From: Gillian Waldman
I am about a month old and am looking for something that will walk me through how to approach buying land, building a home (or more likely, buying a prefab) and securing it properly. We're talking baby steps here. I find it very overwhelming to even think about. OR perhaps I just keep on going as I am - homeless - and when I am a more sophisticated resident, I readdress again...
The first thing to think about is which of the following three you want to do (I'm assuming you don't want to buy large amounts of land, since the situation for that changes a bit):
Option One: Buy land outright on the mainland.
Advantages: You deal directly with Linden Labs. You have full control over the land and can resell it at any time. You can buy First Land, which is the best value land in the game. Going Premium also gets you a L$300 stipend every week.
Disadvantages: Downpayment can be expensive. You have to pay monthly in US$. No zoning - your next door neighbour could build a 40 foot high wall right over the property line, or something that lags the sim down to a crawl. More open to griefing.
Option Two: Rent (anywhere), or buy land on a someone else's private island.
Advantages: Zoning - less lag and more control of what's there. Potential for extra primitives. Depending on the landlord's settings, you may have greater control of the land.
Disadvantages: You deal with a landlord who has the power to kick you out any time (although most won't), and you have no recourse if they do. You must still pay a monthly fee, but you may be able to pay in L$. You can't buy cheap first land and often can't resell without the landlord's consent.
If you want to rent, you just need to find a landlord (by looking through in-world advertisements) and IM them or one of their representatives. They will assign the land to you through a group (you'll need a spare group slot). Renting on mainland and on a private island have some technical differences, but your landlord will be able to explain these to you.
If you want to buy land on a private island (which resembles renting) then you can simply fly out to the island with the land for sale (you can find these using the Land Sales tab in the Search window), right click on the land, and say "Buy Land". You'll be told the cost of the land in L$ and confirmed you want to go ahead with the purchase. (If you don't have enough L$, Second Life will automatically offer to buy the extra needed L$ for you and tell you the US$ price.) Note that on a private island, you
always have a landlord (to see who this is, open the World menu and choose the Region/Estate option) and there is also always a monthly fee as well as the land cost - make sure you establish what this fee is before you buy the land. The landlord will usually contact you to arrange payment of the fee, but they are not obliged to; if you do not pay they will typically revert your land purchase.
If you want to buy land on the mainland, you first need to upgrade to a Premium account via the Second Life website. As well as the ability to own mainland land this will get you a L$300 stipend. You can then buy land on the mainland in the same way described above, except that in this case the monthly fee for the land is paid directly to Linden Labs (in this case, the fee is callled "tier"
and the rules for paying it are built into the Second Life software. You should
always start by buying First Land - search for "First Land" in the land sales tool - this is the best value land in the world (L$512 for 512sqm) and can always be resold for more than you paid for it, even if you don't want to live there. Other land may be much more expensive, depending on its properties. A Premium membership allows you to own 512sqm of land, which is enough for a simple house, but if you want more land you'll have to pay an increased monthly fee. When you try to buy the land, SL will warn you if it doesn't fit into your current fee level and ask you if you want to proceed with raising your monthly fee.
Building a house, I can't advise you on, since I'm still stuck on doing that myself
Buying a prefab house is really no different from buying anything else - just make sure to check that the house fits on your land. That includes checking the size, but also checking the primitive count. (You can see how many prims you have available by going to your land and choosing "About Land" from the World menu. On a First Land plot you'll have 117 prims). Any good product seller will tell you these things in the product description.
Security.. really, the only security you need if you own (rather than rent) the land is to enable autoreturn on the area. (In the About Land screen, choose the Objects tab and set the "autoreturn other users' objects" value to anything other than 0.) As long as you own the land, if anyone you don't want there shows up while you're there, you can kick them out (right click on them, choose "More" and then "Eject"
. Yes, people will be able to wander around your house while you're not online, but since they can't steal anything or do any harm, this isn't really that much of a problem.
If you're worried about eavesdropping, make sure there is a 10m clearance from the edge of your house (or at least the part of your house where you have private conversations) to the edge of your land. If the clearance is less, your neighbour can stand on the edge of
their land and hear you (and SL precedent is that you have no claim against them in their case - where they're standing, it's their land). It is
impossible to protect against camera snooping (where someone can see who you're with) - the only way to do this is to build a skybox.
If these isn't enough for you, you
can purchase a "security orb", but these can be expensive and can cause hassle to your neighbours and people flying past. I'd advise initially doing without one and only installing one if you find things are becoming really untenable.
