What is the safest way to buy land? (Please help the novice)

Auctions are great if there is no one else bidding against you and you can afford whatever the prices.
It is bad if its in area you really want and some bozo raises the price in your sim for 512m lot for 100k.
Also it's great if you can afford your own sim and no one else is bidding against you.
Biggest mistakes I have made with land is over paying for mainland lots in very laggy areas. not understanding what places to avoid, buying land in area I really liked but not being able to expand due to neighbors and over priced lots, or spending way too much expanding land..
Or buying land, become very attached to area, having new neighbors move in and change the
sim and making the place unable to use because of lag.
Also when I first bought land I sort of did it compulsively and then had buyers remorse i.e buying accidentally out of sim I live in where the prims weren't transferable, building or buying next to heavy traffic sim and often losing money in the process or buying to at too high of price when I wanted to move losing my investment so I could move.
Which is big risk if you don't want or don't have lot of money to lose.
Also one 512m lot once you have one is never enough prims, you always want more once you get started

i always recommend that people avoid the auctions.
not because i want all the $25,000 512's for myself, but because i think it greatly reduces the odds of a novice overpaying for a parcel.
and maybe the auction scene has changed, but it has always been my experience that existing neighbours and such keep the auction prices higher than the in-world average.

Auctions aren't for someone starting out or have no clue what a fair price for land is.
Auctions tend from what I seen to get bit competitive and ridiculous sometimes.
Most of bigger land traders or flippers use them and there is reason for that sometimes
there is really good deals to be had but often from what I seen with smaller lots it just
gets stupid.
For buying a entire Sim yes, its often good way to get one.
Yet you have to have the ability to be able spend over 1250 usd and be able to pay the tier prices
That isn't something I recommend either for someone who hasn't already earned lot of money
in world, can't afford to spend thousands a year or just starting out.
You often can get entire sims for cheaper then buying in world, make more profits flipping.
Flipping land and making money off land has changed its not like it was over a year ago.
Some do I have friend who sells really high priced 512m lots for ridiculous prizes in older
Sims. I don't get personally why anyone would pay over 100k for 512m lot.
Or even pay over 3k for it. I have paid 11k for 512m lot in past and I will never do that again.

If you're going to buy mainland buy cheapest and most you can afford cheapest is better.
And only buy if its extremely low i.e like under 5L a meter price and what you can afford to pay or lose if it goes badly.
Don't buy 256m lots, even LL recommends you not do that starting out. 512m or more.
Sometimes you can find good deals i.e 11k to 16k for 4L a meter or less if you watch regularly if bots don't get it first.
Sometimes you can get good deals from friends who want to get rid of land sometimes they even sell if for even less then market rate.
Especially if they like, trust or want to help you out especially if they know you will be good for the sim for less or even sometimes free to reduce their tier in mainland communities..
Make sure you know how to use search, land and teleport and have mainland selected only for sale.

Thank you. I wasn't sure I had that quite right and should have said so.

Land Auctions used to be the way to go if you were good at sniping bids... but when the prices took a dump a few months ago, the land search tool ended up being the better way to find cheap land.

The more directly you deal with LL the better of a price you will get unless you find someone who is quiting and wants to give you their land for dirt. The more Brokers and " fake-estate" Barons or Dealers and Middlemen are in the mix the more you will pay extra


Now I don't even want to look at land prices anymore, because seeing the current prices will make me want to quit SL, considering I paid like 14-21 L / M for all of my land the beginning of this year.. and back then those were bargains for the areas where I am.

Yeah when I bought land when FD first joined I paid way too much 10 to 11k often for 512m lot.
I thought deal was anything around 6 to 8k.
Won't go there again.
Best deal I got was recently but I don't buy and sell land like I use too, I tend to stick within certain location near my Friend's sim.
The guy was downsizing because he just had baby and I got lost to 8k in land for around 3L a meter. First time he sold me one small lot for 100L for land he didn't want that was near my lot.