What you pay for an apartment like...

Just curious about the current going rate for apartments, okay, I'm hoping to make a business of it. But I don't want to be grossly over-charging or under-charging, but it's difficult to factor in the bonuses and such that I'm hoping for.

So here goes, apartments will include:

- 2,000m cubed (20 x 16 x 6.5 approx) space.
- 50, 75 or 100 prims (different prices, limited availability).
- 20m empty space on all sides, plus 20m long entrance-way = no stray chat or eavesdroppers
- Security included (adjustable allowed list, visitors permitted with allowed user accompanying them, people in empty space are automatically removed)
- Entirely themed area including various recreational areas plus adult areas (with privacy controls same as rooms, though only for a few hours). As well as visitor attractions, but far enough away they won't interfere, and low-lag (I'm really quite anal about script performance )
- Free access to any paid facilities (bar visitor attractions in other areas)
- One free use of the events hall per week dependant on availability, first come first serve (ie I wouldn't cancel apartment bookings if someone paying comes along).
- Lax but safe rules, e.g - no laggy scripts, no 'noisy' scripts that shout messages, spray particles beyond your room or make loud noises audible in other rooms (20m should be plenty range for a background noise). Fairly common sense overall really. Fur, Gamorean, whatever friendly provided antics others may dislike are kept in areas that expressly allow them, ie; anything outside apartments or adult areas considered a PG zone

I'm not advertising here though, as I don't even know if I'll go ahead, and if I do it'll likely take a while anyway. Just hoping to get an idea of what would be a fair price, for the current exchange rate, just so I can try and work out the feasibility of my overall idea. In fact, suggested prices in USD might be best since L$ vary, and I can adjust accordingly, while the USD shouldn't change value too drastically I hope.

Cheers for any suggestions or feedback on what I've listed above (or anything I've forgotten that might be important!)

I was once flamed for asking exactly what you are asking here now, so I'll give you the straightaway answer:

Charge what you think is fair and profitable. Do your research on the grid yourself.

This is what I do:
1. Fly around to 50 properties, discern whether or not they have ANY tennants in them what-so-ever. Then take what they are paying and see if you can afford to charge that ammount.

2. Take some wild guesses about why people are renting that spot. What makes it worth the fee.

3. Ask yourself if you can manage to get people to rent from you. Can you keep them happy?

and then just bite the bullet and do it. Be the happy landlord and treat everyone like buddies and make sure to collect everyone's money each week or month. Simple!

i hope that helped

~Lefty

ive found that you cant judge price based on land area exactly. YOu could rent an entire sim it doesnt matter. You have to calculate a proftable price in $ per prim, since prims not area is the major commodity. Too many people think of renting apartments/condos/houses in real world terms of area. Well in the real world we dont have a prim limit

Thanks for the advice both of you! Guess I'll have to make a day of it tomorrow or something, hehe!

Okay then, just to keep this thread useful, would it still be taboo to ask for opinions then?
ie, if you were looking for an apartment, which of the things I mentioned would be most important to you (or several things, since prim is likely highest as Dragon says)?
Does having an apartment in a themed area make a big difference for example, or could you care less what's outside your door?

Personally, my surroundings are everything here in SL. That's really all there is to this world. Everything else is just a chat room. If i were to spend any amount of time inside of a box. I'd make sure it was a really really cool box.

I can't stand the apartments that LOOK like crappy RL apartments... why? I wouldn't be caught dead in an ugly, unoriginal building and i wouldn 't be caught dead in a building that was part of some ugly parcel of land. Not for my money

take care in building a very unique, interesting building and make sure it's very functional instead of "realistic"

~Lefty