Why id land so expensive?

The explosion of openspaces badly damaged estate land more than mainland. Very badly, this was pointed out to the Linden's and they simply rubbed their hands with glee over the sales. What they did after was an absolute disgrace for which I'll never forgive them.

Linden Labs is always creating new mainland. They were creating new mainland all through the second bubble, but the price kept rising and rising and rising, regardless. If they'd acted sooner, they might not have needed to sump so much land at once to have an effect, I don't know... but price bubbles take a while to sort out and keep going on long after they should be good and dead.

I have some friends who took serious baths in the first land bubble, and some who got caught in the second bubble. I told them that the high prices weren't sustainable, and that they were ill advised to pay L$10 or more per square meter, and I'm sorry if that happened to you the second time around.

So I'm not arguing that it's OpenSpace responsible for the price drop, I'm just pointing out that there's plenty of mainland owners who WERE blaming the low price of OpenSpaces for the severity of the price drop on the mainland.

And I'm pretty sure that landcutters have had as large a part in the fact that prices dropped so far below the L$6 or so target price.

I'm paying exactly the same as mainland tier for my place in the dAlliez islands.

Small correction land costs as much as it is worth to person who buys it.

Lots of land cost far more than it is worth to me!

btw that is not a poke at you Elanthius, Yours seem to be priced reasonably.

If you make a commitment, have a premium account, buy land from LL and pay them a tier..........

Really you should end up paying less (per sq/m or per prim) than someone who comes along with a free account, has no commitment and just rents off a landlord.

They should be the ones paying more and the more commited owners pay less.

It all seems very back to front to me.

Do you disagree?

My advice would be the exact opposite, with land costs on mainland at around 4.5L/sqm for most decent parcels, initial purchase is very cheap atm.

Tier is low compared to rental normally, sure LL could go bust, and you loose your initial land purchase cost, but unlikely, if you find the area around your plot, starts to deteriorate then you can just sell up cheap and find a new place.

The cost of mainland is very cheap at the moment, compared to when my wife and I first entered SL at that time our first 512sqm plot cost us 12L/sqm! in a PG sim and often saw plots at 20L/sqm.

Even then at those prices mainland still worked out to be a more viable long term option than third party rental.

We sold most of that initial land at around 5L/sqm after a year or so, as neighbors moved out and the sim began to deteriorate.
Even with the price drop in land we still payed less in tier and land costs than any rental deal I have seen, Not to mention the the friends we made there and the fun we had building our first virtual home with no constraints on design due to covenants etc.

I do pay less per sqm or prim on the mainland, that is exactly my point even with the purchase cost of the land.
After a year or so I could abandon the land and still have saved money.

The downside to mainland is very little governance, there is very little to protect you from other users being jerks on their land.
Hence why the need to cost in selling up and moving.

That is not as bad as it sounds though, as even if the prices fluctuate your new land costs you around about the same, by which I mean as the cost of land goes up you initial plots value also rises, the cost falls yes your plot is worth less but the next plot will cost you less, same as real life.

One thing for sure when the land around you is being carved up badly and priced non competetively then don't pay more than the land is really worth due to sentimentality.

For European users it might well be cheaper to rent from estate or mainland, then buy mainland and pay tier to Linden Lab, because of the VAT. For me it is about the same, except that I have more space now.

For my businesses I do rent estate land, alltogether I pay around 25.000 linden per month. A bit over 90 dollars per month. For that price I have around 6100 m2 of double prim land, and around 16.000 m2 low prim land (on a homestead). Around 3600 prims in total.

For a quarter region mainland I would pay 75 dollar + VAT, which is also around 90 dollar per month, but in that case I would not have the space I have now. Slightly more prims, but 6100 m2 less of space.

However, ff you would do the same math for a standard chunk of 4096, we come up at US$ 29.75 including VAT. About 7900 Linden per month. Those same chunks I see offered at 6500 linden per month, which equals US$ 23.- thus saving 6.75 per month. Plus no initial purchase price.

More important for my business though: premium support. Estate managers that respond fast. Where on mainland I would have to hope that I get a support person in live chat that can help me. And even though my experiences with Live help were good so far (yeah I am premium), they can't provide me the service that my estate managers can.

Back on topic: IS land indeed expensive? If you want much of it, yes. But for the average user, not really. Take my example of 4096 m2, that you can rent for 23 dollar. And it is a pretty large chunk to live on. Lets say a 2048, which is more then enough for many users, is around US$ 15.- Is that really so expensive?

Yup, I'm in the UK, and to give you an idea. Here's a cost comparison done by a UK guy who rents out some small parcels:

http://www.freewebs.com/sp3rental/costcomparisons.htm

16000sqm of a homestead is only 900prims or at least it was when they were open spaces, approx 4000sqm of mainland plus your 12000sqm to equate with double prim land total 16000sqm = 75usd per month from LL in tier then set land to group, to get a further 1600sqm free gratis from LL.

Difference save 15usd a month and get an extra prims 400 odd prims from group settting land, initial outlay for land required.

