How's It Going Selling Houses With Land?

I'm still wondering how this is working.

If you are a builder or architect, you can make a house, buy some land, put the house on the land and sell the house and the land together, walla, works great. But many architects don't have loads of land to sell, though they have lots of houses.

If you are a land owner, you can buy a prefab or commission a house from an architect to sell on the land you have to sell...except you can't, often.

Architects often click off "no transfer" and "no copy" to their work because they don't want you to just copy their work for free or transfer their work to another without them in the loop. While *of course* you don't want to just copy their work and sell it for free, it's unfortunate that the second-hand market gets crippled in this way, that you can't even take the one copy you *did* buy and sell just that copy in a resale -- the option to sell someone's work on land is hampered in this way, but that's the reality of SL, some just don't want it.

But let's say you commissioned a work, and the author clicked off "transfer" to you but then not to "next owner". So then you're stuck. You have it now, but you can't click off "transfer" to the next owner to sell it with your land.

So...you ask the architect to sell you a work, but be willing to click off "transfer" to you but "no transfer" I guess...for the next owner to buy it off your land together with your land set to "sell with objects"...

Well, is this working? Is anybody doing it? I'm trying to see how to do it. I already found out it doesn't work when a group tries to buy from another group with a house on their land clicked off with "sell objects with land" because the new system doesn't recognize groups doing this, only individuals, I guess (part of the group-deeded object disappearance bug?)

Hmmm....well, the moral of the story is, you can't go out and invest in people's prefabs and sell a copy of them with your land because the prefabs are on non-transfer, but you can work together with builders to set up sales on your land with copies they've clicked off differently -- and I'd like to hear how they'd do it.

It does slow down the process of trying to showcase architects' work on your land for sale, but I can go back to doing what I did before which is to include a landmark giver on the land for people to go buy directly from that architect.

Or I can try that business with setting all the objects to $0 sale...which is what we used to do...which was supposed to change in the new patch....

Its all the fault of this cursed 10% tier discount for groups.
Until/unless this whole group thing works much better I would prefer the discount didnt exist. ( Couldn't abolish it, of course - Give it to everybody)

I curse it because it pushes us all into getting a couple of pals in as dormant non-officer members of our actually one-man group, just to hold our land and get the discount.

Giving us all these problems with group deeded objects etc, and now with objects-with-land sales. Which we wouldn't have if we forgot groups except where there is real joint ownership.

Still, no point moaning, LL aren't going to volunteer for a 3 or 4% cut in their income.

The only way to sell land and objects from your "group" without having to collect a third from each of your two pals (who may be on holiday) is first to sell it all to yourself, which of course sets the clock ticking on a 10% tier increase and gives you a deadline for your sale.

I always feel too nervous to rely on the supposed 7 day period of tier-up grace anyway. Is it safe?

Once the land and stuff are all your very own, presumably a buyer can get the lot from you with a single click, permissions permitting (hey, thats good, lol).

The transfer permissions problem is currently insoluble. You obviously can't expect to have copy and transfer, or you could set up your own competing factory/shop. Its currently got to be one or the other. For some things you do prefer copy. Maybe even for bits of houses, in case you mess one up.

Hey - why dont we propose a new feature ? Allow us to create and sell MASTERS which can always be copied and transferred, but copies made from them die (within, say, two hours) unless the owner has a master in his inventory. So you could sell the master and all the copies to someone else, but any you keep will die.

That'd solve it, but the long range inventory checking might be technically infeasible.

Well, I fancied up a lot with a garden, house I made, pond, waterfall... the works.. lol

While I thought it looked gorgeous, after my pc crashed last night, I finally logged back in today and found everything returned to me..

So the question then becomes...do the work-up we do to our land to make it look good, in fact help the sale at all? or does it just draw attention, showing what is possible...

Thanks for a cohesive overview of this, Prok. Someone asked me the other day if this new system is working out, and I had to admit I personally hadn't tried it yet.

The group problems sound discouraging, to be sure. I don't do a lot with groups, so I'm not sure if those issues will ever apply to me, but its good reference to know about outstanding problems.

