Your home in SL

I'm trying to find my building niche in SL and am considering building houses. I'm doing a little survey to get an idea of what kind of housing market is most popular:

1. What style home do you live in? Castle, Mansion, Modern or Theme

2. How big is it? Approximately in meters

3. What size lot is it on?

4. Would you buy a pre-furnished house (if you were looking)? Fully furnished, partially furnished or not furniture

5. What features do you consider important? Light switches, locking doors, on & off fireplaces, tinted windows - anything else?

6. Would you rent pre-terraformed, pre-landscaped land with a pre-furnished house on it or would you prefer to do everything yourself piecemeal?

Thanks!

I have a castle home- I have had modern and Asian - of all, I prefer the castle I have now. I would not buy pre-furnished - can't see any use for locks or lights and I bought my own fireplace then looked for a place to fit it.

I currently live in a really small apartment above my workshop, but when I was new and moving around, purchasing new homes a lot I always wanted something with all the bells and whistles...locking doors, security, scripted everything. Now I really don't care so much for all the scripted items or the need for a big house.

Ok...I'm rambling and not really answering your question, I'm going to give my opinion on the pre-furnished places since thats the only one that doesn't flip flop on me. I've never been a fan of pre-furnished places. Part of the fun of moving and having a home in SL was decorating it, whether shopping for items or building them myself...it was important. Plus I never saw a pre furnished place where I liked everything. I believe there was a thread here a few months ago that went on for several pages of people discussing pre-furnished vs. not. In the end there really was no clear cut answer as opinion and tastes differ in pretty much everything. You could always offer the houses available in both ways to please more people and attract more buyers.

Modern-ish. Wood, stucco, and stone.

1600 meter footprint.

10112 Meters

Partially. I like to be able t have my own touch on the house, but still have at least some things match. Then again, I've never bought a prefab, I make my own Homes

Lights I like, I've never locked a door, an always-burning fireplace is fine with me, don't need window tints. I'm rather sociable at home, usually.

Everything myself. I don't rent land, I own it, I landscape it when I live on the ground, and build everything in my home myself (At the moment almost literally)

When I had land I had a one story Modern Ranch style house. It had a huge deck 3/4 the way around, and lots of windows. I prefer tintable windows and locking doors.I don't care about fireplaces. I definitely prefer prefab houses, and would not be against a prelandscaped lot, perhaps just tweaking it myself, but a pre furnished place is a no no. The decorating and furnishing is the best part of owning a home for me, SL or RL.

I've rented small and large homes and shared a large castle with someone - the castle being too large for me and too much to decorate. And even though I hate decorating, I think I would only consider furnished in a rental. I like tinted windows and fireplaces - locking doors are sort of nice - could care less about light switches.

My biggest issue is prim count. If the house is small and designed for a 512m plot, it should not be using 75 of those 117 prims. Always think about the size of the lots it should ideally go on and plan prim usage accordingly.

When looking at houses, what I want to know more than anything are two things: prim count and the actual size (width x length) so that I can figure out if it will fit on my lot. not every 1024 or 4096 is square.

I have a perfect little skybox. It's got a built-in jacuzzi, a firepit, and a hammock with a few poses (singles and couples.) I'm so over buying furniture and crap for my house. I just want a nice quiet place to relax either alone or with a friend, chat or sort inventory.

1. Castle
2. 60X60
3. 6144 sq m
4. No
5. Windows and fireplace are good.
6. I think furnished places are okay for starter, newbie type rentals.

1.Large modern
2.hmmm, really big lol
3.26,000sqm
4.Not furnished
5.Windows and fireplaces
6.I'd prefer to put it together myself, all part of the fun

1/ a dirigible
2/ 50X20
3/ 16,384 m2
4/ i'd buy an unfurnished one personally, but i can see a market for good looking furnished houses under 117 prims for 512 lots.
5/ doesn't bother me to much, altho i do usually add some of those features myself, never been one for locked doors tho.
6/you will probably find most people on the forums would build and terraform themselves. like i said earlier, there would be a big market for pre-furnished houses for 512 lots, even better if you can make the prim count as low as possible incase people want to add more things... like a cat

-Crunch

Thanks guys, this is really useful information. I'm getting the impression that newbies with smaller lots are more likely to go for the complete furnished prefab with the bells & whistles but that the more experienced SLers (is that a copyright infringement? are looking for homes that actually suit their lifestyle and prefer to do their own decorating.

