Where is my 512m2 of land?

Hey all. According to this website, once a person upgrades to a premium account, they can get a 512 m2 lot. Granted they have to purchase this, and there are no monthly fees... However, my cousin just upgraded her account, and cannot find reasonable prices on the mainland (where we were told she has to buy her "free" land). Off in the islands, she gets awesome deals, save for the monthly extortion. But the mainland land prices are INSANE!!

Can anyone offer advice on where to find reasonably priced land on the mainland, so she can have her very own place (where I can crash on the couch over the weekends, of course)? Or offer any better ideas or solutions? Many thanks in advance from a couple of newbies.

Wait a few days. Linden Labs just released a large amount of new mainland land which will probably drive prices down once it reaches the end user market.

ahhhh ok. Cool, thanks! Next step will be to find someone reputable. Thanks again!

I misunderstood the first land concept. I searched in vain for this mythical first land for newbies. Maybe it was real at one point in SL, but finding first land for a new resident at a cheap price is a fallacy. I ended up buying a 1024 plot on the ML...just one day before LL announced a new continent!!!

Ack!! That sucks! Hopefully you got it at a good price. She keeps finding plots (off the mainland, of course) for cheap, but they all seem to want her to pay a huge monthly fee on top of it. Whatever happened to simply being able to buy a piece of land, and doing whatever you wanted to on it, without getting raked over the coals...?

Reputation is always important, but it's less important than mainland sales than it is on islands. This is because, once you buy your mainland, it is yours outright (except for the rights Linden Lab have to it, of course, but they apply everywhere) - unlike islands, where the island owner always has authority over you.

the monthly or weekly fee you pay to a private island owner is for them to be able to cover the tier cost and make their profit its their business

every private island ive lived on i never paid in a few to start with i just paid my weekly rent which was equivilant to what tier would have been for that size plot so it saved me money in the long run

Ahhhh... It is all beginning to make sense now... hehe I thank you both for the info on land pricing, islands, etc. This is good to know. Hopefully when this new land mass opens up she will be able to secure her new little plot of land with ease, or at least little difficulty.

Yes, it was real until a few months back in fact.

It was ruined by greedy players who created multiple Premium accounts and bought up the First Land just to resell at a much higher price.

and was fueled by linden labs not giving a rats ass by allowing anyone at anytime to make as many accounts as they pleased for false membership numbers

The new continent should cause further easing of prices for land, both mainland and estate, and I think we're seeing a bit of that already. Also, a scan of the Map shows truly astonishing amounts of land for sale right now, so even without the new continent, current prices would seem unlikely to hold up.

But all that said, I wouldn't really expect a collapse of mainland prices back to levels of a year ago, say, just based on how much new land has been absorbed into the economy at near the current price point. (Not a forecaster here... maybe 20-30% correction?)

Estates have a different economics that seems trickier. I can imagine--not predicting this, but just imagining--a future where the going rate for leased island parcels dips below what's required to cover sim rental fees. If that were to happen, then I suppose sims would start going dark, but I'm not sure what would follow: possibly the rates would reach a floor of tier-recovery prices as former tenants of abandoned estates hunted for space in those that remain, or possibly there'd be a "run" where tenants fled to the mainland before their sim, too, was abandoned. So I'm not sure if the critical tier-recovery price would be an asymptote or an inflection point.

Once upon a time... there was first land, released a special low rate, one 512 parcel per premium member who had never owned land in SL before. That program was discontinued.

I have estate land just opened that helps replace that, but if you've already paid premium membership it isn't your best financial move unless you wish to go back to being basic.

Hopefully, the newly released sims will help ease land prices, but this will depend on how the auction prices go. If the sims do not sell for less to begin with, there will be less room for them to drop prices on the original sale of the parcels (I don't deal in mainland, but I've looked at the math).

As for reputable, buy on mainland is a one-up transaction. You buy via land tools and its done. There's nothing further a 'disreputable' seller can do after that. Now, if you're looking on moral/ethical grounds to only support someone with a good reputation, that's cool, but there's no hidden way for them to get you once you've agreed to their price and paid it.

