Need investment advice....

Hello all
I am new to SL and am wondering if someone out there has some tips for me and anyone reading. I am not a subscriber yet but would like to own land.Is it worth paying subscription to get my free 512 block and/or buy bigger or just stay a renter in SL?

I perfer to own my own land as an investment to rent out and then over time buy more land to rent out. Any tips on being a landlord and becoming successful would be nice????
Thx
PS Do you still get paid weekly as a subscriber and how much? I currently get $L50.

You get L$500 per week as a premium member.

Buying land, beyond your first land, means an upfront fee and a monthly "tax" or tier. (Actually your first land gets that too, but if you buy official first land it costs L$512 and your premium membership includes that tier.)

Owning your own land also gives you more control over the land than any rental scheme I've ever seen, although with the tweaks to groups that may disappear in the new future.

The honest answer is, it's really hard to say. Your current landlord is able to charge you less than LL probably will for a plot because they're paying at a lower rate for owning 1+ sims, but you currently get more control, and the last I checked the land prices the up-front isn't too bad.

Owning your own land has some other benefits - you can build pretty much what you want, whereas there are some landlords that control the builds, stop you running commercial activities etc. but that comes with the risk that you buy a nice plot in a nice quiet sim and then three people build massive clubs/malls in the sim and the neighbourhood goes to hell...

The currency exchange rate with its wild swings will make you cry as a property renter. The more the linden dollar falls, the more you get screwed. Because you have to increase your rental fees to compensate for the linden dollar valuation loss. Otherwise, your land rental business becomes a charity.

For instance, lets say you rent a whole sim of land which costs you $195/mo. To break even with an exchange rate (excluding credit card/paypal fees) at L$300, you would need to recoup L$58,500/mo in payments. So you setup your rental pricing per plot of land accordingly. Then 3 days later the exchange rate drops to L$315. You now need to come up with L$61,500 to break even at the end of the month. Since the folks you rented to are most likely subscribed to a locked in price for a month, you have to take the L$3000 loss.

Your only salvation is to price in a buffer into your rental fee to guard against market swings. The downside is that a "buffer" is a variable which puts you into competition with other rental properties who are tweaking prices to win over that sale.

Its a doggy dog world.....

Best investment advice is to ignore RBD'c cries of wolf. Hes been proven wrong too many times.

Yes, I've been so wrong, nevermind the fact that I was telling all that the Linden was going down the toilet when it was hovering at L$275 back in Feb/Mar. Then just as predicted, the linden dollar sank to L$330. And all the while, you and your rally monkeys proclaimed how the L$ was stable, LL would save everybody if it tanked, we could all look forward to L$250, etc.. And yet, old RBD ended up being right after all...

Where have you been the last 6 months? Wearing blinders to the truth? You don't like my style because I don't sugar coat the truth and cross my fingers hoping for a happy ending. I tell it like it is with an in your face style. If you don't like it, tell LL to get on the ball with their economic policy... How many more New Lindens will be printed today? Another L$12/million? Just adding to the devaluation pot of paper money.

Look at the numbers, don't be a bubble chaser. There are over L$10/million linden dollars for sale between L$300 - L$290. There is only about L$1/million between L$300 - L$330.

Translation, There is HUGE amount of US Dollar capital required to move the Linden Dollar higher, and very little linden dollars required to push its valuation lower.

Any one of the multi-million dollar linden's up for sale between L$300 - L$290 that decides they need their US$ now, will push the L$ value down faster than you can say "Timber"...

The L$ market is unbalanced and like I said, this recent run up can't be sustained. There is too much pressure on the sell side to hold up this price at L$300ish...

Wooosh!!! That is the sound you will hear as the linden tanks..

Oh god... stop your annoying spam ...

To Original poster:

I find so far the preimum account had paid for itself. The $L500 per week is a nice little bit of spending money and the 512 sqm of free tier should be enough to have a nice little home on.

As far as being a landlord, however much time you think you'll need, double that. Unless you are willing to sink in a large chunk of capital in SL for multiple sims, it is probably not worth the time.

To Jonas and RBD

Do you 2 need to turn every single thread in this forum into battleground for your little flame war against each other?

Take it over to PM already!

I wouldn't mind seeing a death match of you two in world some time to settle it all.

Kelly, shove it. I was offering sound advice for SL.

I would definately recommend joining as premier. My SL experience has been much richer since I did. And you get the 500L a week allowance. I joined quarterly at first for 22.50 a quarter and now am an annual member at $72 once a year. That's $6 a month! Where else can you get this much fun for $6 a month?

Plus the 500l a week = 26,000l a year and if you cash them out at the current rate of 300/1 you get back $86 which means not only is it free but you get paid to own land!

Seriously folks this is a great deal!

