Newbie Advice for Choosing Land Buy Location

I'm seeking advice regarding land buy location. First, I do remember reading somewhere that LInden has changed the First Land opportunity - it is no longer an option. Am I hallucinating, or is this true?

Second, regardless of whether it's First Land or not, and knowing what I want - 2 parcels of 512m adjacent to each other, tagged Mature, and preferably with an ocean view, how do I find out if a location is a good choice - or is there such a thing in SL. Would land in any Mature location be just as valuable and desirable, just like in RL, or are all locations that meet my criteria equally valuable?

Any input would be appreciated.

All locations are not created equal. There are many variables that determine land value. Waterfront and sim neighbors are the two most important. Waterfront will sell at a 20% (or more) premium to regular land. Neighbors: if there are a bunch of little 16m2 spam plots next to a piece of land, it'll be worth less typically. Also, if there's a casino in the same region, it'll make the performance of the region worse. You should seriously consider buying land on a reputable estate, because the covenant can prevent these situations and the estate owner has more freedom to create desirable landscapes. Decide if you want estate land or mainland, and use the search function to find a nice parcel. Good luck!

What Rockwell said, plus if you're after 2 512sqm plots next to each other, it would probably be easier to search for a 1024 and split it.

basically what you would do in RL. look here for land offerings, visit the sites. Look for in world classifieds. Also post a land wanted thread here describing what you want. Someone will probably contact.

Thanks to you both for your quick replies.

Tell me, what is an estate owner in SL? Is someone who bought a very large amount of land in order to sell parcels?

Re: the TWO 512m parcels, I've got two avatars on the same account and I'm told, particularly IF the First Land thing is still in effect, having each buy 512m of First Land and then donating to a group I've formed for them, would be an advantageous thing to do.

And IS the First Land program still in effect?

Thanks, Felicity

First land is no longer in effect. as a Premium member your first 52m of land will be tier free.

Private islands and mainland are two different types of land. On the mainland, you pay tier directly to Linden Lab. On private islands, you pay tier to the estate owner and the estate owner pays one lump sum tier payment to Linden Lab for the entire island. I manage an island estate, Kush. Residents there buy the land from me at cost ($1675 to buy an entire island) and then pay me monthly tier fees instead of paying monthly fees directly to Linden Lab (if they lived on the mainland). If you own land on an estate, you do not need a premium membership and tier payments can often be made in multiple currencies. In Kush, I accept tier in ANY currency.

Things can change rapidly in SL. You might buy your nice plot in perfect surroundings only to find that someone builds a casino on one side of you and a sex shop opens on the other!

Land that borders Linden protected land (owned by Governor Linden) is more soughtafter as it means that you are less likely to find yourself completely surrounded by no-access land. A lot of Linden land is reserved for future highways.
Until the highways are built these are nice green tracks to walk along!

So in essence, I can buy non-estate land with no covenant protection and no tier fee on the first 512 by paying Linden for a premium membership OR I can choose to pay a tier fee on 512 to an estate owner who protects via covenant. And both, of course, can choose to hike the price anytime they want.

Well, buying from an estate owner does have the protection advantage, but since I've already upgraded for two, I'm probably going to have to go the mainland route.

Posting here and in classifieds is probably the way to go, too. Thanks.

And thanks for the good luck wishes. I'll need them...

Yes, if you've already paid for premium, you might as well decide to go the mainland route. Look for land in a sim that isn't brand new, so you can have some idea of who your neighbors are. Hold down Control-Shift-1 to get information about the sim you're in. Here you can see how many residents are currently in the sim, how many objects are in the sim, how many scripts are running in the sim... all of which have an impact on performance. Compare and contrast across several sims to get a general idea of what's good and what's bad. Good luck!!!

Felicity, the first thing you want to do is to form your group (composed of your two accounts) now. Then have each of your avs donate their 512 "free" tier to the group. Your group will then have 1024 donated, but it gets a 10% bonus (the advantage of being a group), so you'll actually be able to buy up to 1126m2 in land. When you buy your land, purchase it for the club (not in your own name; there's a separate button for this on the "about land" page that let's you purchase land). There's no special reason you have to buy 2 separate plots of land next to one another; you could buy 1, 2, or 20. After making your purchase, you can consolidate or divide as you wish.

