Island purchase/rental for n00bs

Hello,

I am a new Second Life user, and I have a few questions that the SL site has failed to answer. I would greatly appreciate any help from all of you!

Firstly, I am interested in acquiring Island land because of the freedoms it provides, but I do not believe I need over 65000sqm! Is there such thing as a "smaller island"??

Secondly, If I were to instead rent Island space, or perhaps rent out Island space that I own, how can I find the "going rate"? For ex., how much of your Island space is usually rented out for how much?

Finally, I know this question will make me seem even more foolish, but in all honesty if you're thinking of building a large social environment, is Mainland of Island land ultimately a better selection?

Thank you for all of your help and input!

F. Waffle

My advice is to buy nothing immediately and do not even sink large amounts into renting/buying an island parcel. Spend a bit of time getting to know SL and what you really want out of it. Do some short term rentals on both mainland and islands to really get a feel for it. Taking a bit of time never hurts.

Hello Fresh and welcome to Second Life!


to answer your questions:-

private islands - as in not mainland - come at a standard size of 65532 sq mtrs. You can only subdivide those if you lease the sim (simulator) direct from LL. That said, there are shortly to be three types of island you can lease - the basic (750 prims), the homestead (3750 prims) and the full (15000 prims) each of which will have a corresponding price point as well as script limitations (i.e. how much processing power is allowed per sim).

Do not consider leasing or renting out anything less than a "Homestead" sim.

As for pricing, that depends on your business model and how quickly you are looking to recoup your outlay. As LittleMe has said, take your time and look around. I fear you will find that there are many estate owners out in SL who do no more than recoup their tier fees to LL; so if you are looking to make a profit on your investment you will need to research potential niche markets. Bear in mind that the land market is reasonably mature and most elements of the market are now occupied - so where and how will your offering make a difference?

Building a large social environment is not, IMHO, something you can do on your own. It takes any number of like-minded individuals, all with a common goal, to even start down that road. Talk to some of the RPers, large estate owners etc and see what they have to say.

I wish you well in your endeavours

Inc

thank you both for all of your help.

I agree that such a project is not a plausible undertaking by a single individual, but I'm part of a team that believes they can make it work, and I am just trying to do some preliminary research to support their project!

Again, thanks for your help - I'll be sure to explore Second Life and get a feel for the game!

OMG - he called it a "game".

There some classes too on land ownership I think NCI puts on one once
a week if I remember correctly not sure though.
Land is pretty cheap on mainland now but you sort of got to know
where and how to look, what to avoid.
There are host of issues with getting mainland and renting.
Be extremely careful at first.
Having nice big lot is very nice if you can afford it but even if you were
able to find a very affordable mainland sim there can be issues
like neighboring sim being high traffic draining your sim resources,
spending too much or first life money issues.
Rental situations biggest issue is literally having your home sold to someone else
under you, dealing with restrictions from owner i.e little freedom to be creative and do whatever you want space wise with the prims you're renting. Owner running tons of scripts and using so many of the sims resources that it's so laggy it hard to live comfortably in the sim or not understanding the rules.
Some Residents especially the newer ones don't understand the pitfalls of a rental situation and often it becomes unpleasant and not so fun experience for them.
Also it takes bit to figure out who is most dependable and trustworthy as far as Estate rentals.
Mainland can be great providing where you live, what things you want to create and do and often their is more freedom to create whatever theme you want.etc.
Yet bad side is so can your neighbors and sometimes it's sort of a eye sore, fenced
in by lots of buildings that look like black boxes or worse.
Rentals can be great too if you want to move in established community with events
and to be around people with similar interest.
Often they have themes and restrict type of homes or what you can do on your home or even running business in some communities isn't allowed.
Make sure you read their rules,i.e the covenant.

Hi Fresh,

The smallest island you can own is 65536sqm. If you want less space, you can rent an area of land on an island from a resident landlord - but if you do that, you will have neighbours on the island, which it sounds like you don't want.

The only way to find the "going rate" is to look around. There isn't just one rate for "island land" though; it varies based on what else is on the island, what offers are made to tenants, if it's a managed community or a managed area, etc.

On your final note, the only way to build a large social community in SL is to start from a small social community and work your way up. And if you build the small social community and make reasonable effort to market it, but still nobody comes, then it's just hard luck, you can't do what you wanted because others aren't interested; that's always a risk in a social world, unfortunately. If you build the large community right away, you don't increase your chances of success, but you do increase the amount of money and work at risk.

Hi Fresh, I don't know if it would be much help, but if you check the covenant on any region that begins with the word "Caledon" you'll see all the rates I have there, and so forth.

Caledon is nearly three years old, has several hundred active residents, and runs something like 10 to 15 thousand residents visits a week not counting NCI's classes.

It may not be the kind of thing you want to emulate but if it would help you get an idea of things, rip whatever rules or rates you want from the covenant (everyone else does!) - just realise that my 'openspace rates' will likely have to go up in July due to recent changes made by the Company.

One thing I'd point out - a community like Caledon takes a lot of hours to administrate, and margins are pretty lean. The income returned from an estate of fifty regions or so won't support a team of people, period. One person, maybe two if they are starving college students.

The other 'secret' is that once the 'team' figures this out, they all generally take off and start their own estates, with the residents caught in the middle. This is why I run my estate very singularly and independently.

Good luck!