Private Islands 101: buy versus rent for new players

What is your definition of the word "buy" ?

Ok, now what is your definition of the word "rent" ?

In RL in the USA, when you buy a piece of property from someone for cash (lucky you), the land is yours to keep forever UNLESS the government takes it from you for some reason.

In RL in the USA, when you rent a house or apartment or condominium, the house/condo/apartment is yours UNLESS the landlord forcibly kicks you out, with or without the government's help.

Now.....


Fact #1 - When you "BUY" a parcel on a private island, the real owner of the island CAN take that land from you FOR ANY REASON. There is ONLY ONE owner on a private island: the man or woman who paid either $1295 USD or $1675 USD to Linden Lab for the right to "own" it. Even then, that man or woman doesn't truly own it. ONLY LL really owns islands. And to get super technical, as far as I understand, LL leases server space from an outside company and doesn't own the servers. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.

Fact #2 - The real owner of the private island may not live very long. He or she may quit the game. He or she may sell the island to someone else. He or she may not pay tier to Linden Lab and then LL takes the island back. Happens all the time.

Fact #3 - When you RENT a parcel on a private island, YES, the owner can take it from you at any time, but will ruin their reputation for doing so. Of course, a "seller" of a private island parcel will get their reputation ruined also (as is one land baron's rep is being ruined right now on a third party forum).

Fact #4 - There is a LACK of permanence inherent in "buying" on a private island.

Fact #5 - Renting IMPLIES lack of permanence.

Therefore, renting is more equal to land status on a private island than buying.

Caveat emptor, new players.

In the USA (and elsewhere), you can buy land either as "freehold" or "leasehold".

Look it up. You may be surprised.

Fact #6

Private Island owners (i.e. "landlords" have a vested interest in keeping properties club/casino/strip bar free. Private island owners have a vested interest in maintaining lag free sims.
Private island owners have a vested interest in keeping renters/customers happy.

If they do none of the above, they are probably shoddy and should not be rented from. GOOD landlords, however, are often available to newbies for newbie questions, building questions, scripting questions, and also know who their tenants might contact for decent anything (clothes, furniture, houses, scripts, etc).

Fact #7

Renting land means you can leave at any time. If you BUY land, you have to sell it to get rid of it, and in today's market, you might have to take a loss.

Interesting discussion Steve, now where are your next 5 ads for your land to rent out on the land SALES and rentals forum

#2 is correct. Private islands would appear to offer a leasehold solution. In RL if you buy property or land on a leasehold solution, you don't own it. There are usually options to buy out the lease but the less time the lease has to run the more risky it is to invest on that land and many banks won't provide mortgages for property on land that has a short lease time.

Yes, it's generally better to post disclaimers and caveats, in this sort of situation. Someone who has a vested interest should make that clear, when presenting information, accurate or not.

I don't blame Steve for this one. They should have one forum for estates and one for Mainland. It's not his fault they are ganged together.

I don't like the term 'buy' either; it's deceptive.

Also, very new people don't realise there is such a thing as land tier.

They think you "buy" once and keep the land in perpetuity without charges (until the details of the grid are explained to them).

* * * * *

Most important is to know the facts - calling it rental is not enough.


1) Very little (no?) recourse whatsoever in the event of a dispute.

2) Regulations that restrict your neighbours also restrict you.

3) You depend on the land baron providing some level of service.

- Note that one island might make the land baron a mere 200 USD/month. If they are on 3 hours a night (typical) that means the entire island population nets him only 2.25 USD/hr.

- In the above situation, if you own 4096m (1/16th of the sim) the land baron is effectively getting 14 cents an hour for dealing with you, regardless of how few or how many IM's and issues you have. Think about the implications of that. (More islands raises that per-hour figure)

4) If your island owner is a sucker, watch out. Do you really want him to rent 3/4 of the rest of the sim to a 19 year old who will pay their tier fees Really Soon Now(TM)?



All that said, people can and do have wonderful island land, great relationships with land barons, and live in far more more beautiful and immersive areas than mainland hodgepodge. I know of several (myself included) who have never kicked out a tenant for any reason other than they stopped paying tier and went to Warcraft or something.

Ah, and lastly, don't bother considering this an ad of mine, it would be fairly pointless for me. I've got a waiting list of residents 3 or 4 sims long trying to get in; most will wait a month if not two, and that's after I've been opening a new sim every few weeks lately to satisfy demand (and still not succeeding).

Send one of them to the SLurl in my signature. I need to "sell" my estate before I go afk for a month.

Yes, that was a blatant advertisement.

Steve makes some very good points. And I disagree, his post does NOT sound like an ad, actually, rather the opposite.

Tier fees can be likened to property taxes that one pays in RL.

While Steve's comments are valid, one is dependent on the sim owner's reliability, I have found that most sim owners are a lot more available than LL. Granted, I have only bought/rented from a few of them. However, most seem to be online a lot, and answer their IMs. Maybe I have been very lucky, but most seem to be very reasonable people. It also would be worth mentioning that being a good, polite, pay-on-time renter/lessor, will help tremendously in getting a fast response.

Just like in RL, before investing a lot of money, ask around. Bad owners do not get business referrals. A short chat with the owners prior to buying/renting, will be very much worth your time. Even in a virtual world, you can tell if you will have problems with some people. Gut feelings still apply. Ask questions BEFORE buying/renting.

Do your homework! Take the time to look around. Avoid all those ads that appear to sell you land for too good a price. Skip the L$1 ads... remember, no free lunch in SL either.

Note: I do not rent from Steve. Heck, I have never met his avatar! Just to keep the record straight .

Interesting post. It's actually my policy to avoid Private Islands altogether. Yes, many island owners are upright, helpful, etc, etc. I just like having the only people who can revoke my land be the 'government' (Linden Labs). I also own enough land so as to make any tier fee I would be charged on an island more expensive than my LL tier fee (or, if cheaper, the landlord would be losing money).

Good summary Steve!
I work hard to only use the word 'lease' with my Private Island properties. But, since I allow tenants access to BAN lists, Media streams, etc., I eventually must have them use the builtin 'BUY Land' commands to 'transfer' property.
This command naming bias from the mainland sometimes creates additional confusion with tenants.
But I'm patient at explaining what's happening, and 'why' to the curious. And in pointing out that I still keep and do not transfer several rights, (resale, subdivide/join, and major teraform).