Buying Land/House

Hey I want to buy my own house so I have somewhere to call home...

Could somone explain the process to me? or point me to somewhere that explains?

Thanks
Eklipze

You can rent land that comes with a house on it or you can rent empty land and shop around for a house to put on the land or make your own house if you have adequate building skills.

Similarly you can buy land that comes with a house on it or you can buy empty land. Make sure you read the land covenants to make sure the land comes with any house that might be on it. Sometimes there is a nice house there but the covenants specifically say that objects on the land don't come with the land.

I think id want to rent land that comes with a house, How do I go about doing that?

Your options are:
1) If you have Basic account:
- lease land from private island estate (sometimes referred to as "buy from private island"
- rent land from private island
- rent land from mainland estate
- rent an apartment (private island or mainland estate)

2) If you have Premium account:
- buy mainland island from other resident (first 512m2 are free of tier)
- buy mainland from auction website (first 512m2 are free of tier)
- any option from 1) above

If you've never owned or rented before, don't rush into anything. Shop around, compare and take your time.

The ingame search function allows you to search for rental land. You can also check the classified listings in the forums here. Always makes sure you read the convenants before renting, these are basically your lease terms and can usually be found either by clicking on the rental box to get a notecard or by clicking on the land itself and selecting About Land and then the covenants tab in the About Land window.

You don't have to be a premium member to rent land however, if you are a premium member you may be able to get a discount on mainland rental by contributing your 512 tier to the group that owns the land. If you rent on estate land the estate owner can simplify your ability to adminster your rental land significantly by passing on ownership rights to you. It will usually be apparent whether it is set up this way because you will usually be required to pay an amount to purchase the land that is either nominal or equal to the first pay cycle's rent (week or month usually).

Im a Premium member. So do I have to use in game search to find land to buy? So i can then buy a house to go on it?

Is it expensive to buy land/house tho?

The in-world Search is pretty effective using the Land Sales tab, and specifying what you want to see (as a Premium member, instead of "All Types" you'd want "Mainland Only", Area >= 512, and PG or Mature or both), and probably dorting by L$/sq m. Then a lot of time staring at the Map to see which ones might be worth a TP. Less aggravating when the grid isn't too busy and the Maps load quicker.

If you're looking for mainland, my advice is to fly around or open your map and tp to sims that you may find interesting. Look at the neighborhood, if you like what you see, look for land for sale, and see if you can afford it. You can see land for sale in the map, click on Land For Sale on the right upper side. Land for sale will be highlighted in yellow.
To buy the parcel, you only need to right click on the ground, and choose Buy Land. You will get a screen with the sale information and what charges your account will get if you buy the parcel. Read all of it carefully before you click on the BUY button.

Ahem.

/me points to signature.

before you buy a house, please please please check out the free houses out there, there are some very nice starter homes for ppl that will fit on the free tier 512 sized plot

If the land buying and selling procedure is still confusing to you and you find it easier to understand things when speaking "in person" feel free to look me up and give me a shout.

Also depending on how much land you want I know of a nice 1024 plot, good price too, and it is right next door to me

(no not my land, if I could afford extra tier I would be buying it myself LOL)
a few of us in the sim want it, but we can not afford the tier.... sooo tempted to tier up my alt to be able to get it LOL
(warning... once you get land... you will want more.. and more... and more......

have a feeling she will want to buy land, not rent land, being she is a premium member (as mentioned in a later post of her's)

There are quite a few freebie houses. Land is a different thing.

I live on a mainland sim, and bought my land a few months ago. Since then, a major landowner sold his holdings, about 1/3 of the sim. Now this land has been sold and re-sold, and divided into parcels. No big deal.

The big deal is that you need to check the prices and compare the costs. Land near my place ranges from 8.5L/m2 to 13L/m2. No real difference in the land quality or views. Just a bunch of land flippers who have different ideas of what the land is worth.

So if you want to buy mainland, check out the prices and compare the per meter price with similar parcels. Keep in mind that mainland sims where one buys land do not have covenants. If you can't handle change, the mainland may not be for you, except as a renter.

You can make your own house, too. That's free - except for your time and energy.

Take your time. And remember that you don't have to stay in the first place you buy/rent. We don't have 30-year mortgages here.

i have a spot on Qoltar that includes the house and landscaping. really cute spot. let me know if you want to rent instead of buy until you get a chance to look around. i'll make you a sweet deal ----> no charge as long as you don't mind it being for sale, but it's a private place to call home until you get your bearings straight.