I kind of like building furniture too and really feel that it helps to show a home with furniture but I think I'll stick to larger homes and sell them without the furniture and then sell the furniture piece-meal if anyone wants it, perhaps a deal for buying a room set or something.

I have nothing against newbies but I certainly wouldn't want them as my target audience.

being a home builder maybe I can offer some insight

Thing #1 to remember: Everyones tastes differ. A wide range of styles and sizes is extremely important. Eventually everything will sell to someone. QUestion is can you wait it out.

There will ALWAYS be a market for smallish houses sized to fit a 2048 lot or smaller. The SL wolrd is constantly getting a flood of new people who maybe dont want to plunge into big land yet.

Large homes will sell on occasion but the quality and extras (particularly setup scripts, security window tinters etc) will be very important. Remember these ar the big spenders. They will want the most bells and whistles and absolute top quality.

Quality is always key. Prims and textures MUST align. There can be no texture flash from overlapped prims. Be careful with small rooms as they can cause the end user to have oddball camera glitches.

Just some general info to get you started based on my experience in the last 4 years.

And I dont even bother with a home in world anymore. Just spend time with my other half in our workroom.

i can make a 2-story beach house fit on a 1024 with 90 prims. front door locks, no inside doors. windows change to blinds upon touch. textures dictate style, so footprint is geenrally the same, give or take a few meters/prims.

i'd rather make my own, and sell them too. i love to build, and buying something already done takes all the charm out of SL for me.

there are plenty of things i can't make, but i intend to learn. watch out. i'm getting the hang of blender.

Darkness Anubis - thanks for this, I've already admired your work in world. I'll take your advice to heart. But no house? That's kind of sad

I haven't tried making my own sculpted prims yet but I am experienced with 3d Studio Max and have printed a tutorial (Chip Midnight) for creating my own sculpties.

I've been spending a lot of time matching textures, the SL tools are primitive compared to 3dSM but I'm getting the hang of it. That dang $10 upload is hard on the learning curve!

Building is quite addictive

1. Theme, I guess... a sort of grimy, disused factory conversion. Previous homes have been ultra-modern concrete, steel and glass, gazebos in the middle of gardens, stilt-houses built over swamps and a flying island supported by balloons.

2. 40 x 20ish

3. 1120m sq

4. I'd probably not buy pre-furnished

5. Tintable windows, nice baked-in shadow effects

6. I prefer to buy a house to fit land I already have

My main 2 homes are a modernish style...one's a very open retro beach house and the other is industrial style building with a modern open floor plan that just love.

No idea what size they are LOL But each one is on a 4096 plot.... the beach house is quite a bit smaller...my main house takes up most of its plot.

Both on 4096 plots.

I would never buy pre-furnished...half the fun is doing the decor myself.

Window tinting is cool......locking doors (tho privacy is a non issue for me in SL) I would not want features that use extra prims....like fireplaces or built in kitchens. I like to find well designed low prim homes. Ace's Spaces is one of my fav home designers.

I like to do everything myself... I rented a house once, on a pre-terrafromed island and it was nice.....but it only increased my jones to get more creative and get my own land. LOL

I have two homes I use regularly, frequently both set up at the same time. Indecisive? Hm, I don't think so....

Skybox #1(purchased)

1. Modern, I guess?
2. 10x20 footprint, or thereabouts, with two levels
3. A regularly proportioned 512
4. I'd like a furniture option, but I probably wouldn't use all the parts the same way the designer had laid them out.
5. I have no door. I teleport in and out. No windows, either, but the walls are texture/tint control and usually mostly transparent. When I rented a skybox like this it had a fireplace, but I don't have one now. No lights either; I just adjust the time/sun. I guess I'm a little lazy...
6. Hard to say. I rented this model skybox furnished when I was new and later enjoyed furnishing it on my own, but can't seem to break away from the layout of the original. I might consider a furnished rental, but my budget's way too tight for the level of added value you're talking...

Skybox #2 (my own build)

1. Theme, I'd say, but I'm not quite sure what theme...
2. Oval platform about 10x20 as one "level"; conjoined spheres roughly the same footprint on another. I teleport between.
3. Same as above. (Same lot, actually)
4. I'd love to get someone's vision of HOW to furnish it. I have some ideas, but nothing ever looks quite right. (If I were buying, I'd like a furniture option, or even a furniture store - but I wouldn't buy furnished, probably.)
5. No door, just a doorway in the sphere level that's more like a window. I come and go by teleport anyway. (If you can fly in through that door regularly, you're a better flier than I am.) Though I would love to have a scripted door, a standard one won't work and I just don't have the knowledge to do it the way I envision. No windows, but it would be cool to have a script to adjust the walls of the spheres without edit mode. The platform is open - no doors, window, etc. at all.

