Need a 'how-to' guide :)

Is there a guide that goes something like this:

"How to buy a piece of land, stack some skyboxes on it, and rent them to people (to use as residential apartments) on a weekly basis (with some automatic rental system) and come out ahead?"

I'd like to be a landlord/renter, but I'm still in the dark. I've seen (and rented) stacked skyboxes and like the arrangement. But I have questions like:

...Do I have to buy a whole sim/island, sublet from someone, or will any land do? (Biggie)

...How much land?

...How much/what will I have to put in? (I have time at least

...Will I make money or lose money, or come out even?

...Are stacked skyboxes looked upon as cheap and sleazy, or acceptable? (I personally love mine.)

...How many boxes could I stack for a parcel? (I'm thinking maybe 7 or so.)

Anybody know of such a guide? Or know the answers? I appreciate it.


Thanks!

...Do I have to buy a whole sim/island, sublet from someone, or will any land do? (Biggie)

Any land will do.

...How much land?

Wrong question. You should ask how many objects allowance you want to rent to people.
Usually you run out of objects faster than you run out of physical space.

The allowed number of objects on a parcel is determined by its area. A full sim is allowed 15000 objects, and is 65,536 meters. So for each 4.37 meters of land you are allowed 1 object if the land is less than a full sim. A coffee table with a top and 4 legs, for example, counts as 5 objects. You can right click any item and select edit, then the more tab, and see how many objects its made of. You can open the World Menu/About land/objects tab
and see how many are allowed on that piece of land before you buy it

...How much/what will I have to put in? (I have time at least)

Thats up to you - I have rented bare land, but other people offer land with a house/apartment/condo already in place. Anything you put there will use up some of
the object allowance.

...Will I make money or lose money, or come out even?

Land tier is priced by linden labs so that the more you have, the cheaper it is per month for a fixed size. A full mainland sim for non-EU players is $195 a month. 64 x 1024m parcels, which is the same total area cost the players 64x$11 = $704/month (thats a
premium membership on the annual subscription ($6/month) + $5 tier). So there is
room to offer tenants a rental for less than the cost of purchase, make a profit yourself,
and allow for some vacany IN THEORY. In practice, who knows?

...Are stacked skyboxes looked upon as cheap and sleazy, or acceptable? (I personally love mine.)

Sound (actual sounds, and chat text) carries about 100ft (30m) in all directions, including vertically. So skyboxes placed something like 50m or more apart in height are desired
for minimal privacy/noise protection. Walls have no effect on sound in SL. Also skyboxes have less stuff around them than the ground does, which makes for better frame rates. On the other hand if the ground looks nice (waterfront, mountains, etc) you lose the view if you are up high.

...How many boxes could I stack for a parcel? (I'm thinking maybe 7 or so.)

Again, its how many primitive objects (aka prims) you are renting your tenants to use for their personal stuff. Obviously you cant rent more prims than the land can hold.

Similarly, can anyone tell me the approximate minimum that would be needed for the following (and also opinions as to financial viability, if you care to venture one):

Bride Shop—Gowns, Shoes, Jewelry, Lingerie (small)
Groom Shop—Tux, Shoes, Jewelry (small)
Gift Shop (very small)
[Can the above be a small 2-story structure?]

Chapel Area
Reception/Party Area (small dancing area)
Honeymoon Cottage(s), Room or Apartment Rentals (stacked with privacy distance?)

Thanks

All depends on how big and grand you want it truly.. you could have any of those on a single 512m plot.. if you wanted all I would personally recomend between 4000 and 8000m minimum.

With any venture in SL, profit depends on what you offer, and how well you do it, and how well you get the word out.

You can actually make all of that just for the cost of the land, tier, and membership fee (Assuming mainland), and build the rest, and make merchandise on your own.

However.. if you have someone else build it, cost will depend on the person building.

If you can't make the merchandise, you'll have to hire people to make it, and pay them/split profits...

With renting, you'd have to offer someplace desirable, and be able to manage it well.

Stacked apartments in my opinion aren't good for the reason above: chat range. But depending on plot size you can have anywhere fro 1 to.. hmm.. 75 comfortably (full sim for 75 in my opinion lol)

Every business in SL depends on your capability and skills as a creator, manager, and everything else involved.

So you're saying that 5376 sqm--1230 prims should be able to do all of that on that one place?

The apartments or rooms couldn't be distanced far enough apart to afford privacy if stacked?

Any help/input is really appreciated

Thanks for the info. It's a little less confusing now

The place I live is a stack of 10 units and a rent station. Standard 512 white skyboxes with 100 prims allowed per tenant. The whole stack of ten comes to about 503 prims including the rent station. SO say 1503 prims for the ten unit stack including tenant prims all tolled.

So, 10% of a sim's primcount on 0.78% of the sim's footprint.

You'd have to own the whole sim to chose to devote those kinds of resources, wouldn't you? Who would sell me a 512 parcel with 1503 prims?

I guess that's why my landlord only has two such stacks on his sim, with only a dozen other houses down at ground level.

I thought maybe I could just rent enough places off a piece of 512 land to be able to keep one free for myself. But it sounds like a game for people who own entire sims.

Actually, anything to do with (owning) land is seeming inaccessible and pointless unless you're talking in terms of entire sims and big money. Owning anything less than a full sized sim (or is it multiple sims) appears to be a guaranteed loss. ???

If I put actual big money into land ownership, I may find that something else makes more efficient use of the land (ad farming comes to mind ) and I would be financially forced to use the investment in the most efficient way.

Sounds like something not fun, when I just wanted to be a laid back landlady of a nice little apartment house


I guess I need to read more.

If stacked they can provide the privacy if spaced far enough... maybe 30m apart is good. However, I personally also just don't like stacked for some reason... Probably because I think you should be able to have a view of neighbouring land or something.. iono lol

And 1230 prims would be enough to BUILD all of that.. combine the bride, gift and groom shops into one, use vendors, and such, medium build...., the chapel wouldn't take that much to make, and could be in a corner with terrain backing it and such

dance area takes very few prims generally unless you go crazy decorating.

The main problem with the smaller plots is the renting... unless you don't plan on allowing them prims of their own, you can't have much in the way of renting.. a couple maybe 5 if you're really good at conserving prims.

For everything that you want, and having renters have some prims of their own I would recomend around... 8-10km total honestly. Would allow for probably 5-10 rentals (Lets say 7, with 75 prims each, 525, plus maybe 10 prims each for each building, and another 30 for some decorating. 40x7=280+525=805

At 8.5km you have essentially 2000 prims (You can go up to about 9.5km on the 8km tier using the group bonus), wich would allow for all of this, but it would still be pretty basic in general