Groups, First Land, Additonal Land - oh my!

I really do feel like I'm wading into the lands of tigers and bears here!

OK, so I have my First Land, and so do two of my neighbours. Our plots are contiguous, and border one another. We have formed a group and grouped our land. That's 3 people, and 3x 512 = 1536. So far, so good.

We are all on the very edge of our region, and all of our plots border a parcel of private land that is for sale. We are thinking of making an offer for 1024, 1536 or 2048 of that land if the owner will sell to us. (Currently, it is a very large plot for sale; we just want the back bit adjoining our properties.)

I know that as a group, we get an extra 10% of our holdings free with no tier charge, right? So that's 153m2, right? What I don't understand is: with each of those purchases, 1024, 1536 or 2048, what will that do to our tier and how much will it cost us monthly?

I'm finding this very confusing, and would appreciate some help...

Thanks so much,
Sabrina

There's a pretty good faq on land at the Second Life Wiki http://secondlife.com/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Land+FAQ. Maybe that will help.

I'd read that, but it doesn't say anything about group land in particular. If the group has three members, and we all already have 512s, do those 1st Land lots count in the total?

For example, as a group we have 3x 512 = 1536 with no monthly land fees.

If we buy an additional 2,048, do we get charged $15 for just the 2,048m or do we get charged $25 for 3548?

If you are donating your 3 x 512m2 of tier to group, you will get a 10% bonus of land you can hold on that. If you want to hold more land as a group, more tier will need to be donated to the group. This can all come from one, or split between the members. In your example, only one person needs to tier up (you can hardly split a 2048 tier between you hehe), and then they need to donate all that tier to the group.

Be careful when messing about with group deeded land, it's all too easy to mistakenly tier above what you wanted. If you was to buy this extra 2048 for example, either the person who has tiered up should buy it, then deed it to the group (along with contributing tier), or the tier needs to be contributed to group first, and then you need to click the 'buy for group' button.

OK am rambling a bit, hope that made sense, been a long day heh

Here's how it works.

That basic $10 a month gets you 512 m^2 of land use. (that is, "tier".

By grouping and having each plot be group-owned, and contributing to the group, so that's a total of 1536 being contributed, with 153 as the "group bonus", meaning the group can own up to 1689 m^2.; if all you have are your first land plots, that means you have 153 tier available to use.

Now, if you want this additional plot, someone is going to have to contribute more tier to the group, since it will probably be larger than 153. Cost-wise, it's a bit cheaper for one person to tier up and the other group members pay that person directly, but obviously you have to have a lot of trust. Otherwise, you can have each individual person jump up a step and contribute that to the group to get the extra land, and have one of you "buy for group" that extra plot. The group must have enough tier available to take on the land; if at some point afterwards someone withdraws some tier to the point the group tier doesn't support the amount of land owned, the group has a week or so of a grace period to either sell off land or bump the tier back up.

So if I'm understanding this correctly: we buy a 2048 plot as a group and we pay $25 a month, divided between us, for that total land holding of 3548. That makes each 1/3rd share approximately $8 a month.

But I can rent 1048 on my own for 2000L or $8 a month, so why would I buy?

Yes and no.

The best way to go about it would be for ONE person to tier up enough to get that plot. Then everyone else pays that person monthly.

However, sometimes you don't have that level of trust, so yes, you could either (a) tier up yourself and contribute that to the group, (b) buy the land for your own personal use or (c), as noted, everybody tiers up a little... the total cost is more, but each individual is paying less than they would to have that plot entirely.

Currently, you all donate your full 512 m2 tier allowance to your group, which has 1536 m2 of land.

To add another 2048 m2 of land to that group, here's what to do:

Scenario 1:
Person A tiers up to the 512 + 2048 m2 level which is $15/month more. He buys the extra land, and then deeds it to the group (or donates the extra tier to the group, and then Buys for Group... same end result). Persons B and C pay Person A $5 each month to compensate for the extra tier he's supporting. End result - you all pay $5 extra per month

Scenario 2:
Person A tiers up to the 512 + 1024 m2 level which is $8/month more.
Person B tiers up to the 512 + 512 m2 level which is $5/month more.
Person C tiers up to the 512 + 512 m2 level which is $5/month more.
They all donate the extra tier to the group, and then one of them Buys for Group... Persons B and C pay Person A $1 each per month to compensate for the unequal tier. End result - you all pay $6 extra per month

In both scenarios, the group will end up with extra tier. It will have 1536 + 2048 = 3584 m2 of tier donated, so the group then has an extra 358 m2 of tier unused. You could buy an odd piece of 352 m2 land which leaves just an unuseable 6 m2 of tier in the group.

Does that help?