Nicely biased breakdown here is another in favor of mainland.

1st yearly premium account 6usd / month @265L/$ =1590L
2nd yearly premium account 6usd / month @265L/$ =1590L
VAT 15% =477L
2x stippend =-2600L
Total/month =1057L

Mainland is even cheaper on such small parcels and you still get the chance to have an extra 102sqm for using a group.

Quite an amazing thread, really. One's arguments for land cost could be considered religious zeal more than the macro view of reality. We see and preach what we want of our small corner of the world.

I'm just a little avi in the scheme of things, but where I chose to live has more to do with what the estate owner offers than cost. I like covenants, themes, the service quality of the owner, and, yes, price does factor in my decision. I have yet to find mainland that is reasonably priced and offers the same qualities as private estates. For example, mainland owners can do nothing if their neighbors wants ban lines. Me hatesess ban linesesss.

Anything can be proven by statistics and graphs, what is harder to show on a graph is the overall user experience. [Survey anyone?]

Stepping down from pulpit and returning to my place under a rock [but on a private estate].

Well i own sizeable lands on Mainland as well as Estates...and its my opinion that the introduction of Open Space sims made it harder selling/renting plots on Estate full sims, thus leading to a nose dive in sqm pricing. I believe it had less impact on Mainland pricing......there might have been a few peeps that had sizeable land on Mainland that thought it worth converting over to Open Space sims, but i believe there were more Estate Full SIM land holders that became converts. Maybe the OS factor reduced average Mainland sqm pricing from 6L sqm to about 4L sqm (the lowest i have seen) at some stage......but the creation of those 3 east Continents certainly moved it down from being 15L per sqm or 12L per sqm ...down to their desired 6-7 L sqm during that growth period. Sure LL has always created more Mainland....but the fastest rate of growth with the largest amount of SIMs in a given space of time...was done during the period of creating those Eastern Continents,.... whose overall size is almost the same as the Old Continent + Southern Continent put together!

PS I did not invest in Open Space sims, although i came quite close to becoming a convert. I did not make any financial losses as i kept hold of all my land holdings, both Full sims and Mainland.

Experience is the most important consideration and why estates exist, they are often very nice from a residential point of view and do offer value for money to people who want what a particular estate offers they often have a much better community atmosphere than mainland, due to their owners hard work in most instances.

You pay for that estate management, and so you should.

On the other hand a badly managed estate could be hell with no security.

Mainland offers security along with freedom to create in any style desired at the best possible cost.

Yep, agreed!

To make my data a bit more precise: 6144 m2 with 2812 prims, and 16896 m2 with 966 prims. So a grand total of 3778 prims available to me.

If I were to move, I could buy a quarter sim and pay US$ 89.25 (VAT in my country is 19%). With a bit of luck I would find a parcel of 1600 m2 in the same sim and get around 350 prims extra of course.
Premium is US$ 85.68 including VAT. US$ 58,87 would be recouped in stipends (took 265 as rate), so US$ 26,81 per year. US$ 2.23 per month. Grand total of US$ 91.48 per month, about what I pay now (even a bit cheaper). So in my case, it hardly matters whether I buy mainland or rent, if only price were an issue.

But:
- I do have 2 separate parcels now, meaning more room. And room is what I need. Since I want to optimize as bast as possible for Search All, putting my plants store on the ground and my furniture in the sky would not be the best option (though I could work around it if I really wanted).
- I did not need to fork over almost 100k linden purchase price (at 6 linden per sqm). 100k still is a lot of money.
- My customer service is way better on estate then on mainland. If needed I can get a region restart for example, or they can help me pinpoint problems. When you have a store that is important.

But, I also did a calculation for a standard 4096, 1/16 of a sim, and showed you saved a few dollars each month. And that was even not including premium membership fees! When renting smaller parcels, the difference can even be bigger, because the larger chunk of land you have om mainland, the less tier you have to pay per sqm.

Both sides have plusses and minuses. I prefer Mainland for commerical activities, by placing my shops or a Mall. For residential living i prefer Estate sims plus I sell or rent land on my Estate sims. I work with both models and each serves a purpose. I don't favour one over the other.

Well up to this past Saturday I owned both Mainland and Estate. The openspace fiasco cost my husband and I a lot of money and our business suffered terribly behind it. We got a full sim with the same Estate manager. Then, we got the shock of our life, our sim was sold and we had no clue whatsoever. We logged off so we can tend to rl. Then I got a call in rl from my hubby that our sim was sold. I immediately logged on and low and behold it was. We did receive some refund on the tier we paid so I am thankful for that. What I did not like was the lack of forewarning and nor were we offered the option to purchase the sim. A "Dear John" note apparently was sent when ownership was transferred. To complicate things, sl was acting screwing, my avie was ruthed and my inventory was acting weird. My hubby sent me the note but it never populated. I eventually received it after I relogged about 3 times. Now that is ridiculous in of itself.

