Cost to buy a parcel vs. rent one?

[Mellorious]

Just curious if to buy land in SL is like in real life, where there is a fee that may be less (in some instances) then renting?

[Madelaine McMasters]

Hi Mellorious,

There's no way to escape rent in Second Life. Rent is effectively the server space fee for the bit of the grid your home occupies in computer memory. You pay it directly if you purchase mainland or private region space, and indirectly if you rent from a landlord. If you purchase, you are really buying the right to rent a particular spot directly from Linden Lab. If you rent from a landlord, you avoid the up front fee and you've nothing to sell when you stop renting. Mainland is available in smaller pieces than private regions.

If you wish to live on the mainland, buying a small parcel may be your best option. You get complete control over your own little bit of turf, including maintenance of ban lists, visitor access rights, etc. When you rent, you're depending on the landlord to handle much of that for you, which may not be what you want.

You can learn more than you ever wanted to know by wandering through the links on the right side of the following page...

http://secondlife.com/land/purchasing.php

Good luck!

[Rolig Loon]

All land in SL is rented, so anyone who has land is paying rent to someone.  If you are renting from Linden Lab, then the rent is called a monthly "land fee" -- sometimes incorrectly called "tier".  If you are renting from another resident in SL, then that person is paying a land fee to Linden Lab and is recovering the cost from you.  So, you have two choices....

1. You can pay the one-time purchase price and be a true landowner on the Mainland or you can buy a private estate.  Once you do that, you start paying Linden Lab that land fee every month.

2. You can rent anywhere and let the true landowner pay the monthly land fees.

Rent paid to another resident is likely to be higher than what you would pay to Linden Lab since the landowner is probably hoping to make some profit.  On the other hand, as a renter you don't have to worry about annoying complaints from tenants or what might happen if you don't have enough tenants to pay your land fees.