Becoming a landlord

On the (mainland) sim where I have my place I made some strategic acquisitions of individual 512 sq lots nearby (mainly to prevent a huge lag-producing establishment from opening shop on the same sim -- I know of at least one casino operator who was just about to do so.)

Now I don't really need these plots at the moment and I am contemplating renting them out. Before I do so I would like to ask those who have experience with that for their thoughts.

1) The way I would set it up is by defining one tenant group per parcel (which will own the land). The tenant, as a group member, is granted building, landscaping and return-object-of-others rights. I and my delegate keep the right to update the group when a tenant moves in or out and, of course, parcel buy/sell or group management rights. Does this sound reasonable?

2) I will have to add a new tenant to the group manually, I guess. I don't think that there is a way to get someone added to the group automatically as soon as he pays the rent, right?

3) For managing rent payment there seem to be devices out there which facilitate that (saw something on SLB/SLX). Anybody got experience with them?

4) I still need to draft a contract, outlining mutual rights and obligations. Anybody got a rental contract he's happy with to use as a template?

Any other items/pitfalls you think worthwile to mention? Thanks for any insights!

I have seen some automatic rental doohickies on the SLEX, where rental stuff is automated.

It costs L$100 to set up each Group... and you will probably find that Tenants will want more than the 117 prims available per 512m2... So one way to do this is to set (donate) all the Parcels to the same Group, which effectively 'pools' the prims, even if the parcels are not joined.

Then you get any Tenants to join the one group (and you can make it open, free registration - just tell them about it in the Rental Information Notecard that comes with most rental vendors (see below), or invite them once you're back in-world). The only thing you have to monitor then is whether they go over their prim limit...

Rental Vendors are available on SLX or SLB. There is one system that is highly recommended, but I don't know if I can mention it by name on the Forums... (IM me if you would like a recommendation). These systems control the Payments, IM you when someone has Paid, do a daily check of their prim numbers and IM them if over, let you offer discounts for pre-paying eg 6 weeks... They cost around L$800 for a copy-able version (you can get a free trial first) but are well worth it.

Re contracts - surely they just pay and keep to their prim limits (which the Vendor will keep check on)? If you want to specify some terms and conditions (eg no laggy scripts), you can do that in the Info Notecard you put in the Rental box.

HTH

1. This is reasonable, and normal. You might want to consider allowing the tenant to also admit and delete members of this group, so the group can be used for security purposes, rather than having ban lines or security orbs. They should be limited to admitting new members with no abilities.

2. Yes, manually only, unless there has been a hack I am not aware of.

3. The best rental system BY FAR (and I have tested all of them) is the Hippotech System.

4. Rental contracts are unusual. It is more usual for the landlord to prepare a covenant (basic set of rules), and more detailed rules in an 'Information for Tenants' notecard, which is provided to them by the Rental System. Contact me inworld and I will give you a sample of each.

Do you envisage renting just the land, or the land with an unfurnished house on it, or the land with a furnished house on it? All three have different pitfalls to look out for.

Thank you very much for the detailed and helpful information!

The suggestion about giving tenants the ability to add new group members is very helpful indeed. I'm no friend of security orbs either.

Well, I guess I don't really need a full-fledged contract. A covenant will be sufficient. I was thinking along the lines of barring casinos and camping, no encroachment on neighbouring plots (overhanging prims), specifying the number of days after which I will repossess the land after the rent becomes overdue and the need to feed the phone weasels (just kidding ). Things like that. Thanks for the offer - I'll prod you in-world.

Being a landlord in RL has told me that it's helpful letting your tenants know upfront what they are allowed to do and what is frowned upon.

Actually, I was planning to rent out cold, i.e. just the land. This is giving tenants the highest flexibility.

If you are allowed, would you be willing to post the examples of rental agreements, or any other tips and tricks you come across?

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Another thing I'm trying to grapple with, is trying to give the MAXIMAL amount of group permissions possible, without inadvertently doing something stupid, like allowing the group member to sell the land. There doesn't seem to be a particularly good resource for the "details" of how the group abilities work.

This is what I came up with, that seemed safe, but flexible.

I also wonder, when there are multiple rented parcels within the same Sim, all set to the same group, whether there are problems with the tenant on 1 parcel, messing things up on the parcel of another tenant.

These settings seem very sensible. I see that you aren't handing out landscaping rights generally. This makes sense, given that you need to cover a whoile sim and not only a few plots like I plan to do.

That's exactly the reason why I was contemplating using one group per parcel. On the downside, this approach is, as another poster already stated, rather costly (L$100 per group) and not scalable (25 group limit). With a common group for several tenants such problems could indeed arise and, if serious enough, ought to constitute a reason for eviction.

At least the L$100 per group would be a one-time charge, per parcel, for all future renters.

I considered the 1 group per parcel route as well; the plots in the sim were large enough, that 25 would likely be just enough. I'd have to register an alt, though, because I *want* my group slots.

In the end, the hassle didn't seem worth it. I think I'm less worried about "malicious" use of damaging other people's plots, and more about an "oops", with a terraforming tool.

I wonder what Elanthius Flagstaff does, since he seems to deal with about 4 or so Sims worth of Mainland rental?

Ricky when you get yourself set up, please do me a favor and drop me an IM or card, I have been contemplating renting a small empty plot at some stage and I'd like to come and check out the plots you have on offer (no evil campchairs or gambling machines, I promise )