Renting vs buying

I visited a friend last night who is renting an apartment for 340L a week. He has 200 prims to use - which is just for interior decorating, as of course the apartment is already built. He is a verified but not premium member.
I own 512 land with only 117 prims. With this I have to build my house, furnish it and landscape. I am a premium member.

My question:
Why on earth do I bother with premium membership? I would rather convert that money straight into linden to spend!
And the prim limit I have to live with is insane.

am I missing something?
At the moment I am thinking of getting rid of my prem membership, and just renting...

Hi Indigo.

Your friend has a higher prim limit on their rented apartment because the land owner that is renting it to them owns far more land then you do, and has dedicated enough land to maintaining that apartment to support the prims to build it, plus 200 prims extra.

When you own land, you get a LOT more power to control access, eject troublemakers, and control what happens on the land itself. A renter, for example, typically can not eject and ban a troublesome person from their apartment. For a land owner, such control is only a few clicks effort.

There are two ways, however, to get that kind of contrlol.

As a Premium member, you get an 'allowance' of L$ each week, which is mostly repaying what you paid up-front for your membership. You also get the right to purchase mainland property direct from Linden Lab, with no middle-man. That means you can sell te land whenever you choose, for whatever price you choose, and usually you won't have to worry about anyone taking your land from you. On the other hand, the Lindens do almost nothing to police of zone the mainland, so you could have a lovely parcel in a beautiful area one day, and the next day you could be next door to a laggy club, or find your parcel is next to ugly rotating signs spewing loud music.

Any SL resident, without having to be a Premium member, also has the option to "Buy" land from another Player, on a private island. There, your "landlord" is another Player, not Linden Lab. You may well get just as much control over your land as on the mainland. You may, and probably will, get better security, fewer griefers (or faster action against them), and a better environment in which to live. But the trade-off is that if the other Player fails to make their own sim maintenance payments, or if they sell the sim and it is bought by someone who will reformat it, or if they just decide on a whim to evict you, there isn't much you can do about it - you could lose your land and all on it. And often you must work with the sim owner if you want to sell your private island parcel - you can't just sell it at will to whomever you please.

That is, of course, your perogative.

The main benefit of owning land over renting (as far as I see it) is this... and it goes the same for buying covenant land over mainland too.

I own land. If Linden Labs stops trading for what ever reason, I loose my land. As does everyone in SL of course. That is a risk I face as a land owner.

If I rented land I would still have that risk. However I also have the (much greater) risk that my landlord will a) sell up his land and leave, b) decide to do something else with his land c) impose rules on me that I do not want to abide by (for example I want to start a shop on land that he has decided is residential only)

Also, don't forget that if you drop being premium you also loose your stipend. Just thought I should mention that.

Renting does have advantages, definately. But personally the security of owning my own land is worth the extra cost to me.

But everyone is diferent. For many people renting certainly works out better for them.

Under those circumstances, the renting seems to be the better option. The flip side tho is when you own there's no covenant and you cant be evicted at a moments notice.

This is horrible but, from experience, seemingly true. I'm trying to get resident-to-resident dispute resolution on just such an issue ... wiping a tenancy and losing a tenant's non-transferable, no mod, no copy, items without notice to tenants. [Yes, techniques for recovery of lost/wiped objects do not always work and property can be permanently lost this way] Isn't there ANY recourse? Unless we can get some in game resident-to-resident dispute resolution faculties, renting isn't an option if you have nice unique and/or expensive items.

Renting mainland is usually just a monthly fee though. So if you always paid the minimum rental term you would never risk loosing more than that in money.

But with covenant land there is also a 'purchase price', which is sometimes comparable with buying land on the mainland. So you stand to loose both any rental you have paid up front AND this figure if the worse happens and your landlord pulls the plug on you for whatever reason.

Is that correct?

Your friend is getting quite a bargain for a rental, but I wouldn't expect those terms to be the norm. I was renting with a 50 prim limit, for instance. The limit is subject to the landlord's discretion, and the allotment may go down if more renters are added.

The other drawback is instability. I lost my rental -- a very nice starter cabin -- because the landlord got tired of handling the rental business and basically dissolved the entire rental structures. I didn't lose any money, but I was thrown out on the streets with no advance notice.

