How To Rent out Homes & Shops

I have some (I hope) basic questions on managing my land that I have not been able to find full answers to, so Posting in the hopes that someone can help me out, forgive me if I have missed the answers to these questions in another thread.

So, I have just become a landowner, having bought mainland property in one of the new sims. On part of the land I would like to set up a few shops as well as a couple of houses for rent. I am not planning to do this as a primary business by any means, just as a source of income to pay for part of my tier and to give me the chance to do something creative (I hope) here in SL.

What I am looking for is a step by step primer on what I need to do to be able to rent these places out. I think I need to set up a group, maybe give permissions, but really am in the dark as to the details. So any help will be greatly appreciated.

P.S. What is with the grey look to the ground in these new sims? Is it due to the altitude above sea level? Anyone know if LL is going to change this to make them nicer looking?

Granite? granite is gray.

/me Smiles

Yea I figured it was Granite .. doesn't make it any more appealing to the eye though.

That is actually a very broad topic that doesn't have a single simple answer. I'd suggest a good first step is to go out and be a tenant. Rent a residence and/or shop or two and see how others manange their setups.

Ravenhurst ... thanks for that feedback. I have rented before so do have some understanding but really am looking to understand the mechanics. i.e Do I need to parcel up the land that the shops/houses are sitting on? What do I do with the group I assume I need to create? Deed land to it? etc etc.

You'll probably get answers in bits, so here's one bit...

If you are going to rent out houses, then you'll need to create a group, and deed the land (with tier) to it. In that way, you can set it so that tenants (group members) can rez objects there, but nobody else can. When you create a group, make sure that you get one other person in it straight away, or the group will disappear. The other person can be your alt - better if it's your alt so that you will always have at least 2 people in the group.

Another bit...

When renting out (shops, homes) you basically rent out prims, and not objects. You have a finite number of prims to work with, so you need to work out how many prims a house will use, for instance, and how many prims you can allow the tenant to rez. If you work everything out, you'll find out what you can actually rent out, and for how much.

Phil .. thanks for that. I think I am starting to get an idea of what needs to be done:

1) Buy Land ---(Done)---
2) Create Group
3) Get another member ---(Note to self - create Alt)---
4) Deed Land to group
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Questionnce I have done this, if parcel the land, join it back up, etc ... does it mater?
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5) Set Group Land permissions
6) Get prim counters ---(Done)---
7) Build Houses, Shops, set up land to be attractive
Get tenants and watch the money flow in

Whether or not the land is in one piece or split into parcels depends on your aims with it. For instance, you may want each rented house to be able to set the music stream exclusively. For that, they would each need a seperate parcel. And you may want to target each shop in the search results - that would need each shop to be on a seperate parcel. On the other hand, you may want every minute that anyone spends on the whole of the land to add to the land's traffic figure for higher rankings in the Places search, in which case it would be better to have it all as one parcel.

If you don't know already, you should know that the prims for all parcels that you (or the group) own in the same sim can be used on one parcel. They are added together, and can be used anywhere on your parcels, regardless of whether or not the parcels are adjacent to each other.

Again .. thanks Phil.

If I give the group permissions to rezz then that means they can rezz in any parcel that the group owns? Correct? No way to limit an individual to a particular parcel of the group?

There is a near suitable way...

In a group you can set vaious roles, and assign individuals to whatever role is for them. E.g. you can assign house tenants to a seperate role from other members. You can set the abilities of each role, so that only house tenants can rez things - but they will be able to rez on any group land. It's not really a problem, as tenants don't tend to go around abusing the fact that they can do it.