Allowing non estate owners to purchase homesteads

According to LL the original intent of OS's was to provide estate owners with a low prim island to use for open space such as park land,water ways etc to compliment their full island
We all know what happened,the land barons saw a way to make money with them and rent them out.
LL reduced the price of OS's and raised the prim allowance,allowed them to be moved into open water by themselves and rentals exploded by the thousands
I've read all the posts about bait and switch and all the theories as to why LL did that,it's not my intent to get into all that but just get my point across.
LL said the OS's were being "abused" and raised the price and created the new product "homestead" and retained the original intent of OS by lowering the prim allowance to 750 on OS
So now we have two products born from the OS debacle,a low prim OS and a homestead
The OS being what LL said their original intent was,a place to use for park land,water etc.,the homestead for residential use etc.
So,now LL has given land barons two products to profit from,i'm sure there will be some small demand for OS with the 750 prim limit.

Most of us who rent OS (homesteads) now already pay the $125 LL planned increase.
For us to stay on our homesteads when the $125 increase takes effect will mean our "rent" will increase to around $175 (tier,estate owner profit and for me 22% exchange to US funds)the exchange is unavoidable i realize, but it's still an expense to retain my island.
What i would like to see given that LL has retained their original intent of OS and created a new product, is to sell that new product (homesteads) to non estate owners.
Other virtual worlds do that,legend city sells their OS with 3750 prims and a tier of $25 monthly,i have tried openlife and legend city and i am not at all satisfied with them.
Is SL only for those who can afford it?i tried renting a small piece of land when i joined SL,it;s not for me,i love the privacy of my homestead.
While i can't afford a full island, a homestead is a good alternative but why does LL insist on only allowing estate owners to purchase them and profiting from renting to those of us who want a an island of our own but can't afford the $295 a month tier for a full island.
The $125 increase would be affordable to many of us who now rent if LL would sell us a homestead directly
It is a new product why can't LL sell it as such like they do a full prim island or are we to be at the mercy of land barons forever.
People create on SL and sell their products on SL,they profit from their creations and that is how it should be.
Homesteads are an LL product and should be available to all residents who can afford it as full islands are available to those who can afford it

That would be a decent thing to do. We are talking about LL. What do you think the answer is?

Yes i know the answer unfortunately ,the average person unless they can afford $295 a month is out of luck,those that can set up a business and make it pay stand a better chance.
But for the rest of us we're out of luck,it's a virtual world but like the real world those that have money can afford the better things.
The homestead is a good alternative for those of us who can afford them,but in the end if LL does make them affordable and sells them to non estate owners then all those estate owners stand to lose a lot of money.
Still i wish i could buy my own homestead and not have to pay profits on top of tier.
Even if things stayed the same and the increase was capped at $95,i would find that affordable even with the estate profit on top of that.

If they give those who already own an estate a break on tier and charge those who only buy an openspace higher tier then fine.

Well, they'll lose the rent, but they'll be able to sell the homestead itself to the people they were formerly renting them to, so they shouldn't actually be out any capital.

As far as i understand they can't do that,it has to stay in the original estate owners name,an OS (homestead) can't be sold like that so the buyer becomes the actual owner.
I paid $500 for mine when i got it but that was the set up fee at the time,then i paid $150 to have it moved to open water,but i don't own anything,i just rent
At this time only estate owners can purchase them and can't sell them outright to people who rent them

It can be sold... it just can't be split up between owner and payer.

The proposal here is that anyone would be allowed to be the owner-and-payer.

I believe that's what i said
I don't quite understand what your saying,if estate owners sell them then they will sell them for big profits and the buyer still would not own it outright
I "bought" mine for $500,it was sold to me for that but it is'nt mine,the only way is for LL to sell them to non estate owners so they are the sole owner

well I suppose someone has to voice the other side of this. At first this look to be a good idea. I even suggested it on the premium features thread.

If you think it through to say a year out, the problem is obvious. OS sims are/were super popular for all the reason the OP mentioned. To popular. If everyone could buy one then the mainland would be abandoned and estates would struggle to rent parcels in full prim regions.

Not that I care much about mainland but there are many themed estates(caledon) that I don't want to see struggle.

I may be way off, but during this last OS rush, I know I was not the only one having a hard time renting full prim parcels. Now that we(us at my small estate) are past the OS debacle, things have returned to normal. The fullprim parcel is viable again.

