Renting property question

Hi,

I am looking at buying my first major bit of land to develop 4000 SQM parcel with 968 prims costing 40k to buy and $25 US tier a month, set in very well designed residential island, with no ugly buildings etc

I was planning to develop it with a few small houses on to rent out, after looking around I was confident i was getting a good price and could make a small return on 2 or 3 nice designed buildings on it.

Until I found Coldwell Banker HQ elboya 183,213,26 where they seem to have 4 islands
which have a simple road around them and cheap prefeb buildings plotted about, around 43 of them on each, it seems the design was rushed a little as the roads not level, houses but they are renting the 43 houes out at $L 250 a week each so doing my sums they wont even cover tier costs if every house is rented so i thought maybe it's low prim sim but it's not, so is the owner just doing it for a hobby and not too bothered about not making his money back or is there something i'm missing? some cheaper way to get land or tier?

My view is people will pay more rent if the landscape and buildings are nice...and the owner of this sim is not really in it to cover his costs?

Thanks for your advice.

Think of it this way. A decent ad in a major publication, or a 30 second tv spot will cost Coldwell Banker thousands of times more than what they will lose on rent across their regions, annually.

And just one customer that decides to choose Coldwell Banker for their RL business from Second Life will likely completely cover their annual loss.

Advertising with a half page ad in a typical old media industry publication with readerships as low as 100,000 can cost on the order of 1000 USD a week.

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It might also be worth checking out the policy of subletting on a private island.

Not everyone allows it, as it can be a bit of a minefield for the island owner.

Especially if some people try it, do badly and leave a string of very unhappy people for the island owner to deal with after the fact.

Agreed with Desmond.. Coldwell Banker is not in SL to make money; they're here to get their RL name out to potential RL customers. I would wager to say that they could care less if people rent their plots. Like Des says, it's cheaper to own non-rented land in SL than it is to pay for 30 seconds of prime-time television in RL.

You would have a completely different product altogether; promote the fact that you have quality plots with a beautiful setting, and you'll get the customers you want, hopefully. I would search around different private islands not owned by huge corporations, and see what they charge per plot. That's a more accurate rating of the prices today.

Cheers!

if you are going to 'rent' land on a 'private island' never pay a up front fee

Anshe Chung has a crap load of islands, the tier is the same just about as LL tier, and there is no up front purchase price for the land.

just rent for the same tier you would pay anyway, no reason to pay money up front for 'land' you are 'renting'

only time you should ever pay for land up front is on mainland, where you do own it and can resell it

http://dreamland.anshechung.com/index.php?fct=RENT_LAND

Anshe most certainly does ALSO sell land for an upfront fee.

does ALSO but not REQUIRED witch was the POINT