The financial dangers of island living - LL complicit but shirking all responsibility

She also advised me to buy nothing but Mainland from now on and that is what I have done. I think she was giving me a big tip with that advice!

That will never happen with the current structure...Islands can only be owned by a sole resident.

Here's an example of why, if you'll bear with a story.

I started in Feb 2006. In short order I had a waiting list of about 50 people trying to get in - but the sim was full.

Some of them literally started showering me with $L - I am talking TENS of THOUSANDS of $L to open the next sim provided they got a spot there. I was reluctant, and kept returning it - it made no sense.

Meantime, the lots I let for nothing upfront were getting 'sold' to other residents, with initial tenants making tens of thousands of $L.

The initial Caledon sim I saved up for, via SL business, selling chairs and stuff for $L 50 one at a time, then eventually some houses.

Imagine it. Making the downpayment on an island $L 50 and $L 100 at a time, occasionally a sale for $L 3000 or something. Not easy!

So to see the money I'd paid for Caledon basically handed out... wow. Okay, I didn't forsee it, can't blame anyone really, but, this was just crazy.


So I said to everyone dying to get in: fine! Here's the risks, here's what I do, it's quite transparent, and I'll even bank 90 days of tier (more than I let anyone pay ahead) and give warning should the tier reserve get in trouble.

That was about 20 months ago. I'm at 2 million square meters in a few weeks, and I *still* can't discourage anyone.

Land downtown in Victoria City has *consistently* gone for $L 40 to $L 50 a meter for the past year - no joke, little I can do to stop it - and guess what I charged up front to the people wanting in?

$L 4 per meter.

Not near enough to even cover the sim payment, just enough to strongly reduce blatant land flipping at my direct expense.

Quite a few people had a great time, sold tons of stuff and then cashed out making a factor of ten.

Do I begrudge them any of this? Not a bit, unless they were trying to gouge anybody. But when people come and *offer* that kind of money to existing residents, I can't hardly blame them for taking it.

When I charge $L 4/m up front, it's almost laughable in a situation like that - if anyone is the patsy in the above story, it's me.

I work my tail off daily making Caledon a good place, which ends up allowing others to cash out like that.

I'll continue to charge nonreturnable, up-front fees for Caledon land. It's exactly like a key fee to get into an exclusive city apartment, and ensures that I get at least *something* back for my efforts in the near term. If anyone decides that paying it is a bad deal, I respect that choice completely.

That will never happen with the current structure...Islands can only be owned by a sole resident.

2 tabs would work

mainland tab - "buy land"
island tab - "Lease land from another resident"


I think it is okay to call the mainland tab "buy" since that emphasises the main difference - another resident cannot take it from you.
Obviously tier payments must be clear but as far as I remember they already are when you purchase land

Meanwhile LL has promise to open the SIM for 1 hour so I can scoot in and retrieve my stuff. Unforntately, some of the deeded stuff was from people who have left SL ... so that will be gone. Pictures. Furniture they made me. Other stuff I will get back. I am meanwhile hunting mainland land.

Please stop equating ALL estate owners with the few jackasses that don't know what the hell they're doing. I can think of many estates right off the top where you never hear about stuff like that happening. It's always the unestablished, newer residents with like one sim to their name that vanish like this. Just ask around- there are LOTS of satisfied estate renters, and a large number of them have been in SL for at least a couple years.

Nonsense. Absolutely nonsense. If you're operating a rental business, you aren't looking to make money on the initial sale. I'd set it to 0L if I could, but then I'd have to be around to set every plot available to the correct person, which I can't guarantee.

Desperate? My two existing sims are full. My new one, which I only opened on Sunday is over half full, and I haven't even released all the plots to the public yet.

Nonsense. Absolutely nonsense. If you're operating a rental business, you aren't looking to make money on the initial sale. I'd set it to 0L if I could, but then I'd have to be around to set every plot available to the correct person, which I can't guarantee.

Desperate? My two existing sims are full. My new one, which I only opened on Sunday is over half full, and I haven't even released all the plots to the public yet.

So its a zero-sum game to you? Since LL can't 'win' with 100% it shouldn't do anything to improve the situation?

They need to get off their asses, take estate land out of search OR make it a separate tab, AND put in a warning. If it stops this sort of thing even 25% of the time, its better than the current situation.

LL complicit? They sure as hell are! LL added estate into the land tab KNOWING this could happen, merely to kiss up to big estate barons buying sims and then they cop out of the resulting chaos with 'can't help, member to member dispute'. Despicable behavior from LL.

Please - even if they put it in a separate tab, do you think that will make people understand the difference? That they will take the time to learn the difference? Some will, but most will not.

True, many won't read and understand. But the way it is now there's almost no way to tell who is backing land, no matter how hard you try.

How about a covenant in mainland too? Nothing fancy, just a note to say you will be paying Linden Lab if you buy this parcel. You have to have a covenant to sell estate land, you can't sell it otherwise. Which obviously you know Desmond!

In fact the whole UI could do with an overhaul, instead of the same information regarding tier fee etc. coming up estate land should just look different, different colour, or different message. You don't need to donate land to be an owner on estate land, so the process is different but I bet people have donated tier to estate land.

If it looked different, then people might actually take a bit more time.

I know of people who have donated tier to Estate land (no not me). It is not immediately apparent to everyone.

What I mean is that, with a few noble exceptions posting here, most Estate sim owners are happy that the situation is confusing to buyers.

Rental, is a low, or no unfront cost, but you usually pay by the week to a box and you dont get the land in your name, inccidentally the tier when calculated, is usually much higher in this "rental" type of land occupation than it is with "purchase" sales.

That's a rather broad statement: *some* rentals might work that way, but not all of them do.

There are plenty of rentals where you get the land in your name (like Stephen says he does a few times in this thread) or deeded to a group you own.
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One thing I learned about posting on forums is speak broadly lol, if you pinpoint any particualr thing, some folks launch investigations into your every facet of SL and "SPIN" anything you might have said ... gota love a forum full of "Keeping them honest" peeeps

In the end the only solution would be to buy 64 islands, keep 55 as water, 8 as forest and build 1 with houses. That way I would have private sea without other islands near, some forest with beaches, and a nice house. But that would be too expensive.

Actualy you only need to buy one island, nobody can place an island next to your island without your permision.
Ofcourse 1675 usd setup and 295 usd monthly tier is still a lot if you only realy need a 4096 sqm parcel but if you want total freedom, privatie and enough prims for a forest and anything else you want this is the best option.