needing some help here to move forward

I am seriously contemplating purchasing a sim in the near future. I have taken the requisite 'classes but still I don't have anything like sufficient information to really know what I am doing. Especially with respect to such things as tips for where to buy...if it matters where to buy in island terms...things to avoid at all costs.....which is better putting land for sale virgin or with stuff already built on it....this kind of thing. Is there a forum or discussion area where this kind of material is covered on a regular basis?

I am not an island owner myself, but my personal thoughts on it would be to visit different ones and look around. Inspect builds and see who has the majority of the building ownership there.

Read the covenants so you can come up with one yourself. Decide what you want your island to look like, what you want the "theme" to be (if there is one,) and whether you want to stick to either residential, commercial, or a mixture.

Then I would see if I could chat up some island owners and/or estate managers to see if they have any input.

I would then sit down and crunch the numbers on renting out portions to see if it would be feasible for me to do it myself, figuring in that I may have to carry it myself for the first few months.

But that's just me.

I'd love to own an island. I am a prim whore.

A.

I jumped in feet first to the island buying business and my advice would be not to do that. Take your time, weigh up the costs. If you're buying an island you need to realise that plenty of land is initially under water, so when working out what you think are reasonable tier fees you also have to make allowances for the fact that some of the land won't be inhabitable.

As the above poster said, check out other islands and read lots of covenants.

An alternative is to either look at buying a second hand island which will be cheaper and you may get a grandfathered one at a lower tier rate, or buying via auction on the mainland, which is initially likely to be more expensive but USD$100 a month cheaper than a new class 5 private sim.

So would you guys say that those who have purchased islands for reasons other than simply their own personal recreation find it a viable acton....ie are most islands that are selling/renting their land running at a profit or a loss? Does the owner even recover their tier in such earnings?

I don't know enough island owners to be able to give a definitive answer there. Looking at the land sales forum you see plenty for sale but there are also plenty of people making money. Just tread slowly, don't expect a quick return but long term if you're patient I'd say you'll get your money back.