Then the new owner demanded tier payment immediately and I mean IMMEDIATELY. After some persuasion, he KINDLY allowed us 1 hour to make a decision. I did not appreciate the strong arm tactic nor attitude. My hubby and I were thinking OMG do we even want to deal with this guy. So my husband and I decided to just say screw it and let our dream go. Sadly, business wise we were just starting to recover from the openspace fiasco.

So for at least over the next few months, we are curtailing our sl spending. We both have mainland lots fortunately in decent areas. I loved the amenities of living on an estate and I was a tenant of the Estate owner for over 2 years and this whole experience has left a very bad taste. With all the problems Mainland has there is one that does not exist if you own land there. There is no 3rd party that can just sell it right from under your feet.

I still think my former Estate manager is a decent person and but perhaps I stayed with them too long. Funny she used to tell some of the new tenants I was their longest resident. I paid my tier on time sometimes months in advance. See I thought retention of a good tenant still meant something. I guess it doesn't anymore.

We had a tenant on the sim and we gave her a full refund on tier and will provide her some assistance in finding another place. In my case, in addition not being offered to buy the sim, I feel the Estate owner could've just charged me tier only for 7 days. But like I said I am thankful I some of it back.

In another thread there is a poll about good and bad estate owners. My former estate manager is not listed. Up to Saturday I had nothing bad to say. Now that the dust is settled and looking back at my experience for the last 2 years, I believe I would still give them a decent rating.

I told my husband that I have read in the forum of things like this happening to other people but never thought it would happen to me.

I am very sad and disappointed.

sorry to hear your circumstances Sable.!

It looks like you rented a full sim of which you sub-rented a portion to a tenant. If i were you, i'd buy a full sim from another SL resident....you can pick them up as cheap as 400-500 USD. Not sure what rents you were paying, but my guess it must have been more than 295 USD you'd pay directly to LL. It will be just like Mainland as you're landlords will be the same LL with full estate rights to do as you please.

Of course the above is not such a good idea if you're European and have to pay VAT on your Tiers......maybe thats why you rented a SIM in the first place!

Rene, thank you for your very kind words and suggestions. As you stated that is exactly what happened. We plan to eventually purchase a sim of our own if the opportunity presents itself from another resident. This whole thing has been a very daunting experience but we will snap out of it.

Yep- you can pick a SIM up for around 400-500 USD. I'm part of the inworld Conciege Info Group which is specfically for SIM owners and those that own over 1/2 SIM on Mainland.(its monitored by LL employees)
On a daily basis you get people offering to sell SIM's or wanting to buy extra ones.....let me know nearer the time when you're ready to buy one....i can probably find you a seller inside that Group. Failing that, the classifieds section of Xstreet and here are also good sources.

PS Make sure when you buy, that it goes through LL ticketing system...never buy direct or pay the seller direct. .....let LL hold your funds as they will deliver the SIM to you (10-14 days transfer time)

Know any full mainland sims for sale around that price? PM me.

Sure it is a personal choice whether to use mainland or rent from a third party, price is not the only factor to be taken into account whoever you pay your tier to.
It's right that smaller parcel sizes appear cheaper if rented.



Mainland Tier - Island tier - Approx Area
195$ - 295$ - 64000sqm
125$ - 147.5$ - 32000sqm
75$ - 73.75$ - 16000sqm
40$ - 36.88$ - 8000sqm
25$ - 18.44$ - 4000sqm
15$ - 9.22$ - 2000sqm
8$ - 4.61$ - 1000sqm
5$ - 2.31$ - 512sqm

2.3$/512sqm is the cheapest an island can be rented out at without actually making a loss unless the owner is lucky enough to have some legacy agreement with LL allowing them to keep the island at a tier rate of 195usd.

This compares favorably with paying mainland tier until a quarter sim is reached.

But these figures allow no room for the estate owner to make money for themselves though, so don't expect to ever see rental rates as low as I have listed, meaning anything more than 1/8 sim will actually be cheaper on the mainland.

With a premium account 6$ you get 512sqm and a weekly stipend of 300L when the stippend is taken into account, the cost actually becomes less than 2$ so although the costs appear weighted toward rental at lower sized plots it actually works out cheaper to have mainland than island rental could ever be.

So simple solution create a group and have more than one premium account, if dealing with small plots on mainland.

If you see rental prices below 2usd for 512sqm, then rent from your new benefactor in SL but don’t expect them to stay in business for long.

If you want to have the benefits of good estate management then expect to pay for it, as is only fair.

I am not trying to say mainland is better than estate land this thread was about cost nothing more.

Mainland is cheaper, estates estates cannot match LL on tier, if they do then they will fail as a business.

They provide a way to own land without initial outlay upfront, but their setup has to be payed for somehow, they often provide fantastic landscaping but this all costs.

Again many thanks Rene and I will pass this info to my husband. We will certainly be contacting you when we are ready. I have checking Xstreet and some of the classified listed in this forum.

You don't need to get mainland so cheap as within 4 - 5 months you will have already recouped the extra outlay in savings on tier