So it all depends on what you want. If you just need a place to change your clothes or chat with friends, and you don't mind uprooting every so often without warning, then renting might be the option for you.

I'm a little more change-averse. I wanted a place where I could choose my own house, decorate as I want, and know that I wasn't ever leaving unless I wanted to. And then it would be on my timetable, not someone else's. I like having that part of the SL life nailed down, allowing me to concentrate on other activities.

thanks heaps for all your input guys - I needed a clearer picture!
will put up with my prim limit for now...
I did eventually realise that the Linden trees only have one prim, and the trees I bought had up to 6 so that helped but still havent any decor to speak of...

A good way for a mainland owner to increase prim count is to buy another plot in the same sim. Going up to 1024 sqm I have hit a $5 a month tier but by leaving the second plot barren I have all those extra 117 prims to play with. Am negotiating with next-door neighbour to exchange their plot for my second so I can spread out a little and turn my freebie house round to face the setting sun.
Lying on a beach towel on the grass in my flower bordered garden has got to be better than any rental

Do the maths. Assuming you pay your premium membership monthly, that costs $9.99 a month. At a current exchange rate of (say) 272 L/US$, you're paying 2717 L per month.

Also assume you're on the lower stipend level, 300L per week. 52 weeks a year and 12 months a year, so you receive on average 1300L per month.

So the remaining 1417L are effectively what you're paying each month for your 512sqm tier, or 327L per week. Or 13L less than your friend.

Obviously, if the assumptions change it becomes better value, I intentionally picked the worst case.

All I have to say is if you rent- rent with someone who has a good reputation.



I dont rent with anyone for residential, but I do rent vendor space a lot..the more i rent, the more i realize you can not trust anyone and many have NO CLUE what they are doing.

Well Stephen, here's the math as I see it. As you say, after stipend, a premium account is costing you L$327 a week, (for 512m of land and 117 prims total). I pay L$200 a week for a house with a pool on a 1024m parcel with 250 prims available, on which I have eject and ban rights. Better yet, if I get tired of the scenery, I can just move. Can't see moving though, my landlord's an absolute gem.

Maybe I'm just lucky?....

I didn't offer an opinion as to which was "better", I just wanted to point out that after the stipend is taken into account (which many people forget to do) there really isn't much in it from a monetary point of view.

Obviously, for parcels bigger than 512sqm the math changes again, both on the tier and the initial purchase point of view due to first land only being 512sqm. The OP was taking about a 512sqm, so that's what I based my math on.

Sure Stephen, no argument. I just wanted to put the alternative view.

Hi,

What's missing from the math is that land prices are appreciating, so you can sell it for a nice profit when you're ready to get a bigger parcel

So while the ongoing weekly cost may be similar, at the end of the stay period (say, three months later) you might recoup some or all of your money back (or more) had you purchased the land. You'd be living for free basically, if not better.

Had you been renting, all that money would be gone into the landlord's pocket.

-peekay

I "bought" land on an island so I paid purchase price and I pay $15/month tier ongoing. I understand it's not really "mine" as it would be on the mainland (it belongs to my estate owner) but I have full access/ban rights on my land just like mainland (not to mention all the other benefits, except for massive terraforming). I can also resell it for a profit through my estate owner. Plus, I like my covenant and specifically chose this island because it's residential only and zoned. I am very happy there and adore my "landlord" All this and almost 800 prims and an ocean view on 4 sides

Just want to add that just like in real life, it very much pays off to spend time hunting yourself and ask friends if they don't happen to know a great spot.

I don't know when it suddenly became "normal" to have to buy land on a private sim when you're simply renting but that's not something that's expected of you on all rentals.

(Edited to rephrase )

Kitty - we tried the mainland. Lovely sim. However, we were bordered by a huge club in another region. The lag was often so bad we couldn't even walk in our house, let alone rez a vase of flowers. So we moved to a residential-only private island. I think this is happening more and more. In fact, nearly all my friends have moved from the mainland now...mostly because no matter which way they turned, there was another 16m2 with a spinning billboard on it or some other unpleasant sight, not to mention little control over experience unless you owned 1/4 sim or greater.

I think it will flip back with islands going up in price...but for now, we found it very hard to find a good residential area on the mainland.