how to make profit?

ok this is good all i have to do is buy the land . and no monthly fee .. i like that but how long does that last? as long as i have a premium account and dont down grade? and does this mean if i buy a 1024 lot .i get it half price per month? and if i get a alt and f0rm a group i get extra prims?

Mr Jack42, I hate to say this but having seen your posts recently, you will not make any money whatsoever from buying land and trying to rent it out. You will in fact lose all your money and also make anyone who rents from you miserable.

thank you for your kind words . gives me hope and it really brings sl in my view on a high note.

I'm going to have to agree. You've just committed to paying money for a premium account, as far as I can tell purely to own land, and have no idea how the tier system works in SL. This is not a good thing, as it means you're hasty with investments, and don't bother to find all the relevant information before committing.

Let's assume you want to rent out Homestead sims. To rent even one out, you'd pay USD $1000 to even get a single sim. This is necessary to have Homesteads, in the first place, so it's a non negotiable price. Add into that the monthly tier of USD $295, and it's not cheap at all. Next, you need to buy a Homestead sim, which is USD $375 at USD $95 a month, soon increasing to USD $125.

So, just to rent out any part of that Homestead, there's an initial cost to you of USD $1,375, and a monthly fee of USD $390, soon upping to USD $420.

Now, to make any of that money back, you'll need renters. To get renters, you need to be fairly priced, so let's assume that Homestead is being rented to one person, at a total of L$32,000 per month, which comes out to USD $123. Let's assume that your full sim has 4 renters, at around USD $100 per month, each, or USD $400 total.(L$103,000)

To break even for that first month's ownership and tier, of USD $1,795, you'd need to rent it to those people for 3 months. However, in those 3 months, you've spent another USD $1260, so you need to make that up, too. That's another 2 and a half months, and more money that you've spent. In the end, let's just guesstimate and say it takes you 8 months to break even. That's a total of USD $4,375 before you even start breaking even, over a long period of time, and that's with only one Homestead! Even then, you'll only be making USD $103 every month, not much.

Of course, this is assuming you get renters immediately, which isn't likely at all. And it assumes you're renting out all of that land, not using any for yourself, which isn't that easy - land is addictive. And during all of that time, you'll probably be asked for support of various types, you'll have to restart sims, understand what's going on, and be a good landlord, or you'll lose your renters.

Do you think you can handle 8 months of losing money, just to be able to get pocket change?

And, if you want to get serious and make more money, are you willing to lose even more money, for longer amounts of time? What if you decide Homesteads aren't where the money is, and decide to change to full sim? That's another USD $1,295 immediately, and an additional USD $295 a month. Try calculating these prices out for if you own, say, 10 sims. It's going to be hard, and it's going to cost you a lot of money.

Are you sure you can do that?

good info and no i dont think i can do that.. i dont think anyone can do that right off the bat... that is why i decided to start slow and low.. u think me committing to premium account was a mistake? its only 6 a month to see if i like buying a small piece of land . i have in the past rented more. i dont make hasty decisions at all . i have been thinking of perchasing mainland for a yr . that is why all the questions . i have and had no intentions of just diving into buying 10 sims or even one right off the bat but i can sit in the forums and talk about it for ever i eventually have to cut my teeth and at least go premium and buy a piece of the pie and see what i think of it.. even the guy with the 19th century theme said he bought a little 512 plot on mainland to start off with. do i think i can do it? i can do anything if i want it bad enough but i agree i dont wanna be over welmed with to much responsability and not enough money to start off with.. it will kill the experience for me i would think. i would end up hating sl more then loving it .. i cant wait to get out of rl work to come home to sl.. lol it would end up the other way around if i took on to much all at once and didnt know what i was doing .. thanx again for all your encouragments

I didn't mean that committing to a premium account is a mistake, just that it seems odd you'd do it to buy land without knowing how buying land as a premie works.

Anywho:

Yes, for your first 512m plot, you don't have to pay any extra per month, you just have to buy the land. This doesn't exactly mean that if you buy 1024 it's half price, though. Land ownership works in tiers, like so:
For your tier level, you can own up to X sq meters of land + 512m without upping your tier limit. However, if you only use part of the allowed amount, you don't pay any less. If you use so little that you could go another level down, this doesn't happen automatically, you have to downgrade your account manually.

If you buy too much land, and go over your limit, your account will automatically 'tier up', and your monthly fee will increase. Even if you sell that land immediately, after realizing your mistake, there's no guarantee on a refund of that extra tier level, as it's based on your 'peak tier usage' (The most amount of land you own in a month, for any amount of time). If you contact support, you might get a nice Linden who'd reset your peak usage, but it's not at all guaranteed.

The tier levels are (Not including the free 512m):
512m - USD $5
1,024m - USD $8
2,048m - USD $15
4,096m - USD $25
8,192m - USD $40
16,384m - USD $75
32,768m - USD $125 (Same as a Homestead's monthly fee starting in June)
65,536m - USD $195 (Was once equal to a private island's monthly fee)

After that, you increase tier by half-sim (32,768m) increments, at USD $97.50 per level.

Additionally, if you give your tier to a group, then you can own more. Groups gain a 10% bonus on tier, so you could own 18,585m on a USD $75 tier, if you own through group:

((16,384+512)*.1)+(16,384+512)

==
All prices not including the premium fee.

ok so after i buy my 512 plot . it is free tier but if i sell it and buy 512 somewhere else . that free tier just went byby?

