Puzzled by island land purchase (rental)

I've been looking at "buying" a 4096m plot on an island if only because mainland can be such a chaotic neighborhood. I thought the covenants might help tone things down, but after looking at some that are available, I'm not so sure. Every plot I've visited so far is perfectly flat, a dull sandy color, has a huge ugly for sale sign, is surrounded by other equally flat sandy parcels with huge ugly for sale signs, and most have perfectly rectangular and ugly moats separating them from their ugly surrounding parcels. And I've jumped all around the search feature, not just the hits that come up first.

What is the selling advantage to these ugly islands? I am sent screaming away from them with an old song from the 60's going 'round and 'round my head:

"Little boxes, little boxes, and they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all get put in boxes, little boxes all the same. . ."

Thinking of going premium after all.

ALSO -- why when you put 4096 in the area for the Land Sales tab do you still get everything that's for sale regardless of sqm?

Gaarrgh!

I love that song!

Honestly, I'm on the mainland, and it's just fine. Mainland gets a bad rap these days.

It does. It sucks for flying around, but when you're inside your home, there isn't much that a few well-placed trees or a screen can't handle.

I've got no problems with Mainland either. I've got a lovely 4096 beach plot on corner of a sim with protected ocean on two sides. There are only 4 or 5 other residents. My neighbour behind is a nice guy - says hello in passing but keeps himself to himself, as does everyone else.

I gave up on search - plots listed as fantastic were really crap when you got there, surrounded by ad farms or inbetween buildings with no view. In the end, I found my plot by looking at the map and working my way round the edge of the continents, TPing to the yellow bits. Took a while but eventually found what I wanted.

Other thing I can never understand when people are trying to sell land. They list it for sale, but when you get there they have ban lines on so you can't get in to look. Otherwise, they sell land without objects, but then have that much stuff on the plot you can't even see the property lines. How do they expect to sell when you can't see what you are buying???

Well - I'm convinced. I just went premium. I'm going to use the map method, although the map barely rezzes for me right now. I think that's a great idea. Thanks.

I like using Search>Land Sales>select For Sale: Mainland>Sort by price per square meter. You can also filter the search so you only get shown plots of 4096 or larger if that is the size you want. Work your way down the list until you find the plot of your dreams. The map method works too, but you will be looking at a lot of plots that are priced way above what they are worth compared to others for sale on the Mainland.

Also, be sure to create a group so you can get a 10% tier bonus by deeding the land to the group. Make sure there are at least two members of the group before you deed the land and that only you have the ability to resell the land.

There was big demand for flat green land separated by water channels, or flat sand separated by water channels circa late 2004 / early 2005.

Nowadays the land market is a bit more picky, but a lot of the areas still remain and do pretty well.

Of course, some of the highest demand areas won't be in land search at all. You'll need to find a landlord that does what you like, and get on their waiting list. Ask around.

You missed it. In post #6 he went to the dark side and signed up for premium.