I don't have any rental land left, but would advise you to try renting for a month or so to see how much land you want. If you want to buy there are plenty of blocks in the sim next to mine that seem cheep in a decent sim, never buy land on an Island, only rent, and check your landlord isn't a 1 month old disposable account, find someone who'se been around SL for a while.

If you have a premium account already, consider buying 512m of mainland. I just bought a mainland parcel at 512m for about $3800L. Watch the pricing carefully- the parcel I bought was right beside some other 512m parcels set at $10000L to $20000L. (And there was no difference in the parcels, other than the other sellers were just trying to overcharge.)

Do a little bit of homework before you buy, checking out the sims on which the parcels are located. You want to look for neighbors who don't have big businesses around you, or are running a lot of scripts that will slow things down for everyone. Low traffic is a good thing. If you want to move, it isn't too hard to sell your mainland (not for all you paid for it, but a good enough chunk).

Otherwise, rent, don't buy. And don't pay lots of rent in advance. On non-mainland, you are dealing with other residents who are private estate owners. They can kick you off your land and keep your money at any time, and there's nothing you can do about that. Yep, happened to me, I lost a lot of money that way.

If you just want that little place to call your own, 512m is plenty of land. When I was new, I started renting a little 512m piece of land, found a small but nice house to put on it, and it was all I needed. I later ditched that to buy 8000m, with grand plans to use all that land and do lots of building. But as it turns out, I never really made use of all that extra land, and ended up only really using one room out of the mansion I built. So I'm back to a small piece of mainland.

Wren *coff coff* has offered a free place to the OP to 'play house' until she decides what it is she wants, and where. free is better than a 512m purchase in a crappy spot if she doesn't even know if she prefers grassland to granite to waterfront.

I recommend teleporting to A LOT of places that show yellow on the map. Right click on the ground and choose "buy" to get information about each place - don't click the "purchase" button on the "buy" window until you really are ready to transfer funds. Look at the neighborhoods around different places.

Thanks for all the replys.

Looking on the search option for land to buy, Prices dont seem to bad So I think ill buy a 512 plot?

Is it just a matter of getting a house to place on it after that?

Edit: Also Dont mean to sound stupid But what size house would go on a 512 plot?

Im looking at house now and the sizes are 42.5m x 39m wide x24.5 high house prim count 220

Im afraid that means nothing to me, would that fit on a 512 plot

Yes, after you have bought land, it belongs to you and you can do with it what you like, your only limit is 117 prims, as mentioned before there are freebie houses available, so check them out first, you'll need a low prim build so you have plenty left for other things like furniture, plants, maybe a little pond and pose balls.

Ahh Ok so rather then looking for size of house go for prims ?

Prim count is always the limiting factor, basically for every 512 sq metres of land you get an extra 117/118 prims.

Don't forget that after putting a house there, you will almost certainly want to put some furniture and decorations as well (pictures and plants and such) and they all use prims as well.

A full sim/island gives 15000 prims and as the land is sub-divided so the available prims are distributed. On a private island, some owners can alter the distribution rates, usually at increased rental costs, but no-one can exceed the limit of 15000 per sim.

Yes - having just a 512 m plot means a limit of 117 prims. So if you can build a simple house using, say, 25 prims, then you have enough left over for some furniture and garden. The good thing about starting with a small plot is that you get wise about prim usage.

Obviously the building size has to fit within the plot boundaries, so size does have a bearing and depends on the shape of the plot. Most 512m plots are rectangular, but this can vary and I have seen some odd shaped ones.

(Just thought I'd add - take a look at Coco's Cottages - search for them in world. I've seen some lovely little free ones made by Coco in various styles, and Sarah Nerd has a nice free one too.)

Yep you can get a decent 30-40 prim house that wuill fit a 512m, because your lounge suite is probably going to be another 40 prims, ad a toaster and bed and you're at your limit The furniture is deceptively worse for eating prims than the house itself

I've managed with a small house of about 50 prims on a 512m2 parcel for a long time
there are a lot of nice houses for less prims, but I just wanted a little more detail and never liked walls with an alpha texture for windows

you have to watch out though, buying land can get addictive hehe

Well my suggestion is to buy your first 512m land and try it out, if you get hooked, you most probably will upgrade to more land/prims.

If you start to learn to build in SL, with practice you may find a 512m plot with 117 prims is enough for your needs anyways. A lot of people only upgrade in size because they start a business, but you can test that out first by renting a shop elsewhere.