I on the other hand being an EX premium member would not rec ommend it. You get very litle in return for being a premium. A total and complete lack of support being one of those isues. You buy yourself a nice piece of land and some big land baron wants it but they ofer less than a fourth of value..you say no, next thing you know you have griefers shooting you and clients of of it left and right and not only do the Liasons NOT repsond to your calls and your abuse reports get ignored, if you even look sideways at he greifers you get liasons all over you. LL is very bad about caterring only to the big money operators in SL. Maybe a couple years ago when Sl was new there were good investments in it, however now this is not the case since it has gotten even more screwed up than RL is. The difference being corruption, while it exists in RL is somewhat regulated. in SL it is totally UNREGULATED..hence all the rigged events, gaming, contests, and the glut of freebie resellers.

Advice: Enjoj SL first.

Well thx for all the post, lots of interesting info both good and not so good.
From what I can see....
First Land is only available in a few places when I search in the find menu,which doesnt give me much choice of where I want my house/or invextment to be and secondly I dont see any oppitunities to buy surrounding blocks to expand on.

The rental return on blocks other than first land will not cover the monthly tier fees.Maybe if I was to open a shop It might make up for the shortfall but my building and items creation is limited atm.

Eloise Pasteur mentioned Official first land....Is there unofficial first land? where is that and whats the difference?

I am still trying to get my head around this group sim stuff and how that can effect my choice of purchase.
thx keep the posts comeing....

In order to make money by simply renting land you need to be at a full sim tier ($195 USD per month). Even then, it usually will take ~1 year to recoupe your initial investment, the cost of the land ($1250-1500 USD).

If you do decide to upgrade to premium and do not like the choice of first land plots, buy one anyway. Flip it for 3-6 $L per meter. That will make you $L 1000-2500 richer. Then use that extra money to buy the land that you really want.

Don't new users upgrading to premium also get a $L 2000 bonus? I think they do.

If I sell the first block then buy a 1024 block does the tier tax become $8 or stay at $5 ?

This is the price structure page:
http://secondlife.com/whatis/landpricing.php

So, if you want to own 1024 m2, the price above your premium subscription price will be $5 USD. For $8 USD above, you would be entitled to 1536 m2. Be very careful, exceeding your tier by even 1 meter will put you in the next tier bracket for that month.

[Snoop doggie daw-aw-g]

Is a Doggy dog world anything like a dog-EAT-dog world?

...just curious

When shopping for first land Don't use just the filter by first land button. By manually setting your criteria to 512 for 512 you will see all first land vs. only the top 10. This is a little trick my girlfriend discovered awhile back while looking at first land. You still don't get to pick the location anywhere you want but you can at least get preferred land (roadside, etc.) or if you shop over a couple of days you might be able to get first land in a old sim (my first land was on the Northern continent even though the lower continent was where all the main groups of first land was - it took a couple days/probably 6 hours online of clicking "find" every half hour or so before it popped up).

-Alan

The reason I described it as official first land is that if you don't like any of the first land on offer you can buy any land as your first plot, but you'll pay the commercial rate and you'll lose the profit that can come from a first land plot bought at 512 and sold at about 2.5k.

Good tip there Alan, And I have found that if you search hard I have seen 512 blocks selling for a couple thousand with surrounding blocks selling 4 times the price and more,just search 512 block with max price you want to spend, I set around 2000. There are some investment options around.
Even a waterfront level block 1024 for 5000 was nice and being first land for me I would pay Tier of a 512 block $5.
I am am just looking for a quiet yet good growth sim

Waz Sup Dawg?

Uhm, it's "dog-eat-dog world".

Re: Doggy dog world...I think he was trying to be cute.


As someone who only joined SL 2 months ago, I have to tell ya - I enjoy my premium account. Land ownership, even at only 512m2 is pleasant. I have a place that is all mine, that I cna do what I want with, and I have a weekly stipend of $500L to spend uploading textures and files. That alone is well worth it, as textures can cost an arm and a leg.

After 2 months and lots of learning, I'm ready to expand a little. This weekend, I'll be buying an 8192m2 plot. I don't know whether I'll make any money on it, but I'm not really here to make money - just to enjoy the journey.

$50.00 US a month (40 tier + 10 for account subscription) is plenty good price for the amount of entertainment i get out of it. Dinner and a movie with my partner costs more, and that's only one evening's fun.

Re: making money as a land baron - your buy-in for the land will outweigh any profit you make for a good long time. DOn't do it if you're not in for the long-haul. Just my advice


Good luck to ya!

I still have my first land but might be selling it soon if a couple of other land deals I'm thinking about go through. When I bought my first land it was completely blocked but someone had 4096 @ 6.3sqm that had a long protected roadside with a good water-facing view across the street. It has turned out to be a great chunk of land but now that I have this obsession with being able to sail/boat around it maybe time to transition out of it here soon.