Estate land is an entirely different subject, where you have an ongoing relationship with the Estate Owner, and a covenant to set the terms and conditions of residency. In such a situation there is always the possibility that a) the person will take power to his/her head and boot you on whim, leaving you homeless and without any compensation, or b) get in over their head, sell off and again, leave you with nothing.

When you start dealing with us big, bad estate owners , that's when you need to do your homework and be certain you are comfortable with the person you're dealing with, check their references, talk to their other residents and so forth.

Char

Hmmm. Charlene, I may look you up, as I don't have a premium account, and I really want some land... I would love to find a plot off the mainland where I could buy the land, low price, and have a low monthly cost, and be able to freely build what I wanted. Ahhhhh such dreams. *grin* Let me know if you have anything available on those lines. I would love to find a 1024 m2 plot or maybe a bit bigger. Again, it depends on price.

Dom

In world IM sent. Please IM if you don't receive it, or send a private message here through the forum.

Char

Well, I ended up paying a little over $10K for my 1024 plot of land. Whether or not I got cheated, not sure, but it was the cheapest 1024 plot in the same area as the rest were 12K+.

It is good to know that "first land" might become a reality when the new continent opens up. It is quite unfortunate that Linden Labs does not hold a percentage of land for newbies to buy directly from them. Why is this not the case? If anything, the current situation will drive away new players because many may not be able to afford it or simply not want to invest RL money up front when just starting out in SL.

Just to get my plot, I have invested an extra $40-50 into SL. While this is chump change, I think it is a bit disheartening to put out that much extra money on top of monthly subscription fees for SL when I've barely been in the world for a month. It would be nice if Linden Labs set aside land in the ML specifically for newbies. Maybe they'll do this for the new continent if greedy land barons start to buy up land faster than the average user can obtain it. *shrug*

Anyway, I'm happy with my plot of land. Been busy building my own art gallery!!! Woot!

Be sure and get your tier-free 512 on the mainland. If it is on an island, you will be paying the island owner tier every month on it.

coco

They did once. There really was a First Land program, where 512 lots sold to first time buyers only (never owned any land in SL before anywhere) for $L 1 per m2, limit one per avatar. But two things happened that were kind of ugly. One is that from the beginning, land speculators would come offer the new owners the great deal of three times what they paid, or if land prices were high even more (back early in my SL experience 4 or 5 lindens a meter wasn't too uncommon, but I've seen them peak at where 18/m2 was bottom end, too). The new folks thought they were getting a great deal, but couldn't turn around and buy anything else with the same money they just got from their land and then had to shell out more or do without.

The second ugly thing that happened, was during the height of the land prices, it became well worth the investment of a new premium alt, created solely to get the 512 first land plot, and then resell it, recouping the investment and making profit.

Even right now given a $L 10 per m2 as a resellable figure for a 512, you'd make nearly $10 on your 512 lot by making an alt, buying it and flipping it. Dunno about you but I could make 50 or so and buy up a bunch and make a quick 500. I never did, but the money was there and you know others would.

This meant that the actual number of folks who were really looking for that first place to hang their hat, not just make a quick buck, that actually managed to buy a plot of first land was pretty small. It was sort of inevitable, I suppose, that the program self-destructed and was eliminated.



The problem with the above: How do you keep the greedy folks from buying and flipping as outlined above? A few suggestions were made such as requiring an owner to maintain ownership for 3 months or something similar. That's great, but what if after a few weeks you've figured out you need more prims. You can't buy out your neighbor til he's had it for three months, you can't sell it to help pay for the next lot, and so forth.

What the thread is indicating is that if enough new land comes on the market maybe the auction prices paid up front will drop to a price low enough to make the first sale of the land cheaper from whoever purchases the sim. Right now, they have remained high enough that even the first sale of new land is pretty pricey and resales just go up from there.

Char

Well, now that you illustrate the problems with First Land, I can see how it is not a good idea. I'm not one of those types that wants land just to resell it. But, you're right when you say that people like me who just want a place to build up are far fewer than the people who want to buy and sell land.

So, the program is officially over then? I've been reading the official guide and I suppose that it is already outdated. Ah well...I got my first plot. Definitely won't be the last!