Can someone explain "Estate" land on islands to me?

Last time I was on SL, when you bought land, you either bought a plot on the mainland or purchased an island... what's with these estate things I see on the land search? Is it like renting land or something? What are the benefits and cons?

Thanks!

K, An estate is a portion of a private island that someone has put up for rent. Next time I am in-world I will send you a notecard Sarah Nerd wrote on the difference since the question gets asked so many times.

But in a nutshell: Mainland is land you own and can do anything you want with. Estate land is owned by the island owner and they can evict you even if you "buy" the land, so you have to make sure you rent one from a reputable owner. And most estates have covenants with restrictions that are mostly to keep the areas attractive and less laggy.

I actually have residences on both estates and mainland since both have their advantages.

What Raymond failed to point out specifically, is that most of us island owners place those covenants on the lands to prevent them from turning into eyesore mainland-like areas filled with ad plots, clubs. camping chair havens etc. As far as evictions, yes. We can at any time evict someone for not following our community standards, or failure to pay charges in a timely manner. No surprise there. Linden Labs will reclaim your land as well if you fail to pay for it

So the biggest differences are :

Main-land : Do what you want, neighbor's have to live with whatever shows up at any time.

Estate/Island: More controlled atmosphere, less lag, less chance of a strip club/casino/camping chair farm/ad plots showing up tomorrow, etc.

If you like scenic views, low lag, and can live with a few common sense restrictions, estate land is for you.

If you preffer the total freedom to do anything you want at any time, and dont mind your neighbor doing the same thing .... then Mainland is for you.

(Note this does not encompass all mainland areas. Just most that I have seen personally. Your experience may differ. Void wherever it doesnt apply. Do not fold, spindle mutilate. To be opened by addressee only, ummm... Read all directions prior to using.)

Not to put too fine a point on it BUT....

There actually are estate owners, even very big ones, who allow pretty much complete freedom including terraforming as long as you are within the TOS. The advantage to this land is it's cheaper than mainland, disadvantage is you'd be well advised to go with a big well established estate owner so you have a mush lower risk of being ripped off.

Prim limits the same for estates?

Not always. Estate owners can leave areas without prims so you can have more on your land. You usually have to pay a premium for extra prims.

So you can spend 150000L$ buying a plot on an estate, and then the estate owner can just ban you and take your money...

Why does estate land seem like a bad idea to me?

In every thread where the word "estate" is used, someone eventually comes trolling through with this line. Does this actually happen? And I don't mean that one time that someone's brother's cousin's friend heard about it, or that one other time when someone didn't pay the rent then made 3247862378468 forum threads about the injustice of it all. Does it really happen, or is it just a convenient fiction to strike fear in the hearts of new people so the rest of us can laugh smugly in our cynical wisdom?

I'm not trolling. I just know that when I bought land in 2005 I had the land. It didn't have the possibility to just get taken away unless I did something stupid like firebomb Linden Lab HQ or put child porn images on it. With estate land, all I would have to do would be make the estate owner angry.

Or how about this? The estate owner is tired of paying $300/month for his sim, and just stops.

Bye bye sim.

And bye bye investment for all the people who bought parcels there.

"I'm just saying"

Looking at estate land from the perspective of one who has owned land in the past, it seems like a really flimsy system, relying on other "players" of the "game."

Kujila, I didn't mean to accuse you personally of trolling and I apologize since I see it looks that way now that I read back. Clearly this is your thread, where you asked the questions that needed to be asked, and ended up drawing a conclusion for yourself.

I'm just wondering in general where those stories come from, or if people are pretty much extrapolating what *could* happen like you've done and just making it seem like estate owners are running off with people's money every other Tuesday in the process

Yeah, it's ok; I have no personal vendetta or anything against estate owners, I'm just kind of hesitant because of the entire nature of the system, and because it's fairly new to the metaverse.

And like you said, this is what "could" in theory happen, not something I have seen happen or would expect to happen - it's merely a possible outcome.

one rule of thumb is to see how many sims the owner has. The more they own, the more successful they are are the less likely they are to quit the game.

I am renting from Kandee and Breeze Herrey. They are in it for the long haul, as are Desmond Shang and Sarah Nerd. I'm sure there's a lot more out there that will be posted now that I started naming some.