I don't currently do much in the way of buying and selling land, but since I just moved up a tier, I have extra allotment I might as well use. I am interested in doing a land+build package sale, but as Alysa pointed out, I'm not sure if the interest is there.....at least, yet.


It seems to me that people that want a nice prefab might look to planned communities more than purchasing land (even with a build included) in an unzoned sim and running the risks inherent...but that's just my assumption, looking at it from the outside. I'd be interested to hear others take on it.

Hey... your friendly architect here to put in a few words!

Builders often check the 'no transfer' option as a means of closing the security hole when buying a new prefab or custom home. Many times, homeowners may like most of the house, but may want to paint it, add new flooring, etc. so some builders allow for modifications. When I first started offering prefabs one of the very first issues I ran into was how to provide a fix for a customer should things go terribly wrong when they are doing some minor customizations to thier home. The route I went was to make the home copy/mod/no trans.

Copy/mod/no trans allows the homeowner to modify the home and should things go badly, it also allows them to drag out a new version of the house and start over. Most of my customers really like this setup as it allows them to fix mistakes but also use extra parts to do some really cool mods to the house.

To protect my business and ensure that someone can't buy one copy of the house, make many copies and put those copies up for sale, I tick the 'no trans' option. Unfortunately, this does cripple the resell market. There is no good solution for this. The only way for a builder to protect themselves is to remove the 'copy' option and allow for transfers, but then customers cannot tweak the build to suit thier tastes.

I periodically ask customers for feedback on the homes and most have been pleased with the current permissions settings, but I've been thinking about offering another variation for my builds, specifically for those who are interested in resell: no copy/mod/trans.

Would a setup like that be of interest to people?

It didn't work when Siggy sold me land in Taber. I wanted to keep sections of his original palace on the land as part of the garden, so he checked the sell with land box. He owned the land and the prims outright with no group affiliation whatsoever. The land sold of course, but Siggy still owns the palace prims.

It's worked out better actually. I don't want to change anything so it's easier to work around the structure knowing I can't move any of it accidentally. When I get ready to reactivate autoreturn, I'll have to be sure it's properly subdivided but that's a minor inconvenience.

Gosh I've gotten rambly in my old age. The point is that the feature didn't work even when there was no group affiliation involved.

I have sold two fairly large parcels with big builds recently - both with the option to sell objects with the land. Both sales generally worked. Zero objects were returned to me after the sale to the new owner. However, many objects stayed on the land but with me still as the 'owner'. It seems that many of these were objects that were originally copy/mod/no transfer when sold to me. Or, there were portions of say, a linked home, that did not transfer ownership to the new buyer, but other portions did transfer ownership to the buyer.

This becomes very complicated to sort out with the buyers. But, for the most part the option works.

Hey, I know I talk too much and its difficult to get through to my last paragraph, but did no-one notice my suggestion re copy/transfer ?

Think it might work ? If its feasible technically, of course.

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The suggestion :
Hey - why dont we propose a new feature ? Allow us to create and sell MASTERS which can always be copied and transferred, but copies made from them die (within, say, two hours) unless the owner has a master in his inventory. So you could sell the master and all the copies to someone else, but any you keep will die.

That's an interesting concept, Lindar. If LL could set it up, that would probably solve a lot of problems.

Put it in the sillypoll, I'll give it some votes.

I already answered you Lindar, did you read what I said? I said "Kill copy" functions by creators serve this function of killing off a copy not attached to a master.

I realize everything you said Juro. That's why I already said it LOL.

But that's why I asked how feasible it would be to make packages of no copy/mod/transfer, but in sets, in one box, so that I could pull out 6 copies which were actually 6 originals that couldn't be copied. 6 limited editions.

In theory, you can put a bunch of prims inside a prim, even prims with the same name. So why couldn't you put six no-copy mod and transfer originals inside a prim and sell it so I can place out 6 identical but original items that can't be copied, but can be transferred and modded.

