Land Question

I'm new to SL and so far I am really liking it. Also, I have a few ideas for a business of my own and am interested in buying land. I am not one however, to run off half cocked into buying stuff without a plan. So I was hoping y'all could answer some questions for me.


1: Exactly how big is the land? I know that may sound idiotic however I would like to know exactly what I can fit on land. Like when I see 1/128 Region 512 m2 I think "great I know the number, I just don't really have a visual reference"


2: Is the preferred method of charging rent weekly or monthly? And if my prices were reasonable would I catch flack from other land owners?


Any input would be appreciated. Thanks.

1. An entire sim is 65,536 m2. 512 m2, is about enough for a house, not much else.

2. From what I've seen, rents are weekly, and vary. I rent in two malls, and one is $250/wk and the other is $200/wk. I think rent pricing for vendors depends on traffic. The more traffic you have, the more people will see your vendors, the more you can charge in rent.

You came to the right place for information! These forums will put you light-years ahead of most other new residents.

To get a visual reference for land size, right-click on some land to bring up the "pie" menu, then click "About Land." The parcel should then become outlined so you can see its boundaries, and a window will pop up detailing (among other things) how many square meters comprise the parcel.

Tybalt, if you go around the world and right click the ground and choose "about land", you will sooner or later find a plot that is 512 in size so you can look at it and compare. It's small. You can also turn property lines on from somewhere in the menus (can't check now where, for obvious reasons) to see the lines between property and then when you see a plot of a nice size you can do the right click to see what size the parcels that make it up.

Please also note that what limits your building as much or more than the size is the prim limit. 512 m2 of land can support 117 prims on the sim it is on. That means basically that's how many prims you can have there if you only own that one plot. If you own more on the same sim they are all totalled and you can have the prims on one parcel or another as you choose, but they still have to be on the same sim.

Thanks for the information. I'm looking for something significantly bigger that 512 m2. I'm going to definitely be looking at islands then.

One thing that will help you if you haven't discovered this yet, if you click on the ground (right click I think) one of the options is "About Land". This will show you an outline of the plot. That should help you get some visual idea as to how big 512sqm is. It will also show you the shape of the plot. You will find that some plots can be very odd shapes.

I hope that helps some.

Don't get the idea that mainland only comes in 512m plots. You can buy parcels that are three and four times that size.

The advantage of mainland is that you own the land in a contract with LL. But unless you buy an entire island yourself, the land you "buy" on an island is only yours on the honor system. If the island owner kicks you off, there's not much you can do except complain. Any money above weekly rent may or may not be reimbursed. Not my idea of true land ownership.

The advantage of island residency, on the other hand, is that the island owner can create and enforce some zoning control over the builds. I hate the fact that the wonderful wildnerness land plot that I bought just a few months ago is now surrounded by tacky, ugly commercial buildings and clubs. The view that I loved is gone, and there's nothing I can do about it except leave.