No, you always have that 512 of free tier, you never lose it, as long as you have a premium account.

ok ty Keira now if i have a alt can i form a group anytime. before or after i purchase land and still get the benifit? or should i just form a group before i even purchase land? i think im gonna look at bay city area

oh one other thing . if i click on buy land on mainland. this means i own it and the only way to get rid of it is to sell it or forfit it over to LL correct? i just wanna make sure im buying the land and not renting it. i want to have all rights to it. i have rented on islands before and when i want out i just leave and they re rent it out. this is different correct?

You are having a laugh here?

Bay City would on the face of it seem a good investment as you then can hold 512sqm and get double the prims.

If thats your reason for choosing bay city, however the land prices in bay city are nothing short of silly, it would take years to claw back any initial startup investment.

Look for normal mainland that is special in someway, protected side or sides are normally a good idea, you will still pay a little more for the land initially but are more likely to be able to resell it later without huge loss, if you do decide land ownership was not for you.

Use sandboxes before making any land purchase if you are thinking of a shop business, if you want to start renting out then I doubt you will find any takers for a 512sqm, you really need to decide exactly what you want to do.

My husband and I have bought and sold small amounts of land, with some success but that only counts towards paying our tier it is not intended to make us money out of world as much as save us money if you get what I mean.

We pay for a mainland sims tier as we like to have a nice area for our personal enjoyment, normally around half a sim, we also run a Sandbox and now have a free script shop, the rest we use to cycle plots through that go up for sale.

This allows us to have the land we use for our enjoyment in SL, and pay that little bit less for it, I also make things as does my husband, but we do it for our enjoyment, rather than as a way to make rl money.

Really it means you rent from LL directly, you get full rights so you can resell the land, or abandon the land.

It is different from estate rental as you have no covenant to follow, it is yours to do with as you please, while you pay tier to LL.

LL are unlikely to boot you off the land so they can sell the estate from under you, if thats what you are worried about.

yes Esther i was sortive kidding about bay city but not ruled out . as far as protected sides , is this in the land discription? and does it mean protected from ugly builds or signs? and yes ocean front would be nice

This is the second or third time that the tier system has been explained to you, and you still don't get it. I'm sorry, but I tend to agree with Ordinal's sentiment. You're going to get into something you just aren't understanding and you're going to get frustrated and lose money that you can't really afford to lose because you're being hasty and you're slow at picking this stuff up.

I agree, Cristalle. 8 pages to learn every minor detail is a bit much. This forum is about helping people, but there comes a point where someone has to figure some things out on their own.

yes i know Cristalle . i think sometimes one learns better hands on then just instructions. there just seems to be so much to know but that is why im just gonna go ahead and if i make mistakes then i just learn from them.

i do thank you all for the info i will reread it as needed

I'll try this again and speak more slowly:

T a k e C l a s s e s

They teach you to do the things you apparently haven't yet learned, such as uploading textures and applying it to a prim.

Jesse is a female (read her sig )

Ah ok, that explains a lot....Czari over and out of this thread.

/me waves at Miss Malaprop

I've missed you on the forums

I am cool with Jack42 now and am sorry for the way I did leave instead of "just leaving". I kinda, sorta, have an idea what is going on and don't believe any more that he is doing this to game us and is not mean spirited. I believe he really is asking to know and does need it explained in detail. All I can say is that, SL can be a very good place for anyone.

As a couple of people have pointed out, if nothing else, the answers help other people also. I am just sorry that I was not as gracious as some who have happily answered for the pure joy of answering.

ty Jesse for the kind words and i do tend to ask to many questions . and it does seem child like to do so. but i assure u im 43 yr old . i started sl with the name jack and it was taken so i chose to use it with my age after it. now i regret it . wish LL would let u have a second chance at a name.. after all this is second life. let there be second chance to change name . i have got a premium account now and i will take it slow that way when i screw up it wont be for a lot of money. and i can always come back and read the info

And it does not hurt to buy the premium account the way you did, even if you do not buy land yet. For the $72 you paid for annual, you will receive $L15,600 in stipend. If you instead just bought $72 of $L at market price, that would have been $L18,576. So if you are buying $L anyways, an annual membership really only costs you about $8.

We all forget sometimes that the internet and games and programs really are a completely different and new experience for some. The President of my company is 68 years old and recently bought his first computer. I was elected as the person to show him how to use it. So I just started firing it off: "grab the mouse and move the crosshairs up to this icon and left click it. The browser will then open and you click the "Favorites" drop down menu to pick the bookmark that you want to open. Once it opens then you can scroll up and down with the mouse scroll wheel....................................'etc, etc. After I finished, he looked up at me and asked what in the hell was the mouse and how does he "left click" something?.............................................................. Let's just say it was a very long couple of weeks for me.

No, really, I strongly advise against this, for the following reasons:

1. You still do not appear to understand the whole process.
2. The whole process has been explained to you several times.
3. Land purchase is expensive and successfully operating in the land rental business requires detailed knowledge of how the land system works, as well as how people rent land and wish to behave on that land on the grid.

Given those I suspect that you will lose a lot of money, and also likely annoy and/or lose money for other people who rent from you. The idea that the land business is some sort of simple route to profit is absolutely false.