Huh. I've just realized that I've never, ever lived on the ground in SL...

1. I live in a abandoned looking haunted mansion.
2. Hmmm not sure about a third of the plot in size
3. It is on a 4096sqm plot
4. I would buy unfurnished only.
5. Windows with curtains that open/close, access list for door, ability to modify the house.
6. I would go for the "just give me the unfurnished house, I will alter the land and put it where I will " option.

10x20 self built box. All the items inside self built more or less ( or at least customized to suit me)

Totally enclosed to keep things private as it's my little retreat.

1. Space Station (sort of) self built

2. Roughly 40 x 70

Each pod is 10x25x15 with 20 meter (length) tubes connecting them around a central patio

3. 16K

4. I would buy unfurnished only. I prefer to provide my own stuff

5. all of those plus floor to floor TPs for multi floor homes (even if they do have stairs/ramps)

6. Do it myself.

1. Graeco-Roman Mansion
2. 60x40 L shape, with various odd bits added round the edges.
3. 19,000 sq m
4. Can't see the point in buying pre-furnished, in fact I'd never buy a prefab house again at all, see 6.
5. Tinted windows might be nice, TPs are the only thing I'd be likely to use much, and even then I'd provide my own.
6. The only prefab house I've used was for the first 3 days I had land, until I built my first house - the prefab might have lasted longer but I broke it figuring out the building tools. I wouldn't have any interest in prelandscaped land or land with a house already on it. Playing with the land and building new houses is one of the most fun things in SL - and no-one landscapes better than my partner anyway.

1. Sky platform, 4 prims, blank white texture, with Photosphere and pose stand.

2. 40 x 40m

3. 50,000m

4. Would rather furnish it myself

5. No point in locking doors, I think these only appeal to newbies who don't yet know how to cam and sit! More interested in the quality of the prim work and textures.

6. Would rather do everything myself.

I just plonk my hous collection out and tennants seem to keep choosing 2 out of 8 designs, nice clean well made modern designs, the freebies I plonk out next to them although lower prim counts just don't stand a chance.
1600m blocks seem to be my most popular ask size, though I also have some odd shapped blocks,, I have found I can modify these popular designs quite easily for fitting smaller dimensioned or odd shapped blocks.
Window privacy & locking doors seem common requests. My houses I choose all have ramp access to upper levels too rather than TP systems.
I also offer my tennants the choice to supply build/their own house too. I don't bother with furniture, but supply radios to the residential properties.

My own place being the Mini-Fortress of Doom is about 50m cubed, exluding the submarine dock and dirigable tether point. But the cube is sadely near empty, much more work to be done on the torture rooms and neko cages.
Construction of the megaprim cannon and "under the pool" missle silo are suffering from a lack of skilled minions.

I think the important thing, as with anything, is to really know your audience.

You can make the most amazing whizz bang something or other with all the gimmicks but if nobody is going to buy it... whats the point?

Well, actually there is a point - if you enjoyed making it and it gives you pleasure then who cares if somebody buys it or not. However if you are aiming to sell stuff and make a little business then I refer back to point 1.

One of my favourite possesions is a thing called a "Theodolite" made by Red Levin, it's utterly pointless and does nothing but looks great! ( It's a victorian surveying tool)

People like: Castles, transparent skyboxes, swamp houses on stilts, log cabins, mansions, space stations... I would say you should build what YOU like and what YOU know something about rather than trying to please everyone. Build up a niche market.

I have a skybox above a 4096 parcel that I call home - it has my throne room, dungeon and bedroom (what more could a girl want?) - I also have a separate skybox for my workshop (clothes) and another to build stuff on... but my favourite purchased place was a beautiful thatched cottage - I seem to have lost it from my inventory and the maker has disappeared so can't buy a new one - sigh... oh and my friends authentic one room Celtic peasant's thatched cottage.

That brings me to another point - I wouldn't want more than 3 rooms: sitting room, bedroom and maybe a hot tub room (ooh and balcony/roof garden if there's a nice view) - I DON'T see any point in having a kitchen, bathroom, broom closet or laundry room - although some people DO like to play dolls houses ;o) - I have seen kitchens with toasters and 'working' spin dryers!

Ricci x