Need help please!!

Hi everyone, I have been in secondlife for a short while and I only have the basic account but now I want to upgrade to the premium account. Once I do this, I understand that I get 512 square meters to start with although I have to purchase this land. Once I have done this can I start looking for a home to buy and then place it on this land? I have been through the knowledge base, and need a little extra guidance. Many thanks. Andrew

Welcome to the forums Andrew. Yes, you can purchase a house to place on your land after you buy the land. There are many nice free houses as well that you may want to consider. You do have to stay within your limit of prims, which I think is 117 for a 512 parcel.

have fun!

You get 512 meters worth of TIER free. This means that you won't have to pay Linden Lab any money to maintain ownership of this parcel. Like you noted, you will have to actually buy the parcel, but won't have to pay tier for it. If you buy a parcel larger than 512m, you will pay a US Dollar tier that will come out of your Second Life account. Just wanted to make sure that was clear.

And welcome to Second Life!

Welcome to the forums, Andrew, and congratulations on your first post. The only thing I can think to add is the house you buy should actually fit on your land. There's a standard shape for most 512 plots and I believe a lot of houses for sale are designed especially for that size and shape.

Plus, don't forget. This applies to Mainland.

Also you might consider taking some building classes and using your land to experiment with building.

Building your very own house is a very rewarding feeling>

Thanks Allegria, that's a great help, will look into getting started.

Andrew, welcome...

Look on xstreetsl for freebie low prim houses (BSD does several freebies) and furniture. Your best bet for getting land is to search for it in SL. Stay away from the Linden land auctions, I'd advise. Find a place with some open space around it if you can and buy it directly via private sale. I've done both the auction and private purchase thing on mainland.

As you start to acquire things you might want to invest in a security orb, but that's probably down the road a way. That way you can allow unrestricted access to your land and not be a pain to your neighbors, and still keep them out of your home.

If you see me in world (not very often lately, unfortunately) IM me and I can show you the place that my GF and I assembled from freebies.

Actually, you may want to do it the other way around: Look around for houses/homes and see if there's a particular type you like. You may fall in love with some bizarre thing you wouldn't even consider a "house" in the first place, and *really* want to do something like that, which could easily dictate the type (and/or size) of land you're looking for.
Also, remember that you can just walk around with anything in your inventory; it's not like a house has to be ordered and build on-site, so you can play around with building/assembling your own in a sandbox, and pick it up and place it on land you you buy later.

Also, do be aware that there are some changes to the PG/Mature and soon-to-come Adult ratings of land underway, so you may want to hold off your land purchase just a little, until the final guidelines are settled.

ETA: Since the land market, especially the structure of "private estates" and "mainland" can be pretty confusing at first, I once wrote this http://talirosca.wikidot.com/buying-land to help some friends. I am not an expert on land deals, so there may be nuances I missed, but this should give an idea.

that sounds nice until somebody builds their first home next door!

yes, that is pretty much exactly how it works.
what aspect of the system are you unsure about?