Rent/Own... more on Premium vs Free

Currently I own a parcel of 3232m sq, with 739 prims. One border is Linden waterway. I pay for this with 2 premium accounts (1024m 'free') and $15 of tier (2048m), the balance covered by the 10% bonus for group ownership. As a UK resident, this attracts the dreaded VAT.

My total costs for a year are $380 (inc VAT) or about L$100,000 at current rates, paying my premium membership annually.

Given the recent hoo-haa over VAT, land prices and what have you, I've been looking for rental land that gives me the same freedom and prims for a competitive price. Just for the basic costs, I reckon that's about L$1900 per week. Taking into account 2 lots of stipend, L$1200 per week. I'll admit I'm ignoring the sunk cost of buying the land, but also anything I'd get back from selling it, and any up-front payment before renting.

Enough exposition, on to some questions...

At a quick scan of rentals available, I haven't been able to beat the deal I get right now. Have I just not looked hard enough? Is the idea that rental is cheaper than buying a fallacy? Is my situation too much of a special case?

I rent 4080sqm of land on an island with a slight bit more than 1000 (like 1040 or something) prims for about L$2300, with no up front cost except 4 weeks of rent. Full land/media controls.

Thought this might help for comparison.

edit - the extra prims are a 10% bonus provided by the estate owner to all of their parcels.

I have found VERY few places that are cheaper than owning mainland land, almost all are more expensive, I suppose because of the 'convenience'... most are not just a few L$ more, but upwards of 1000 L$ more for some reason, and the initial lad cause is more as well. If I could find a better deal than my mainland, I would buy it in a heartbeat, but I just have't been able to find anything that suits my needs at a lower price, as everything lower I've found is residential only (Although my land is usually a home, I do business things sometimes, selling, classes, etc)

Mainland is definitely cheaper in tier than what I am paying in rent, but I don't have any spinny signs, ugly builds, or camping pads effecting my relatively lag-free parcel.

It all depends on what you are willing to pay, and what you are willing to put up with.

Because of the way you have it set up, it is only marginally cheaper than some of the most competitive mainland rentals, but not all. You may have to search harder, but the cheapest mainland rentals are typically full sims stocked with prefabs and little else, and not that big a prim allotment.

The average user does not have two premium accounts paying for land. But now that you have VAT on your membership, it should break even or be marginally more expensive than the most competitive of mainland rentals, prim for prim.

I always hear people complaining about the spinny signs and whatnot, but it hasn't been a problem for me.. I have one nearby, but it may be gone late, as the land isnt for sale any more (I dont think she realizes, shes quite nice), and no camping areas nearby. There's a Cancer donation center nearby (Legit too, even), a club not too far away, a beautiful home next door (Although I walled off that side, My Gardens are sunken down for total isolation...) and a place I'm not sure what it is.. but thats it... Am I just lucky?

I don't think it's just that you're lucky. I own a 4608 plot on mainland (well, it's group owned by myself and an alt) as well as a small 512 in another region for a store that I'm setting up there, and I don't have problems in either place with ugly ad farms and tons of lag. I get lag, but honestly I think that's more because of the age and specs of my PC then because of what is on the sim around me. I've encountered only one griefer on my land so far, and he was pretty lightweight. The 512 on Corsica is very new for me, only bought it a few days ago, but there was nothing there to turn me off from buying it and the price wasn't bad. I did look around last month for some land on a private estate or island because I thought I would cancel both premium accounts and "rent". However, I did find that I'm actually making out better where I'm at and have the freedom of doing what i want on my own land. I'm not really familiar with my neighbors, and they've all changed at least once since I settled there, but no one has bothered me and overall, I really like it. Maybe we're both just lucky. (hmmmm, might have just jinxed us...I'm Knocking ON Wood, just in case)

From my experiences on mainland with land ownership... YES!

Of course, my experiences certainly do not speak for everyone elses... results may vary. lol

In fact, every mainland place I found within my budget was like this... maybe one or two spinnies, but nothing outragous, and not like towers of them, just one per lot, at most... And about the lag, my lag is almost always from my crap netz, I know lol....

And the coolest part is that the person I bought from is now my friend, my neighbor (The cancer donation place person, lives above it) is a good friend now, the renter next door is a friend now.. its friendly!! And the only really ugly thing nearby (An 8 story stone rectangle lol) starts at 300m up....really its a nice place, which surprises me based on the criticism people give

Mainland vs. islands, aside from cost, is a very much YMMV issue. I have lived on both and see the advantages and disadvantages of both. Personally I find many island sims (the residential ones) to be be very boring, isolated and cookie-cutter .. but they are also relatively lag free, relatively eyesore free, and private. I find mainland more interesting in terms of its true chaos in feel, but yes there are the eyesores and the ad farms and the ban lines. To some extent it's like the difference between urban living and suburban living in many ways, I think.

