Group land bonus - confused

I'm really confused about the 10 percent group land bonus.

Here's how I understand it...tell me if I'm right or wrong, please:

(Assume the land sizes I want are for sale)

With a premium membership, I get 512 with no tier cost.

I buy another parcel of 1024, and my monthly tier is $8 US. So I have 1536 sqm of land. Now I donate this land to my group.

Here's where my confusion comes in....with the ten percent land bonus, I can buy another 153 sqm of land to donate and not raise my tier fee?

Therefore, if I donate my land to my group, I can buy/donate 1689 sqm of land and stay at $8 a month? Am I right?

Its easy ti figure out. OPen the group that owns the lands info. On the Land tab, it will show how much is donated. It will show you all current land holdings, and how much more land you can hold at that tier.

~Brie

How many meters you donate to the group counts as part of your personal tier. So if you donate 1536, thats what *you* are charged for. The calculation of how much land the group can hold takes all the contributions and adds 10% to it, so the *group* can hold more land.

The extra area can be used one of two ways, to increase the group held land, or to cut your contribution. In the second case, you can donate 10% less tier to the group, and then go buy a non-group personal parcel with your leftover amount before paying extra:

Donate 1396m to group, group can hold 1.1x1396= 1536. You have 140m of unused tier (1536-1396), so you can buy 140m parcel for yourself.

I'm more confused than ever. I'm not sure where to start. I thought I understood the bonus, but obviously I did not. I don't get why a group even needs a bonus, unless there's some kind of limit on the amount of land a group can have.

You contribute 1000 sq m of tier to your group. Now your group can own 1100 sq m of land.

Okay, that's simple enough. I was at a conference on SL recently, and the presenter made it sound like if you donated your land to your group, you could actually buy 110 percent of land for the same tier price.

I know this may be a dumb question: what's the point? If I donate 10,000 or 16, the group can have ten percent more. I really don't get why this even matters. Is there some kind of limit on how much land a group can have?

(Sorry that it seems like I'm spinning in circles.....this whole thing has me puzzled, and now I wonder what the whole point of it is)

I went premium to get land and got my 512 parcel to fill my base tier. Once I learned about the 10% bonus, I went for it. (^_^)

With 512 base tier + 10% bonus, my group has 563 worth of tier. (^_^)

With that, I was able to buy up 3x 16M parcels in the same sim to up my prim count. My group has 3M left, but, it's pretty meaningless considering my arrangement. (^_^)

Add to that, If I ever want to make arrangements to have someone else (or an alt) manage the land, it's best to keep it group land and set the permissions in group roles appropriately. Technically, it's not ~my~ land anymore, it's my group's land. (^_^)y

Make sure you have AT LEAST 2 premium accounts in your group or the group will get deleted on you...

- which could cause something bad to happen to any land your bought with it.

(or can you do it with just 2 accounts, as long as one is premium?)

You don't need any premium accounts in the group; just need to maintain at least two members in the group or it will be disbanded; that's irrespective of land holdings.

However, in order to have group land on the mainland, at least one member of the group has to be premium and contribute (donate) to the group. The 10% bonus is based on the total amount contributed.

Groups can also own land on private estates and none of the members need premium accounts, but the 10% bonus doesn't apply in that case.

The group gets the bonus both because LL wanted to encourage group land and for various technical reasons group land without the bonus would have been much harder to manage at the time it was set up. The group bonus continues because it would be sheer chaos if they pulled it back now.

You can, that's another way of saying the same thing.

Okay, thanks.

Basically, there's a piece of land for sale, 2752 sqm. I don't have a premium account, but would get one for this piece of land. And I have some groups already, so could donate it to one in particular.

If you do the math, you can see why that extra ten percent would matter to me. Without the bonus, it would all push me over the edge into the next tier and require me buying almost double the land I want to make it worth paying the tier.

Yes, the premium and group bonus combined* will let you buy that land and only pay for 2048 square meters.

* By your bonuses combined, I am captain planet...

Keep in mind that when the group owns the land, it will affect the permissions. If the only members of the group are you and your alts, it's not an issue and you can wait to deal with things when they come up. If other people are group members, and if you trust them all (both in terms of honesty and SL skill), then it's still not a big deal but you may need to work on the roles and land permissions for the group.

It's also not a big deal if there are group members that you don't really want to have permissions on the land. Many land owners operate this way. It does mean that if you're not already familiar with groups and land permissions, you'll need to climb the learning curve right away.

There are numerous projects that have more than one person supporting it - Role playing sims, group hangouts, etc, which can get by with a bunch of people each kicking in some land tier.

Linden Lab believes as a business, they on the whole gain by encouraging group projects: as in more total land gets used and paid for, so they award a bonus in tier for it. If you invert it, its really a 10% discount on group owned land.