That's not a bad idea, Prokofy... I'll have to look into that and see how it works out. I've been wanting to create a package that is more acceptable for the needs of developers and something like that might just do the trick!

I just sold a fully furnished home tonight and everything transferred without a hitch!

I make pre made houses japanese style and i think i set them to modify/no copy/transfer because:

Modify - People want to change the textures using ones i sell or their own, or adapt and extend the houses with add on panels.

NO Copy - I dont want people to copy them or someone can easily just populate land with many copies of my houses and rent them out, without selling them, or IF i make them copy, I'd have to make no transfer. I will always turn up to help if builds or rezz goes wrong or someone messes up the parts, and provide a new free copy. copy option would also ruin my sales of add ons and panels.

Transfer - I make transfer allowed so that people CAN sell them on with land if they want to or give to a newer person when they upgrade to a larger model house or make their own.

I make it clear also that if someone wants to take their modified version of the house when they move but leave a similar basic version behind I would give them one to sell on with the land at a small fee only, a lot less than the price of another house. The new owner can then customise that one to their wishes.

I will also exchange credit for previous houses model no copy item against a new larger one.


Im interest to know if the new sell all items with land is working OK . As builder and landscaper making large houses, estates and gardens, often up to 20,000 metres with thousands of prims, I have often spent many many days handing over prims one by one or in sets. If this works properly now, it will be great for me. How I wish we had this option a few months back when I bought an entire near sim with 10,500 prims on it and had to work to transfer them all over..

This all makes sense to me. This is how it could probably work best.

I'm worried that in fact I would be bothering an architect way too much to get the back-up houses' copies, however, because I mess them up a LOT. Or tenants mess them up A LOT trying to modify them. In fact a very common mistake is that someone doesn't know how to select out an individual texture for modification. So they take the house and press on the square that says "multiple textures" and turn the entire house into something that looks like fuzzy wool just when they wanted to change the rug. Then it can't be put back the way it was because of course the tenant or I will not have those textures that the architect originally had in their inventory.

I can tell you that the sell-all-objects does not work if you are group land trying to sell to another group land. It just doesn't go anywhere. I've heard that individuals selling to other individuals get it to work but have glitches. I'm a little reluctant to try this with a big structure because I don't want all that work someone has done to fly back into their inventory. SO I think we'll just be transferring the old-fashioned way of setting to $0.

Good points, guys. And thanks, Prok, for the heads up on the group-to-group sell objects with land fubar. Apparently the system is only able to recognize a single owner for objects in general That would be a reasonable feature request, imo.Spending 1-2 hrs going over a build with a fine-tooth comb & selling for $0 is not a lot of fun. (And so far as I know, if I am building on someone else's land, that is the only way to do it.

As for permissions- I make sure my clients know UP FRONT that they are getting either copyable or transferrable & not both. I make sure their intent is in concert w/ the permissions before selling the structure. Like most of the other builders, I leave the parts modifiable. I also strongly urge owners to Lock the pieces to prevent unintentional edits. I spend a bit of time helping clients fix things, cause mistakes still happen...

I had one poor guy comission & then buy a lovely site-built house- all no transfer- then a month later want to sell it with his land, which, obviously did not work. After discussing the now-problem with several Lindens, and a couple of support emails from both of us & the prospective buyer, I have come to find out that the Linxdens will NOT force or alter permissions, even for the original creator and original buyer- not now, not ever. Once it leaves your (creator's) hands, that's it. Noone was happy about it, & I expected somewhat better response, but nothing to be done for it now. In the end of the day, the house owner left the house on the lot when he sold it & instructed the new owner not to return his objects. Not an elegant solution, but it will have to do.

As for the idea of decaying copyableness (is that actually a word? lol)- I rather like the idea. However, I can see where this would be potentially very confusing for less- savvy players & how it could be abused by more savvy & dishonest players unless a very solid control mechanism was written into the option. A work around with the current system would be to make several mod/ no copy/ trans versions of the same house in a box & make a deal with the current purchaser for several copies at a reduced price from buying singly.