I am a premium member and I would like to buy 512sq of land to build my own house on tier free

[Rolig Loon]

You are out of luck. All land in SL has to be paid for, and all land has an ongoing maintenance fee.  As an engineer, I assume you understand that "land" is actually a share of server resources in Linden Lab.  The land fees that all landowners pay are our share of the maintenance costs for keeping those servers running.  If you own a region in SL or have bought land on the mainland from Linden Lab at auction, you are paying those maintenance fees directly to Linden Lab.  If you rent from a landowner, you are paying Linden Lab indirectly. There's no escaping the fees.

If you are unfamiliar with the process of buying mainland parcels at auction, read http://usd.auctions.secondlife.com/

Also, for more general information about buying land and about the tier/land fee system, read https://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Buying-land/ta-p/700043

[Rolig Loon]

You are out of luck. All land in SL has to be paid for, and all land has an ongoing maintenance fee.  As an engineer, I assume you understand that "land" is actually a share of server resources in Linden Lab.  The land fees that all landowners pay are our share of the maintenance costs for keeping those servers running.  If you own a region in SL or have bought land on the mainland from Linden Lab at auction, you are paying those maintenance fees directly to Linden Lab.  If you rent from a landowner, you are paying Linden Lab indirectly. There's no escaping the fees.

If you are unfamiliar with the process of buying mainland parcels at auction, read http://usd.auctions.secondlife.com/

Also, for more general information about buying land and about the tier/land fee system, read https://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Buying-land/ta-p/700043

[Theresa Tennyson]

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BalenStep wrote:

Hi Everyone :-/

I am a premium member but because I am an engineer in real life I would like to buy my own piece of land on the mainland so I can construct my own house (i.e. not a prefabriacted linden home). I have tried to bid on \ and buy land but they all have a tier price which means I have to keep paying each week for the land? I am already paying linden labs a lot of money for my premium account. I have abandoned my linden home in order to buy new 512 land so I have architectural contol over it but I am having trouble finding land to puchase that doesn't come with weekly land tiers. I feel like these tires are a bit of a mafia rip off. Any help or advice as to where I can find my own patch to develop on while paying only the Lindend/second life company my tier instead of some random land lord

Thank you in advance forany help

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Ignore the auction section of the SL website. For some reason they promote it as the main way to buy Mainland but it's far more common to just buy it in-world. Go to your "World Map" and check the box labled something like "Show Land Sales. Lots available for sale will show up in yellow and most of them should have a "price tag" icon next to them showing the upfront cost to buy that lot. As a premium member you should look at "Mainland" -  very large connected area.

Lot prices vary a great deal - for land on water the price can be very high and a small landlocked parcel is usually very inexpensive - sometimes less than L$1 per square meter. After you pay the upfront cost to buy the land you won't pay anything other than your premium membership fee to own a lot up to 512 square meters.

[Abigail Longmeadow]

There are basically two kinds of land in Second Life:

1. You pay tier directly to Linden Lab. You have complete control of the land. You "own" the land. In most cases, you must have a premium account, and you will usually be buying a parcel on the manland. Your premium account includes 512 m2 of tier which covers 512m2 of land. You only pay more tier if you own more than 512m2. There are few rules on the mainland, in most cases only the TOS general rules, TOS mainland rules, and the region maturity rating apply.

You can buy mainland parcels from the Linden auction site, or directly inworld if the land has been set for direct sale.

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

http://usd.auctions.secondlife.com/lin/auction/auction/list/ 

2. Somebody else (a land lord or land baron) pays Linden Lab. You pay the land lord, usually every week or month. The advantage of this are: You don't need a premium account. The land lord will usually enforce rules and a theme on their lands, so your neighbors must conform to the rules. You can talk to your land lord or their land managers if you need help. The disadvantage is the land lord is in control, and they decide what you can do. Land lords also may abandon their land at any time. If they stop paying Linden Lab, the whole region may just dissapear.

[Lindal Kidd]

While Rolig is usually right on target, I must say that she's not correct this time.  As Theresa says, you can buy up to 512 m2 anywhere on the mainland, and you won't have to pay an ongoing monthly tier charge on it.  That's one of your Premium benefits.  (You do have to pay the initial purchase fee, either to the current owner or, if it is Abandoned land, directly to Linden Lab.  In both cases you do it via the Buy button in the About Land window.)

You can bid on land in the auctions, but you will find MANY more parcels for sale by using the Map and/or Search (CTRL+F).  Choose the Land and Rentals tab, then click View All Land and Rentals, and input your search criteria...in this case, Mainland, For Sale,  Area from 512 to 512 sq m.

When looking at land, check the nearby builds, and fly up high to check the nearby skybox builds too.  Try to pick a parcel where the neighbors exhibit some modicum of good taste.  Also check the Maturity level of the region.  You can't change this, so be sure it meets your needs, whether they be General, Moderate, or Adult.

A warning:  Owning land is addictive.  On a 512 parcel, you have a land capacity of 117 prims.  Soon you will find this insufficient to your needs, and want to buy more land to have more prims.  You can get along for quite a while on a 117 prim budget, if you are clever in minimizing your prim usage, but soon the limitation will feel like a creative straitjacket.  I find that a parcel of 4096 sq m (937 prims) is a good compromise for a large home and grounds, while still remaining relatively affordable at $25 USD per month.

I teach a class on land at Caledon Oxbridge University on Fridays at 5 pm SL time.  It's free to all, so maybe I will see you there.

[Rolig Loon]

Quite right. I'm tempted to quibble that a Premium account holder is not really escaping the land fees. He's simply paying them in the form of a Premium membership fee instead. The parcel that a Linden Home is on, or the "free" 512 sq m. parcel that he may choose instead is not truly free. Its cost is simply folded into the price of membership and marketed as a "benefit", so you don't have to pay an extra fee. But that's a quibble. As far as the resident is concerned, that 512 sq m parcel of land FEELS free, so that's what counts.

[Lindal Kidd]

Just so! One can also say that "everything in SL is mesh" or that "all land ownership is really a form of renting." Those are all more correct ways of stating the situation...but also tend to be confusing!

[Rolig Loon]

So we are always faced with a challenge, and it's not easy to know which path to take. The easy answer ("you don't pay any land fees for your first 512 sq m of land as a Premium member", or "some objects in SL are made of mesh", or "you can't use prepaid credit cards to buy L$") can often satisfy an OP's immediate question but build a misunderstanding later. On the other hand, the more complete answer ("you're always paying land fees in one form or another", or "all objects in SL are made of mesh", or "occasionally you can get a prepaid card to work, but don't count on it") helps build a deeper long-term understanding of how SL works, but may take more time and patience than the OP is ready to handle. Personally, I am never sure which path is the right one. I have gone down both of them, depending on my reading of what I think the OP is going to understand best at the moment. The truly tricky part is getting that reading from the few words in an OP's question. None of us can do that right consistently, but we all keep trying.