is there any interest in long term land rental?

I have more land than I'm using as I had plans which, in light of the ursula fiasco I've had on hold for 3 months now and am not really interested in pursuing any longer. I'm also considering not re-establishing the shop after I get the ursuala land.

I don't want to get rid of it so I was thinking about renting it out. My problem is I don't want to be a mall owner nor a hands on landlord.

So, my questions are around long term rental. Do many people want this? apart from a couple of weeks when I came in back in 06 I've never rented anywhere, just owned land so I really know nothing about this.

I was thinking of just setting the parcels up so the renter has as much control as I can give and then just leaving them to it - only interferring if they start lagging the sim with their stuff. Essentially, I don't particularly care what people do with it as long as they don't grief the neighbours.

What I want though is long term renters. i.e them paying up 6 months in advance for a steeply discounted rate. that way my costs are covered and I can abandon sl for a while if i want to and know that the costs have been covered. I'm at the stage where I begrudge putting my hand in my pocket for LL. I'd rather sell the land and be done with it.

So, is this viable? is there a market for this kind of long term rents?

No sensible renter will put up with 6 months of rent ahead.

You might be trustworthy (though I don't know that of course) but too many people have been scammed before. Nothing would keep you from kicking them from your land and do the trick again. With a few weeks ahead, that will not happen too often, but as a renter, 6 months ahead is Russian roulette.

Best option is selling if you really do not want to rent it out like most landlords do.

I'd not thought of that. I'd done a trawl of some malls when i was considering taking out some mall space a while back and I noticed that most of the rental boxes were for short term rents. I'd assumed that it was mall owners keeping the periods short just in case they wanted to raise the rent.

hmmm

No, its tenants that want short rentals. And no landlord in his right mind will sign a long term rental agreement when Linden Labs can change policy, or change tier rates on short notice.

The most common system seems to be pay by the week, with an option to make multiple payments to have it prepaid for several weeks ahead.

I have a tenant who wanted to pay a year in advance, in the end I turned down the proposal, I just wasn't comfortable accepting payment for that far ahead.

New renters often like to pay for a week or two and then if they like how things are going they will pay well ahead, many will be put off by a long minimum rental period.

If you would rather sell the land, then sell the land. That might be your best option in your situation.

Even if a renter agreed to pay up front on the rental, you would still need to be around just in case of issues with the land, or neighbours.

If I were to rent a place for 6 months in advance, I would want to know that the owner of the land would be available when I needed them, and not that they would just disappear.

Say for instance, the renter has a very problematic neighbour, LL will not deal with the renter as he/she is not the owner of the land, only you could have LL take care of that kind of stuff for you.

(I know, I tried having some land that was next to me cleaned up of fire and crap that was used to spam the sim, and the lindens would only offer to deal with my own property. Eventually the land reverted back to LL, and then they came and cleaned it.)

I've had one or two people rent for an entire year. Usually the renter vanishes long before the rent runs out. It's OK but really the renter is just ripping themselves off.

All your comments so far are from Barons not actual renters so who knows what real people think but I don't think this would be that popular.

I doubt many would feel safe renting for a long period. Short periods are normally paid so that if the land owner does the dirty and kicks you off, not too much money is lost. I personally would only do an agreement for long term if I knew they had been in the business of renting for some time and had a good reputation.

Thanks everyone. I had forgotten that we're talking about the wild west here.

Looks like that's another option off the list. I can't think of anything worse than having to actually manage the land and possibly be constantly on the lookout for new tenants etc. Much respect to those of you who do it but I really would rather be sitting in a cafe in the sunshine or probably anything else for that matter.

at least you got yours sorted. one of my plots shares a sim with a boarding house where the guy uses sensor temp rezzers. I've been harassing LL since February and of course they do nothing constructive except restart the sim and tell me to lodge an AR against him.. (cue eye rolling)