Double Prim, what's the catch?

I hear about people buying and selling "Double Prim" land, 482 prims per 1056m2...

What's that all about? Where's the catch?

The private sim owner borrows prims from another area within the sim to offer to you. The catch is they charge you more for the land.

There are some mainland sims with double prims too (Grignano is one, and the other ones in the same 2x2 block next to Luna, but I'm not sure of their names). But they work by the same method; half of the land on them is unsold.

Okay, but is that like "renting" from the sim owner, or do you actually "own" the land?

I for one would gladly pay more for land at the outset if it means paying half the monthly land tiers rates...

If you buy on the mainland, you own the land. In this case, yes, you will be paying half the tier you normally would for that number of prims, but the few mainland double prim sims are extremely difficult and expensive to purchase land on.

If you buy on a private island, you are renting the land. In this case probably you will have to pay a higher rental fee than you normally would for that size of land, because the island owner has to reclaim their US$295/month somehow, so the land they leave fallow to give double prims to the rest has to contribute to income too.

Most double-prim parcels on private sims do cost more per month than the same area of single-prim land. But the amount you pay is usually somewhat LESS than just buying twice as much single-prim land.

Double-prim land is handy if you want to do a small, complex build, or if your house doesn't sprawl a lot but you want to have a lot of high-prim furnishings or lots of pose balls always out and ready to use. One solid use of this would be to have a normal looking build at ground level and still be able to place a complex skybox above it.

Just getting a parcel that is twice as big will cost a bit more, but you can use the extra surface area to create more of a 'buffer space' between your home and the edges of your property. This may afford a bit more privacy.

In general, aside from 4 city-type sims that LL once experimented with, Double prim land will be on private sims. So if you're Premium, your free tier on the first 512 M2 of land that you own is not applicable to that double-prim land. If you own land on the mainland in addition to yout double prom lot on a private sim, that may not matter.

Ceera has it right on the mark.

The problem with doubling the land, though, with the idea that it allows for 'buffer zone' from the neighbors, is unproven. From what i"ve seen on the mainland, people will build right up to the edge of their lots...and then overhang the neighbors if they can. On Private Islands, they do the same--but the P.I. owners are more likely to enforce 'zoning' against this sort of behavior.

On my sims, I create strips of land between parcels. These strips are not sold, and become the 'unsold' land that allows me to offer 1.5x or 2x prims. I add trees, or hills to create a visual buffer between the lots. And this saves me the trouble of having to act as zoning police.

Sounds lovely.

When I go Basic in May I will check out your sims.

Be careful with that when renting. I've found landowners to be not clear about their policies when renting, and even when they are clear, they change them at the drop of the hat. That is, don't pay a lot upfront with the promise of future concessions unless you have good reason to trust the landlord.

You never "own" any land in SL. You always pay tier to someone, and if you don't keep up the payments, you lose the land.

True renting only applies to circumstances where you never buy the land, you make no initial payment, and just pay the monthly or weekly fee. This can work out to be quite good value, as the rent can be less than the tier you would pay to LL, without the initial purchase price.

Yes I agree with both comments. Spot on. Well done Daisy.

What you are doing has a first life equal, in other words you are leasing land and/or property. You pay a ground rent to either Linden Labs or the Island owner to maintain your leasehold right.

All leasehold purchased land carries what amounts to a leasehold premium on purchase, prim count, good neightbours, and location can all add to an expected premium.

Renting also has its advantages and it is available on both mainland and Island land (the last time I looked at this Linden Labs DO rent out land by the whole sim)

Pros and cons in both situations in my own opinion

To be fair, there's only one "land owner" in the whole of the UK too.

I suspect that there's something like that in the USA too. Just buying some land is not the same as declaring independance.

Everyone else is a "freeholder".

If memory serves, while land can be double prim, the sim is still limited to 15000 prims. Meaning that it is possible for the sim to be full but still have free prims on your parcel.

To clarify, a 'double Prims' Island is still limited to 15,000 for the SIM.
but the prims per meter are doubled, while the 'sold' meters are cut in half.
So instead of 64,000m of land with prims, only 32,000m have prims.
Total prims is still maxed at 15,000.

The catch is, if not done right, you could end up in a situation where your prim allowance is cut. I have had that happen to me, but the island owner was fair and also lowered the tier payment. Not everyone is that lucky. There are some folks out there who bought double prim land, got their prim allotment cut, and still had to pay the same amount of tier. Ouch.