Land rental question

I purchased my first land and bought a nice house which I have placed on it. I thought that since I pay no tier for this and the land was cheap that it might be a good property to rent out. Is there nothing more then finding a renter and having them pay a weekly/monthly fee?

Any advice on setting this up would be great

Thanks

The tenant will get more control on the rental land if they are a member of a group that the land is deeded to.

That way you can do things like set autoreturn, so someone else doesn't come along and drop a lot of prims on the land, leaving the tenant stuck without any recourse other than to call you for cleanup.

So I'd recommend deeding the land to a group (make sure you are an officer and they are a regular member) and setting the house prims &c to the group so *it* won't autoreturn.

You can grant further rights to tenants via the group controls as well - just don't add 'sell the land' to the list of abilities given.

Create a group with closed membership. Set the land to that group (using the about land box) and then when someone rents, add them to the group. This will allow them to place objects on the land without them being returned.

You can also if you wish go further and actually deed the land to the group. You can then set the permissions that they'll have using the group roles controls.

Bear in mind that unless you have a year-long Premium membership you will probably be taking a net loss by renting out your First Land. But by all means try it

I see...

So if you are trying to make that $9.95 monthly fee back at the current exchange rate with your First land, then you would have to charge L$2,640 per month in rent or L$661 per week which even with a very nice house is probably not attainable. Furthermore, there is no room to subdivide because the plot is too small.

I would be better off selling First land and purchasing more I suppose since the L$512 I spent I could sell for much more. Working my way up to larger parcels of land, spending as little US$ as possible.

Just understanding the basics to see if there is investment potential in SL like RL real estate. From what I read some think there is and others do not.

Well, not quite. Bear in mind that you also get L$1600 stipend per month free, which you can sell for around US$5. So you would actually only need to charge around L$280 per week to make back your money (which is still high for a 512) - but in that case, you're left with a complete zero-sum. You're paying for Premium and then selling all its benefits to get your money back. Why?



There definately is investment potential in SL real estate, although you need to be careful - it's a very competitive market and very strongly business driven. The strategy of "spending as little US$ as possible" probably won't work very well - as a land trader in SL, the basic service you're providing that earns you your profit is the service of shouldering extra financial costs and risk that a) others would rather avoid, and b) that you are in a better position to deal with, because you've devoted yourself to getting into such a position. Most land traders either invested their own US$ to start with or earned their starting stake through other means (the most famous example, Anshe Chung originally sold animations).

Geez...I didn't even realize there were stipends..!...Lets see what else I don't understand..

The best use of First Land then from an investment perspective would be...??? Lets crunch numbers if I understand everything correctly.

I purchased the land for L$512....Also purchased a nice house and furnished it for L$2500. When I signed up for premium I paid (US$9.95 L$2,695) but also got $250 when I signed up, $L1,000 for going premium and a L$400 Stipend. So I am into it for roughly L$4,000 or US$14.85

Since regular 512M land sells for about L$4,000 and the home is worth L$2500 I could theoretically get L$6,500 - L$7,000 (US$25) if I found a buyer today. This would give me a US$10 or L$3,000 profit for the first week of my premium account...Correct?

Keep the home for your own use later, elsewhere, and sell the First land with nothing on it. The majority of new land owners wipe the plot clean to create their own idea of what they want. Many people have posted here that they spent a lot of money and effort to make a plot 'nice', and that as soon as it sold, it was wiped by the new owner.

Perfectly possible. Although as Ceera mentioned, I wouldn't bother selling the house, since all your profit is coming from the land. Also, land in a First Land sim may not go all the way to L$4000 because First Land sims tend to be a bit chaotic and badly zoned - you might do better to wait a little bit until the flurry of sales has settled down and it's a bit clearer who the neighbours are going to be. Of course this might be a bad idea because the neighbours might be bad But you can usually get at least L$3000 and probably more for it.

Good advice Ceera...I appreciate the tip

Interesting...So homes in SL do not hold much value? People usually land shop and go get their own home? So architecture and design are probably lucrative fields in SL since I doubt that most people in SL can build their own place.

And you are correct about bad zoning. There should definately be a seperation between commercial and residential buildings to keep the grid cleaner

Homes are valuable, but since anyone can build a house on land just by clicking and dragging, a pre-built house on a lot isn't such a big draw.



They are quite lucrative, yes. However many people do build their own places just because they want to have a design of their own. Most people can do it. Not everyone can do it well but many will put up with what's technically a badly built place as long as it's theirs.

Are you sure stipends are still there? I thought for all the people who signed up after the verification was gone are not eligible for stipends, they only go to people who were here before.

Anyone who owns land has a Premium account, and Premium accounts still get a L$400 stipend.