14 L$ per week = 1.06 L$ per prim per week
65536 m2 = 46.18 $ per week / 12375.37 L$ per week = 0.83 L$ per prim per week

Now happy resident. Armed with such knowledge go forth and check out that rental deal you were looking at!

[And feel free to copy this one into blog's etc ... I think people need full knowledge before they decide to rent or pay up as a premium member]

I am impressed, thanks for sharing.

Yeah but ... I joined when the stiped was $400 linden a week. And I pay yearly, and I only own a 512 so no tier. Is that a good deal for me?

Elinah

Some older Ac. get even 500 L$ a week... someone say to me once.

But for your work.. thx a lot from me.

Bunchoo

I appreciate the stats ......

But lets also look at the fact that the tier for an island is quite hefty, And even at an almost FULL island its hard to even break even... so you have to take into consideration there MUST be profit in it somewhere in order to operate. So why does an island owner make money paying $295 pcm when a "normal" premium member pays more from your maths.

I dunno ..... theres always a lot of argument about whats better.... In reality .. its what ever works for the person. At half a sim I pay £60 pm plus about £3.50 a month in membership... quite a bit some might say but then again im not in it to rent an island ... or mainland. IRL .... its ALWAYS cheaper to rent becasue you dont own any equity ... same with SL, you have to also take into consideration land value (good or bad) and how that might add up over time.

Regardless of maths ... i always advise this

If you would like to "own" land with the stability of Linden Lab being your providor , have complete controll over what you build, but no controll over what others next to you build .... then mainland is for you.

If you would like to rent a parcel with convenents to protect you from others ... and others from. Being at the whim of the land" owner" regardless of Linden Lab and having no recourse if your landlord decides to chuck you out.... the rentals is for you.

My personal preference is mainland becasue i KNOW that if i rented land on an island it WOULD cost me more than the price of my tier AND the land together... it HAS to or the landlord would be out of business. I cant have any foundation about traffic or lag becasue i really dont know.... but i feel like i am part of SL by having a peice of it (as long as i pay). Im not a tourist in SL paying for the odd visist so that i can play house .... for me ... its a living society... with people doing business to vaying scales ... and socializing to all extents. I see my premium payments as being a contribution no different than my RL National Insurance.... my Teir is my Tax .... both of these things I see as good things even if they are a little pricy. If I was an inregular player who didnt want to invest in the platform and see SL as more of a game or something similar to myspace/messenger then I might not want to pay that premium as I dont get significant returns to warrent the monthly membership.

Everybodies circumstances are different.... and certainly we have seen numbers crunched on both sides o the argument many times but in the long run ... it depends on what the persons playings needs are.

Another option which I only found yesterday (yes I am slow) is to mix both owning land and renting tier donation.

For example I am renting tier donation at L0.25/sqm per week. This equates to L512 for 4 weeks for a 512 plot and as my plot is only 1024, this means instead of paying USD5, I am paying about L570 or less than half. Now this might not sound like much but now I have the ability to increase my land and rent the exact amount of tier needed without worrying about the jump between tier levels.

It is true. I get indeed 500 L$ per week.

Morwen.

You lucky Girl


/me waves at Morwen

Alt, renting tier is fine except you still stand the risk that the owner who donated the tier could evict you for no reason from the group and then lose the tier. Automatically you will then pay tiers to LL as you are responsible for that land.

However, if the owner is reputable there is no reason why this cannot work.

Sure. But for most people looking at a rental price in world, the comparison with the actual cost of being a premium member and owning land is quite daunting. I presented the data for people to have an easy way of comparing the two.

Um worth noting that the numbers here also only reflect the ongoing cost of having land on the mainland. The initial purchase cost isn't factored in.

And like I said it only looks at the cost of having land, not the additional benefits of being a premium member.

Excellent stats...thank you. However, real estate confuses me...so I'll just continue renting my suite with my basic account.

I can see how this information would make for a lovely reference card when you plan on going all Lex Luthor.

*grins*
I need something to pay all those clothes I have with????

Hmm no... I have my credit card for that

*Waves back at Alt*

Morwen.