My two cents =)

I think you are dead on the money here and the reason that they (LL) won't allow just everyone to buy them as it will then devalue mainland and those renting out space on full sims. Personally i hope that LL does not allow everyone to buy them and to keep the full sim as the entry price to be able to own the low prim sims.

I'm talking about the situation IF this proposal was accepted by Linden Labs.

If Linden Labs allows anyone to buy a Homestead, who would keep paying a premium to rent them from an estate owner? The estate owner would lose the rent they're currently getting from Homesteads, but they wouldn't have to lose the up front cost because they *could* sell them (really sell them) to the people who are currently renting them.

I think come july most estate owners are going to lose their tenants on their homesteads anyway,right now nothing has changed and many OS's have been given up,the $95 tier increase is still affordable,but when the $125 kicks in the estate owners will lose many,many more tenants.
I doubt LL will allow estate owner to sell their OS to current tenants.i would like that because i have already paid the upfront cost
Even some full sim owners don't trust LL,i was over on Legend City and ran into a new bee who owns a full sim on SL,she was over there looking around because she is afraid LL is going to raise the tier on those eventually
If i could find a another virtual world close to being as good as SL i would be gone in a heartbeat,i'm still looking though
On a personal level,i keep my homestead for one reason only,or i would dump it like so many others,my lover lives 3000 miles away and we use the island to have lovely times together,we love the privacy an island offers where no one bothers us and we can create our own paradise

Well, of course not: they don't allow non-estate owners to purchase homesteads. That's why this thread is called 'Allowing non estate owners to purchase homesteads'.

Of course they don't,why do you think i started this thread, i was responding to your suggestion above

And I was responding to a comment in this thread about how terrible it would be for landowners if this proposal went through.

Caledon is actually an archipelago, it is not on mainland.

I don't know if mainland would suffer if this proposal were to come about, but I am quite sure that even at the higher prices, there would be LOTS of folks who would love to have a single homestead as their only land purchase.
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Mmm, I suppose that was not put well. Of course Caledon is not on the mainland, that's why I used it as an example of a themed estate. Patato / potato, when I think "estate" I guess I just think private islands. Sorry for the confusion.

"Why do I have to be an existing Region owner to own an Openspace?
Openspaces are offered to allow Estate owners to create open ocean or land in and around their regions in the same way that the Linden mainland does. They are intended for "light use" rather than residential areas with large amounts of content. While they can and have been used in other ways, they are not recommended for any other purpose."

That was taken from the frequently asked questions page. Full land owners were aware that opensims should have been used for scenery in the beginning and therefore shouldn't be making profits on these anyway.

We should be given the right to purchase a homestead whether we own a full sim or not. In the real world we can buy what land we want. We're not tied to buying acres of land and then small pieces if we already own an acre.

Saving homesteads for full sim owners is rediculous and the rest of us should be given the chance to own our own piece of land outright!!!

This simply isn't true. Delve a little deeper and you'll find comments where Linden's said it was perfectly fine to rent them out.

well I'm just stating a fact from the frequently asked questions page

And that doesn't answer the point of why we shouldn't be given the chance to own a homestead outright. There are those of us who can't afford to buy full sims - why should we then lose out???? Why does class distinction have to be carried into sl also???

Whenever you buy a business you take a risk in any world. Why should we have to suffer so that those who can afford whole sims remain in the higher ranks???

If they allowed people to buy homesteads, those of us who couldn't afford homesteads would still be left out. There's always going to be some point like this unless LL actually implements privacy for parcels. Which is probably why they haven't.

People are always left out - its the way of the world. In the real world if you can't afford land then you live in rented accomodation just as you do in sl. But there are still no laws in the real world to say how much land you're allowed to buy. And if you can't afford a big piece then you're not allowed a small piece!

There are no laws, there are requirements. If someone is selling ten acres of land but you can only afford 2 acres do you go around and do a hissy fit?

Don't worry, they'll sell them direct eventually, August 2009 would be my guess if they go ahead with the second increase, USD$125 is the cost of concierge support.

No you just go to someone else to buy a smaller piece lol!

but thanks for the info

There are plenty of places in the real world that have simular restrictions, if I´m not mistaken the it is the isle of wright where you have to be a resident already before you can buy a house, in belgium you have to be living there for 5 years before you can buy bare land for building and i´m sure there are other restrictions like those elsewhere.
you can complain all you want that you have to be primium to own mainland or own a full sim before you can own a homestead or openspace but those are the rules LL made.