I've been flying around islands and run into ban lines too, though, just often they arent allowed. I've seen many covenants that allow them as long as the realtor's group is always allowed...

Kelli,

When you are talking about holding over 3000 sq meters of land, It's difficult for me to see it being cheaper to rent it. If that were the case, why would anyone do it, or how could they, unless landlording in SL is just so much fun that they eat the loss with pleasure. There are lots of other advantages besides cost that others have mentioned.

On a different scale, it's possibly cheaper. Some of my tenants rent homes or apartments with over 1000 sq m of floor space, and 500 prims. Theoretically it may be cheaper for them to rent that from me, rather than have to buy enough land to get the prims, and then pay tier on it. Even then it would depend on what they paid for the land, and how long they intended to keep it.

So, sometimes it's possibly cheaper to rent from me than to buy land, but I don't claim that as a selling point.

-Avion

On my two islands, I rent 4096m (937 prims) for L$7500 per month, no buy-in or 'purchase' , just pay the 1st month's rent and away you go. Every lot has ocean / water frontage. It's strictly "residential", and our covenant seems pretty fair. We do not allow ban lines etc. and I'm inworld every day - the estate is my home too. Please feel free to come check us out Just search for Waikiti in the search places function, or check my profile.

On an annual comparison, that comes in at L$90k, so it's a 10k savings for more land / prims vs. the L$100k /730 prims mentioned in the OP.

Apologies for the commercial post, but the question seemed to have been asked

-Atashi

That sounds worth considering, Atashi. I wasn't specifically inviting adverts, just wondering if I was way out in my maths, but every response is welcome.

When I was looking at island rentals (over a year ago now) SL didn't yet allow the sim owner to resell private island land and (I could be remembering wrong I guess) other than a few handful the majority of rentals were priced below mainland tier.

Just like LL I'd guess a whole lot of landlords figured out that people were quite happy to pay a higher price for the same thing (especially with the flood of new people who had no idea of earlier pricing) and they just pocketed away the extra profit (there's nothing really wrong with that).

I pay L$1200/week ($18.7ish/month) for a 5664m² (cheap even then, but not outrageously so) and L$3000/week ($46.7ish/month) for a 9792m² (expensive at the time, low mid-range today I'd guess).

If you're looking for a decently priced parcel, I'd suggest to just stay away from actual rental businesses and just look for someone you know who isn't in it for the money, or who has a sim and needs some help making tier.

Don't overlook mainland rentals. There are some nicely done sims around. I am currently renting on a mainland sim. Lots of landscape and amenities. I also like to browse rentals, and have found some better deals (L$ wise), but I adore my landlord. None better in SL.

I rent in a mainland sim I'm very happy with so far and discovered yesterday it has several lots available. I don't remember the lot sizes, exactly, but I believe the rents are pretty low for mainland--not that I did a lot of comparing, I chose based on reputation and vision. Check out Peronaut.

I'm amazed, but looking around private rentals I keep finding high prices, stifling conditions or ugly neighbouring builds. I'm prepared to be proven wrong, but given the restrictions stated in my original post, I can't find much to suggest I'd be better off ditching my *two* premium, VAT paying accounts in favour of renting land.

Does this make a lie of the numerous posts suggesting there is no point in premium accounts, or am I just one of the fortunate few to find a reasonable mainland parcel worth the tier LL charges?

I think a lot of the really plum rental spots are just plain full. I have some land baron friends who have been at full capacity longer than I have (years).

In my experience, due to tier discounts private rental is not financially better once you get into or past the 4000m-6000m range.

There may be other good things about rental, regarding how pretty or how protected your land is, but bluntly stated once you get a lot of private estate land, there isn't as much tier discount for a land baron to pass along.

Another factor is personality - sometimes it's worth it to deal with someone who is fairly sane, or at least active around here - how about Raymond Figtree?

Looked like a nice sim he'd got there.

Since you brought it up...

I rent from Raymond, and he is definately the sweetest guy in SL. I have been a mini -baronessa myself. Tiered down and sold off to get outa' the rat race. Living an idyllic lifestyle on Figgy's sim with my sailboat.

That said, there are loads of beautiful themed sims on the mainland to explore. Visit Nantucket fer instance.

Of course rent is high, and vacancies sporadic in the best places.

If you just want good land deals w/out the community, search Cedric Brown. he usually has some real sweet bargain properties.

i think it all depends who you rent from

i rent a skye condo for 650L a week for 500 prims thats the cheapest ive found anywhere and love it