Converting Openspaces to full sims

I have one openspace and it looks like the tenant isn't renewing. I'd told them the tier price wouldn't go up in January and they were happy with that and extended their lease but now their rent is due and the island is empty.

So I don't want an openspace anymore, I'd rather have a full sim. However I'd need to get three openspaces for that and if I buy them from LL that's USD$750, then a conversion, a wait and tier is due for the openspace on Christmas eve.

Would I be hit with full sim tier then? If so that would be 250 x 3 + 295, which is more expensive than just abandoing the os and buying a new full sim.

Anyone know how the tier works when you convert like this?

It is in the knowledgebase article (https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4417&task=knowledge&questionID=5650):

"You may convert your Openspaces to a full Region. Four Openspaces equate to one Region, and we are not charging a conversion fee, at least until the pricing change comes into effect in January 09. If you own less than four Openspaces, you can make up the difference at a cost of USD$250 per Openspace.

For example: If you own 2 Openspaces, you can covert to a full Region at the cost of the two Openspaces + USD$500. The current monthly fee for a Full Region will then apply."

So in your case you would trade in 1 OpenSpace and $750 and get a full region. Tier would then be 295 per month on that new region.

Matthew

Also, why not buy the OS sims from someone else selling them instead of from LL. If you're lucky and find someone selling three at once you can save a lot.

Looks like it will be cheaper to ditch the os and buy a full island from someone to be honest.

Hmmm doesn't look a good deal then, the 250 should cover three quarters of the tier for the first month.

Well it breaks even compared to buying a new sim without trading in and openspaces which would be $1000 + 295 per month

i.e. the $250 value of each openpsace is substracted from the $1000 you would pay for a full sim.

Matthew

Of course it's not a good deal for people who have fewer than four OSs, this is LL we're talking about. Still, $750 is less than what you'd pay if you bought a full sim from someone else, unless you lucked out and got one cheap. All the actual sales I've seen (that weren't renting, or mainland) had a very large purchase price on them, close enough to LL's charge to be way out of my reach. I'm upgrading my OS. I don't want to have to do that, but Homesteads aren't remotely cost effective.

If I buy a full sim it's USD$1000

If I do it this was it's USD750, plus by the time of conversion USD$295 which is USD$1045.

I'm not getting my free month's tier from the Openspace purchases by the look of it.

What makes you think you'd get a free month's tier? And last I saw buying a new full sim was closer to $2000. But then, I don't keep up with those things...

You always get a free month's tier with private islands when you buy from Linden Lab, well it's obviously not free, it's included in the price.

Islands cost $1000 from LL.

Ah yes, I'd forgotten that. I suspect that the Linden who worked out the costs for converting openspaces forgot about it to.

So you are right - with one openspace it works out cheaper (by about $45) to abandon the openspace and buy a new sim.

With 2-4 openspaces it works out cheaper to convert (paying $500 or $250 if required).

Matthew

This sounds right to me, if it's worth Ciaran's time to scrounge up those three OSs owned by others. Here's one possible factor:
andSo it would seem that the value of somebody else's Openspace is very much a function of its billing date.

As far as I can tell, LL hasn't waived the US$100 transfer fee (in contrast to the conversion fee, which is waived until January, I think). So that would be US$300 to get the three other OpenSpaces in your hands, plus however much of the US$295 free month's tier you'd lose depending on the resulting average billing dates for the four OpenSpaces. The difference between that and US$1000 would seem to be the maximum one could pay for those three other OpenSpaces.

Ah with you now, there's only one transfer fee if you get three in one go, that's where the value is.

LL really have skewed things such that the 'used region' market has as close to no value as possible.

Buying a 'new' OS region from LL, you pay the $250 but that includes the first month. So really the cost is $175, plus $75 for the month. Delivery is very quick, you know exactly what you're getting and when.

Buying a 'used' OS region from another individual, you know the cost is going to be $100 (for the transfer fee) plus whatever they want for it. As long as they want less than $75, it is a 'deal'. Except that transfers are currently taking more than 10 business days. And at any time during that period either party can cancel the transaction, and both parties lose their place in the transfer queue, so you have to start over again looking, dealing, then go to the back of the line when you do make an agreement.

If you're shopping for more OS regions in order to consolidate a full region, they're only waiving the conversion fee till January. So someone looking to buy a couple more OS regions so they can consolidate for free, probably needs to have the deal made and get in the queue by Dec 17th at the latest -- assuming that the queue doesn't get even longer, and assuming that LL isn't shutting down for the holidays.

I'm not advocating one course of action or another, as I've been on both sides of this - I had an OS region to sell, then I wanted to buy another. Of course what I really wanted was to move one and rename it, to fill a hole in my estate, but they refused to waive those fees "it was your decision to get rid of the other OS regions, so we won't waive those fees". So instead of $200 to move/rename, it was cheaper to sell the one I had then buy a new one 'used'. The sale went ok, albeit with a 2 week wait. The buy though was cancelled - after a full week in the queue, the seller cancelled the sale without even a heads-up.

That's left me a bit bitter about the process - LL knows what they are doing, they have set the price points, fees, and 'service' levels such that there's only a $75 spread, between the new and used regions, and with new regions delivered right away but used ones taking 2+ weeks, that $75 is the cost of waiting, of the stress of not knowing when they'll get to it (they refuse to give ETAs), and the risk that either party could cancel at any time and you drop out of the queue and have to start over.

-Atashi

Right, if I found someone with three to sell it looks like a reasonable price to pay would be about $200, maybe $300 total. The other side pays the transfer fee so they get $100 (or $200 extra cash). Basically openspaces are worth nothing right now so you're really just paying for the time and effort of the seller and any possible extra costs/risks they might incur over completely abandoning them now.

You have to factor in a fair number of variables to see whether it's worth it though.

* Lack of a free month's tier but even that would only bring the cost of the sims up by $295 if you were billed on the very first day after you acquired them. Normally there'll be some amount of time you'll get for free though but it's hard to work out what that will be. * Absurdly long wait time to buy the sims. 15 or 17 days is looking typical. I requested a transfer on the 26th that hasn't gone through yet.
* Unpleasantness of kicking out any existing renters on the openspace sims you buy. This may not be relevant if they get combined into a single full sim then the old renters may not know to contact you.
* Risk of seller cancelling half way through the process, or one of you making a mistake on your ticket that slows everything down.
* Unpleasantness if the transfer takes too long and the seller gets hit with a tier fee they weren't expecting.

As everyone else is pretty much saying, it's all very complicated and unpredictable but if you're smart and lucky you can save upto $500 over abandoning your OS and buying a full.