Land too cheap, scam?

Hello,

I was checking some lands yesterday and i found a SIM that actually sell all the plots at 1 linden and the tier is almost the same that LL (i.e: 512 sqm per 9.95 USD monthly). Ah! and they offer 30% more of regularprims per plot.

I can't believe this, is a scam or what?

I always thought that was unfair those big initial payments of 100, 200 USD, but 1 linden is very cheap, i doubt if this could be real.

Which could be the risk of invest in this kind of SIM? i saw that actually they have available 40% of the SIM, ah and its not in mainland, its a private place.

I would like to get a small piece of land to start to experiment with my business of condos, so i'm planning to get 512 sqm, put a nice house, furnitures, a small deck with boat, a skybox and rent it.

What do you think? some friend recommend me that i must get at least 4096 sqm to start with my small business of condos.

Bye!

sounds like a private estate island.
i would interview any avatars renting the plots before i buy any land there since youre dealing with a private owner, not LL.

Yes, it's a private estate. You're not buying the land in the same way that you would mainland. The owner will still own the land (even though they may pass ownership rights to you for L1), and can take the land back at any time or sell the whole island as they please.

So effectively you are renting. And if you are only getting 512 sqm for what will be about L2500 a month, it begins to look like an expensive rent. I rent nearly 2k sqm on a quiet private sim for L2k a month.

Also, you seem to be planning to put a lot of stuff on your 512 sqm lot. Sure you've enough prims to cover that?

Also also, 512 probably isn't nearly big enough for what you're planning imo.

I live on this type of Sim. We "bought" our lots for $1 and pay a monthly tier. On this kind of Sim you do not need to be a premium member to own land. Our tier works out to be cheaper than LL tier and membership every month.

The company we deal with is very fair and honest. We get extra prims as well. If you would like the name of the Sim or company just IM me and I will get back to you when I am inworld this evening.

Fand

Just be very, very careful. That L$1/m2 is just an up-front fee for the privilege to pay rent. Be aware that *many* scams are perpetrated this way. Also, nearly the same privileges (and sometimes more) are given to Mainland renters, usually for less L$/mo and with no up-front fee at all.

That said, there are scrupulous Estate owners. You just won't likely find them by accident.

On private islands, some people treat it like it was the mainland and you pay about the same as tier, but you have to "buy" the land. Other private island owners don't require a real payment for the land, but they usually will be charging more than the normal level of tier. (Especially if it has extra prims.)

Like I have a 4096 piece of land from a private island owner. They will either "rent" or "own." It's up to you. The difference is how much you pay a month and how much you have to put down up front. I paid L$35000 (about US$130) and I pay the landowner $25/month for tier, which is about the same price I would pay if I was on the mainland. If I hadn't wanted to pay that $130 for the land, I could get the same plot of land at the same location under a different plan for $30/month.

The extra prims are because a lot of private island owners will divide up their property a little differently. They will leave empty space (usually with trees) between the different plots they rent to provide some privacy and then assign the leftover prims to the plots that are being rented--so you get extra prims and they charge you more. The private island doesn't have extra prims, the landlord is just assigning them to you so they can leave empty barriers to make everthing look nicer. They could sell you a bigger lot and just tell you not to build within 20m of the edge and it would work out the same.

Linden only has one plan. You get a certain plot and you pay your tier. But private island owners can do whatever they want.

Thanks for your answers.

@EliteData: Yes, it's basic. I always go and ask to the neighbors about the SIM

@Kelly: 2000 sqm and 2000 per month? probably the landowner is losing money, tell me where you got that price. The 512 is just to do an experiment, imagine if i get first 8k sqm and nobody rent it... lol.

@Fand: sure, send me an IM to know more about that.

@Qie: so, which is my best option? buy land in mainland to LL?

@Katieo in your case you'll "recover" your investment in 26 months right? well i dont see the sense of pay a lot of initial payment if the landowner will be always the owner of the SIM, it's just other way of rent the land but with more benefits for the original owner.


I was checking that Anshe has nice plots, but again huge initial payment to do, do you know about better options? i need land with full permissions to start my small condo business.