Spend some time familiarizing yourself with the group roles. You'll want to make sure your avs are officers or owners, and that they can do everything with the land: buy it, sell it, terraform it, etc. For my own little group, I made sure the "member" role couldn't do this, so that if in the future I rent out some land or something I haven't accidentally given future members powers I don't want them to have. You can also decide now if you want how you want proceeds from future land sales to be split up; you can both take half, or you can give all the money to your main (as long as your avs have different roles).

Next, you mention wanting a water view. In Second Life (as in RL) in order to protect your view you must own the view; otherwise someone can buy land between you and the ocean and build something tall and hideous there. You could purchase land that is part on the shore and part in the water; but someone could still buy the water further out and build something ugly. Look for a parcel that is partially on shore, partially in the water, and is adjacent to a water channel owned by Linden Maintenance; you can be reasonably sure LL won't build something in front of you. Or if you can find a piece of land that is part land, part ocean, and goes up to the edge of the continent, you can be reasonably sure LL isn't going to start a new continent that close to an existing one. (Note: By "edge of continent" I mean you can see the actual coastline proceeding in both directions. Don't be fooled by sims that are at the edge of what has been developed, but where LL will probably add more land in the future. These latter sims typically come to an abrupt end at the edge of the sim; the edge of a continenet has land, shore, and water all within the sim.)

Other factors that will affect the value of your land: (1) Lag. Old servers, casinos, clubs, malls, scripts, etc. all can reduce the server's resources available to you. (2) Ugliness. Look out for 16m2 plots of land nearby--the future home of ugly billboards. Look out for junky builds. (3) Rights-of-way (roads or roadways on land, channels in water) adjacent. These enhance the value of your land. They represent areas where nobody is going to build anything ugly. I always buy land next to one or the other for myself, considering the right-of-way extra yard space or water view. I particularly like the undeveloped ones planted with trees. (4) Stability. A settled sim with all the land in use is worth more than one in which most of the land is for sale. Buying a plot of land surrounded by other land for sale means you don't know what's going to appear there. If it's an older sim, one has to wonder why people are selling. (5) Some of the older sims have special features like the ability to raise/lower the terrain beyond current limits, extra prims, etc. It is unlikely you'll find what you're looking for in such a sim, but if you do, this has an affect on land values.

Nothing is guaranteed in SL. LL bends over backwards to avoid making promises. Casinos come and go. Neighbors rude or lovely move in and out. All you're doing by buying carefully is maximizing your chances of having a great location for a reasonable time, not guaranteeing them.

Finally, be prepared to pay above-market prices. You're looking for premium land; expect to pay a premium. Such land is not commonly for sale. Don't worry about it. If you spend more up-front for the reasons cited above, that probably means you'll be able to sell it for more later. And the longer you own the land, the more your tier will be the primary financial factor anyway.

Switch on the view option (forget the exact wording) show land borders, when searching for land to buy.

People advertise land for sale using outright lies. Last night I was checking around the coast near my home in Metis, and found some seaside plots in a snow sim, advertised as "extending to protected Linden waterway".

They didn't- the seller's group was holding onto a strip of land between all the plots for sale and the actual linden water strip. If you were flying around just looking casually, you wouldn't realise that the parcels (all over the water) didn't extend. The seller was lying. You see it all "ocean view" means "might be in the same region, or next to one, with a spot of water in it".

Seriously- that stuff sucks, is it even AR-able?

It never used to be this bad- riverside/waterfront land actually would be riverside or waterfront, not just within a 500m radius of a pond etc. Ignore all the BS about "lag free high performance sim" it's all a bunch of crap.

Buying in an empty sim gives you the pick of the plots, it also means a nice surprise when SL's newest camp chair casino shows up right on your doorstep. And I mean *right* on it. I flew around the new continent swampy sand land, and saw a giant plywood "casino opening soon" crowding out the cute little new england homesteads.