Considering dividing and renting my estate, any advice?

[Vivienne Daguerre]

I have not decided to do this for sure yet, but I am considering dividing my private island estate into parcels and selling/renting them out. I am looking for some advice about pitfalls, things to be careful about, and some must dos. I was wondering if anyone had set up a wiki page or a good blog article on this. I would also welcome any advice offered here. I have some questions.

If I set parcels for sale, I still retain rights as an estate owner, correct? Would I be able to reclaim that land if the purchaser did not pay or abandoned it? Does the purchaser have to pay their tier to me through a rental box, or do the Lindens automatically deduct it from their account and pay me?

If one purchaser "purchased" all of the parcels, could I end up not owning my estate anymore? I don't want to lose it!

Any advice on terraforming, what to permit and if it is possible to limit how much others can terraform?

Do you need a separate group for each parcel, or how do you manage groups and deeding and such?

I am not new to SL and have owned this estate for a very long time, but I have not played landlord on this scale before.

Thanks! I know we compete, but I have found SL residents to also be very cooperative and helpful.

[Lizard Howl]

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Vivienne Daguerre wrote:

1.

If I set parcels for sale, I still retain rights as an estate owner, correct?

2.

Would I be able to reclaim that land if the purchaser did not pay or abandoned it?

3.

Does the purchaser have to pay their tier to me through a rental box, or do the Lindens automatically deduct it from their account and pay me?

4.

If one purchaser "purchased" all of the parcels, could I end up not owning my estate anymore? I don't want to lose it!

5.

Any advice on terraforming, what to permit and if it is possible to limit how much others can terraform?

6

. Do you need a separate group for each parcel, or how do you manage groups and deeding and such?

I am not new to SL and have owned this estate for a very long time, but I have not played landlord on this scale before.

Thanks! I know we compete, but I have found SL residents to also be very cooperative and helpful.

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Hi Vivienne -

Great questions!

I'm working on a how-to book, and I have some tips on my blog, but let me adress your specific questions since you asked so nicely.  For ease of answering I have added #s to your orginial post.

1. Yes.

2. Yes. If your customer Abandons the land or if you Reclaim a land it will revert back into your name.

3. You are responsible for collecting your own tier, the Lindens will not do it.  It is a good idea to use rent boxes but you could simply have people pay you directly.  If you do use rent boxes set aside a small commons area for them, like 512 or 1024sqm.  That way your customers have a central location where they pay.  I recommend ABTech Rental for an easy, rez-and go tier system.

4. No they can't, and no you won't.  You pay tier to LL, thats what makes you the Estate Owner.  In other words, you own the Region.  Your customer could own the 65536sqm parcel that makes up your sim, but you are still the Estate Owner.

5. In the World-->Region/Estate menu you can set your terraformining limits.  If you want to keep it flat like a pancake, dont allow terraforming.  I find that +/- 50m allows for nice hills and rivers without people being able to go too crazy.  Experiment and see what setting works best for your needs.

6. Easy - don't bother with groups.  Sell the parcel to your customer and let them do what they want with it.  Its a good idea to have a group for your customers to join so they can communicate with you and vice-versa, but you dont need to muck about with Deeding land.

I hope that helps.

Any other questions, just ask.

Have fun, and good luck!

Lizard Howl

Segarra Estates Owner

 

 

[Vivienne Daguerre]

Thanks so much for your kind and very helpful response!  I looked at your blog and I have bookmarked it!

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Lizard has given you good advice. 

I can add from my own experience that a lot of owners will just flatten their land out to a square.  I've yet to see any square islands in RL and personally find them ugly and wouldn't live on one if you paid me.   If your going to invest time or money in having a nice terraforming done, then you should not allow terraforming or limit what the owner can do to +/- 4 meters and put in your covenant that all terraforming has to look natural with natural shorelines.  You can even say that they must clear their plans with you before doing any, or insist it be done by professionals or yourself.  People actually appreciate a nicely terraformed and maintained sim.  If you look around at who is geting the highest prices you'll find that its not the estates that let people do what they want in this regard.

My other piece of advice to to spend some time in carefully writing your covenant  to make it clear, easy to understand and fair to all landowners as well as yourself. Insist on healthy sim practices and rules as people will bail if the sim gets laggy or has technical problems due to their neighbors built or lifestyle. Take a look at o a number of other estates covenants in this process so you can see what they do and pick up on things you may not think of but need.

[SkydiverQ]

Hi Vivienne,

I've been researching full and partial sims with a lot of frustration and price tags that seem abnormally high. How much land are you considering making available? Do you have foresee any significant commerical limitiations? Thanks in advance.

Sky

[Prokofy Neva]

Hi,

Others have answered your basic questions, i.e. you don't lose control of your estate just by selling parcels to others, but let me add a few things:

o You don't have to have parcels for sale and deal with the confusion of sales that some people sometimes experience and the reclaiming of deadbeats. You can have a rentals system by grouping the land and giving people gradations of powers within the group depending on whether they are paying tenants or visitors. That's how I do it. It's not for everybody. But I have a combination of mainland and islands so I want to have one group where I can accept tier donations for discounts of rent as well.

o Don't turn on terraform -- you should have some landscaping of mountains or hills or trees to give some privacy, and people always flatten and ruin this. Just offer to turn it on temporarily for them to get earth out of their house, or offer to do it for them.

o Make a teleporter/landing place and put a landmark giver with information so that people don't fly all over the island interrupting existing tenants. Put landmarks or parcel numbers on the notecard.

o You can maximize your business if you have refundable rent and a cancellation fee for early refunds. I have a free rental script with the refund feature if you want it.

o Don't jam 16 4096 on an island, people start moving out when they feel crowded by others, leave some space around parcels.

o Don't imagine that you have to provide a clubhouse, pool, picnic area, etc. for tenants, however. They seldom use them and unless you have lots of sims to spread this out on and make it really interesting, don't compete with all the other big venues that have all this already in clubs, parks, stores, etc. Focus on making residential living nice.

o Draw up your covenant and put it on the land menu on the tab for regions, and put a copy in the rental box. Remember to include a machinima policy.

o I have a rule that security orbs have to be deployed only 250 meters or above because having them on the ground can be hellish to others, especially new tenants or prospective tenants.

o Specify grace period policy and pet policy, and if people miss rent contact them first especially about pets, which can be killed or set back if returned to inventory.