Sorry, I'm having real diffficulty getting my head round this. Why would you pay an estate owner anything more than a nominal fee to 'buy' the land? You're not actually buying it. You don't actually own it. My 2000 land cost me zilch to 'buy' (well, L$1) and my 'tier' (rent) works out at $8 a month. Although the landowner is a friend, I know that she is perfectly within her rights to sell the sim at any time and I could be gone without any recourse. Therefore I treat is as a rent, which is exactly what it is.

Sorry maths isn't my strong point, so do tell me if I've cocked this up but...

sim = 65536 sqm
my lot = 1872 sqm
so you could get 35 of those lots on the sim.
35*L$2k rents = L$70,000 a month
= $280US (at L250/$)
LL land use fee = $195US.

If i got that right, I want a bloody medal

well your numbers are right, but only works if you have the 35 plots rented at the same time and you are not considerating the initial payment to get a SIM, neither the cost for "decorate" the SIM and the marketing/advertisement expenses.

Thats why i say that probably the owner is losing money, maybe he has the SIM not for business, just for fun or at least he's trying to get a lower tier with the rents.

Several reasons:

* it's easy profit: at no point do you ever loose an asset you can resell at any time to regain (most) of your initial investment, but you can convince people that you need to "recuperate" your money anyway. You have your money back, and you can look forward to whatever the sim will fetch when you eventually sell it

* lock in your renters: someone who paid a substantial sum for a private island plot isn't very likely to pack up and leave overnight (if they do you get to sell it once more) even if you make changes to the rent or the sim that they don't particularly like. Added bonus is that they'll still be paying you tier while they're trying to sell the private sim plot

* more easy money: whenever a renter gets behind on their rent you can evict them from the plot and put the plot up for sale again to someone else. If you're even more dishonest, you can evict them for no reason and go through the process a few more times before everyone catches on and you sell the sim.

Or Desmond's special case: if you give away plots in a desirable community, renters will make deals behind your back to resell the plot to someone who's anxious to get in and you're left with the mess.

Ya good point. I think she's playing the long game rather than trying to make a quick buck. Which is possibly why her two residential sims are full.

Well, long-run, after your condo business takes off and you're a land baron, you'll have to decide where you want to *own* the land you use--which means buying Mainland (parcels, or whole sims) or Estate sims. But to get started, you may choose to rent, to avoid a huge up-front cost of acquiring the land. What you've seen are Estate rentals, but there are also Mainland *rentals*--you don't have to buy land (Mainland or Estate) to have very nearly the same permissions as a landowner.

The reason that rental is often cheaper than buying when starting small is a built-in "economy of scale" that is enjoyed by larger Mainland owners--that's what "tier" is all about--the more land you own up to a full sim in total size, the less the owner has to pay LL in L$/mo/sq.m.

(Regardless of where the land comes from, as others have noted, it will take some prims to make a condo, and more prims that condo residents will want to rez in their condos, and... well, it's probably going to take a pretty large area to make it work out.)

You can only "rent" from a private owner,no matter how they market it.

The exchange rate for L$ is L$266/$1 (and 3.5% processing fees) but you got the basic math right .

And uhm... I don't have medals, but will you take a choc chip cookie as an award?

Oh please. And a long lie down in a darkened room

Sounds like youre on a grandfathered sim/old class 4, so if LL do as theyve said they will at some point then expect a rent rise when the monthly fees get bumped to $295 ($348 if the owner is an EU resident)

Just be aware.

selling for 1l per prim is not bad at all...what is the risk? the monthly fee? thats Nothing in comparison to someone that paid 10k or 20k or more for a land for the same monthly fee.

There is much less risk with estates like this. However, there are quality estate owners that do business both ways.

I recommend you start with mainland. The other option I'd recommend is to buy a whole private estate directly from LL.

Why these options? Because renting part of a private estate, and then renting to others, puts you in the middle of a sub-letting situation. It's bad for your customers, because they could rent cheaper and with less risk by renting directly from the estate owner. It's bad for you, because if the estate owner decides to kick you off, your renters are out in the cold, too...and they will be mad at YOU, not the estate owner.