I am a mainland landlord. I offer apartments/homes at 2L/prim ratio. The apartment/house DOES NOT COUNT toward the prim limit. So someone paying me 300/wk gets a full 150 prims to decorate with. If you decide to go the route of owning land, and want to have more than 117 prims (minus your house) to decorate with, you have to tier up. If you can constrain yourself to living within the means of having a 512, it is worth it to go premium after considering the stipend. But if you want more prims, you need to do a serious cost/benefit analysis because your friend who rents from someone like me is going to enjoy their home for a lot less money per month than you.

If I read your stats right, the cheapest way to own land in SL would be to make a bunch of alts, sign them all up for Premium memberships and pay yearly subscriptions...

Then form a group and donate all the alts' tier free 512 parcels to the primary account holder.


Or did I miss something?

What are those additional benefits again?

Thank you for thinking this through for us. It's a great help.

One thing to point out is that to get some of the pristine views on land offered by some renters with your purchased land, the purchase price does become a factor. Even in today's soft market, pretty areas come at a premium, especially if you want waterfront on a sim with no spinning ads.

There is another option that you haven't mentioned:
Remain a free, basic account, and buy land on a private sim. This has been my choice after trying out the others, and I find it to be the best deal.

Basic member, with 10,240M2 rented on an off-the-map private island sim. No up-front cost to purchase land. My cost per prim is about L$ 1.28 per week, calculated the same way that the original poster did. I get no stipend, but my in-world business ventures provide me with more than enough L$ to cover all my L$ expenses and all the L$ expenses of my alts, and I still cash out L$ every week or two, in quantities more than sufficent to cover my land costs. Total out of pocket expense every year? Less than zero. I'm making a profit in SL.

I have no ad farms to contend with, no greifers can access my land in any way, and I live on a beautiful, waterfront, fully-terraformable parcel, with like-minded and wonderful neighbors.

So, how is paying annual Premium Dues, buying or renting Mainland, and living with the strong probability of having pornographic ad farms and teams of greifers for neighbors, supposed to be a benefit again?

You are keeping LL in business by giving them your lindens. Plus you might see rotating bewbies.

LL gets the money anyway, as the sim owner I am renting from pays them the same tier fee per M2, if not more, as a mainland land owner does. I just pay the sim owner, and he passes my monthly maintenance on to the Lindens.

I don't recall posting anything saying I was pro owning mainland.
I was just putting the numbers out for people to make a more informed judgement.
It's interesting to see an automatic "I must defend my decision to rent" reaction from a few people though. That's fine! Rent! Enjoy! I'm not picking a fight!

You may not realize, but that option is the same as renting. The only difference is you pay a little extra to have your name listed as the owner, but you're not the owner. You still rent the land from another SL resident (instead of Linden Lab) who maintains full ownership control of the land you think you 'own'.

It is true, I get L$500/week, and I know some even older residents who get 4800 SL of land free of tier for life, that was the promotional deal when they bought it. Ahhh the good old days.

That may be true, but they still are waiting for their mule they were promised.

I would eventually like to buy a 512 piece of land myself. Slowly, oh so slowly, I am saving - but the temptation of shopping always slows it down (ie. I'm back to just over 1000L in my account again ~_~). I'm thinking (since it's so small) perhaps a store downstairs to sell my goods, then a studio for building upstairs - and maybe a living area above that.

/me stares into Morwens eyes .... hmmm? ... you're wearing ... clothes?? <swoon>

Interesting post Fluf. Like Michael though those numbers kind of wash over me these days. There are, as people have pointed out already, other factors that perhaps can't be given monetary value swaying choice one way or another.

My situation:
My alt and I are premium. My alt however had problems registering which took her past the day LL changed the stipend so where Bilbo gets 400L$ my alt only gets 300 .. just a minor point to gum up the works even more.
So, Bilbo buys a 1024 plot and is paying the tier originally. I now have a group with my alt. Since she's premium she's donated her 512 free tier as has Bilbo, to the group and deeded the land. Therefore I am paying 144$US annually, getting 700L$ stipend a week and paying no tier. I have due to the group benefit, an option to increase land tier-free by another 102sm I believe?
Anyway, I'll let you do the math on that one ... it's Friday and my head hurts already!

added: ohhh kayyy .... despite head hurting ... 700L$ x 52 weeks = 36400L$ = 137$US.
Err .. I'm paying 7$US a year for all this?!?? Wooo hooo!!!!!!
Go on .. tell me my math sucks!