Someone help me out about land?

[BonneyChic]

Hello everyone 

I hope someone can answer a question for me I just became a premium member because I thought you get land when becoming a premium member I just found out that SL gives you a home and I have tried a couple of them I don't like them I would like to have my own land so I can put my own home on it can someone please tell me the rules and what you get for being a premium member and how to get land thanks 

[Abigail Longmeadow]

Land is complicated in Second Life. See the Knowledge Base links below for the Linden's descriptions.

But basically you have to decide if you want to rent from another user (which does not require a premium account), or 'own' the virtual land yourself (which requires a premium account in most cases). Renting means you usually get a themed location managed by a landlord. This can be nice if you get a good landlord, but you have to follow the landlords rules. The landlord can kick you out at any time (or may even just abandon Second Life and let the whole region dissapear). No need for a premium account to rent land.

A premium account allows you to either 1. Claim an available Linden house, or 2. buy a parcel on the mainland and pay nothing extra for the first 512 m2. Over 512 m2 you pay extra based on how much additional land you hold each month. The major benifit is you can do what you want, within the limits of the region's 'Maturity Rating' and the Second Life Terms of Service and the region's covenant (if there is any). Everyone else has the same freedom too, as in most parts of the mainland there is NO theme enforced.

 Maturity Rating: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Maturity-ratings/ta-p/700119

Premium membership:
http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Premium-membership/ta-p/1054477

Renting Land:
http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Renting-land-from-other-Residents/ta-p/1420695

Buying land:
http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Buying-land/ta-p/700043

 Linden Homes:
http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Linden-Homes/ta-p/700103

Managing your own parcel:
http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Managing-your-parcel/ta-p/700113

[Qie Niangao]

Right, because you're already a premium member and don't like Linden Homes (good taste, by the way; they're pretty outdated now), you should be looking for a different way to use that "bonus" 512 sq.m. of free tier. And that means buying yourself a Mainland parcel of 512 sq.m. or less*.

The aforementioned "Buying Land" knowledge base article covers a lot of ground, so the Mainland section is a little light and hard to find. Basically, you have two choices: buy Mainland at auction directly from Linden Lab, or buy it from another user. All of Mainland is "pre-owned" at this point (and has been for years), so the auction parcels are just those that were abandoned by those previous owners, rather than being sold. Besides the auction page (which is uncharacteristically out-of-stock just at the moment), you can find land for sale by owners either by looking for appealing yellow spots on the in-world Map (zoomed-in with "Land Sale" enabled) or, more efficiently, using in-world Search, Land & Rentals tab, "View All Land & Rentals", selecting the desired area and price range for Type: Mainland.

Most of Mainland can be had for cheap, compared to the recurring price of tier if one didn't have that free, Premium bonus 512.

___________

*In fact, you can go up to 560 sq.m. without paying any tier, using group-deeded land, but unless you find a parcel sized exactly 528, 544, or 560, we can leave that to "advanced topics."

[Marigold Devin]

Greetings, Bonney

What you need to know about the benefits of being a premium member can be found on the Second Life official Knowledge Base (see tab at top of this screen) - this is the direct link to premium membership notes...

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Premium-membership/ta-p/1054477

It can be very useful to have access to Live Chat, especially if you become a land owner, and having access to the premium member only sandboxes is quite fabulous (regular sandboxes can be laggy and overpopulated, especially with "griefers" at times).

Regarding purchasing mainland, open up your world map inworld and take a look at the key at the top - land coloured in yellow denotes parcels for sale. They will be of varying sizes, so please do be aware that anything over 512m will incur extra tier fees.  While Linden Homes are free, as part of your premium membership, you do have to purchase mainland, and can choose what size you buy (subject to the tier fees you are willing to pay up to).

Full information of course is in the Knowledge Base link I gave above, but I would suggest you teleport around the mainland to some of the parcels marked for sale in yellow and get a "feel" for the land, take in the surroundings.  Land near to water is usually more expensive to buy than inland parcels on rocky terrain sims, and land prices seem to be starting as low as .4L$ per sq m, so for many reasons, it pays to shop around before deciding on which parcel you would like to buy.

 

 

 

[Pussycat Catnap]

Land on the water or on a cliff tends to be the most expensive. Other land is often priced by how good or bad the surrounding neighbors are...

Don't be one of those people that buys on a hill or cliff and then tries to flatten it - unless you want your neighbors to hate you. You buy on land like that in order to make special hilly or cliff-face builds.

Owning mainland is not that complicated at all - and you will have much more control than if you rent or go for a linden home.

Your basic premium gives you 512m. If you make a group with yourself and one 'basic account alt' (groups require 2 members or get deleted) - you get a 10% bonus on how much land you can have if you give your land to your group, so 512m becomes 560m.

 

- The smaller your avatar is, the smaller you can make your buildings, the more space you will have left. And if you use a mesh building, making it smaller makes it cost less "prims".

 

NCI (New Citizens Incorporated) used to do classes on land ownership in SL. They might still do them.