What I did was find some partners. By pooling our money and looking around, we were able to afford about a half sim of mainland with good location and good neighbors. We pay our tier directly to LL, with no worries about what our landlord might or might not do.

Much less risk... for those headed out the door.

Much more risk... for those remaining in a region after half the people got bored and left.

Remember the region owner is in the hole 1675 USD already (didn't charge you) and is facing down a substantial fraction of 295/mo after that. Not risky? Only if you bolt, too, or the region owner is independently wealthy.

* * * * *

Enhanced prim private estate land: do the math, carefully, *yourself*.

I can't even begin to tell you guys the number of region owners that have come to me privately because they oversold prims or found themselves going broke due to some bad math.

Regions are also hard-capped at 15,000 prims no matter *what* the parcel counts or the region owners say. You literally have to add up the rented land + all the infrastructure prims used and see if it's going to come out to anywhere near 15,000 prims.

If there's half a sim of double prim rental land available (15k prims) and 5000 'infrastructure' prims used, somethin's gonna blow when push comes to shove. Be veeery careful.

In my own experience, 2 linden/sqm is the average rental price for land on estate, provided it is normal prim allowance. Double prim land goes for double the price. Again, this is average of course.

Upfront costs are something to think over a few times. If you can trust the sim owner and it is worth it because you live in a very well created environment, go ahead. For a simple piece of flat terrain, I would think twice, simply because there is land available without the upfront costs. My landlord (Ecstacy Realty) sets the parcels for sale at 2 linden per sqm, which is exactly the first months rent. Buying gives you all needed rights, and after a month you just pay the same amount again as rent.

On the other hand if I ever buy my own sim, I will landscape and decorate it so it will attract people willing to invest in their parcel. So I guess upfront costs are not that bad, as long as you have put effort in making it worth it. As for me, I prefer a flat sim with no upfronts and low rent I'll take care of decorating the parcel myself.

As for renting out appartments on land that you yourself are renting, the margins will be very small I guess, and I really doubt starting with a 512 is useful. Simply leaves not enough prims to play around with for your renter. Rather would I start with either 2048 (2 condos) or even 4096 (4 condo's). At 8k a month that should be worth the try, and since you are renting there is no risk involved. Good luck!!

Marcel

OR we will recover the investment immediately if we sell it for around the same price. In theory we could even make money by selling it for more. But we would be responsible for finding the person to buy it and we would be responsible for paying the tier to our private island landlord until we do.

And you can see there why a private island landlord would want you to buy in. I will continue to pay tier until I sell it. Whoemver I sell it to will pay from then on. If I rent, I just dump it, and then until the landlord finds someone new, the private island landlord is stuck with the tier.

The only problem with the equation at all is that rental agreements are word of mouth and the landlord could just eject me and not give me anything. That's something that, honestly, the Lindens need to address--some kind of built in system for rental property that lays out terms in an official enforced by the game system sense.

The land you went to see was i presume owned by Asrux.(as you mentioned when we spoke yesterday that youd been to see my smaller resort there).ive rented land from them for almost a year now..and yes it was 1 linden. They are a good company, ive had no problems with them at all...and yes they give 30% more prims yay for us! Their customer service is good (their tiers could do with bein alittle lower tho lol) If you need them they are there pretty quick, always helpful.


dont forget...you need help holler!
Fai x

The 195us$ is for older (slower) class4 sims. The newer (more than 2 years) class 5 sims cost 295us$ per month.

I run SkyBeam FirstLand on sort of the same program. A $L 512 deposit (to represent the old $L1 per m2 buy for the defunct Linden First Land program), and $L 500/wk rent for *double* prim. The region is always full, and, btw, I can put 60 in (14040 prims) and still have enough left over for a few trees and my rental system. Oh, and the deposit is refundable *if* you notify me *before* you vacate and aren't in arrears or anything.

Its just not profitable for nearly a year after purchase, though I couldn't stick 1675 anywhere else and earn as much a month off of it. Thing is, if you don't have 1675 to begin with, that doesn't mean much.

Desmond teaches very well if you listen. There are sound reasons he does things the way he does them. I don't follow his model to a T, but I got most of it right

Char