need help about buying a land

[AlameerRX]

Hi,I think the land system is somewhat confusing, when I (buy) a land, why i must pay a weekly fee? for tier? what is tier? and what is prims?
and if I rent a land, will I pay for the tier too?
I heard about someone pay the rent for a land and got kicked by the land owner, how to avoid a similar situation?
and what is the best company to buy or rent a land from? (since i cant upgrade to premium)?

[LittleMe Jewell]

If you buy Mainland, then you pay for the land once and then pay monthly Tier - which is sort of like a property tax.  The amount of Tier is based on the amount of land owned.  However, you must have a Premium account to buy Mainland.  Most Mainland comes with 175 prims per 512 sqm, though there are a few locations with higher amounts.

Additionally, instead of buying Mainland, you can rent Mainland, usually by the week.  Often the prims will relate to how much land you get, though not always.

You could can also 'buy' from an Estate owner.  Though they call it buying, it really is renting.  You will usually appear to be the land owner, such that you can terraform the land, build whatever, etc.. all within the rules of the Estate.  There, you typically buy for $L0 or a small amount and then pay weekly to the Estate owner.  Though some will allow you to pay more at a time, it is not necessarily recommended to pay too far in advance. The prims you get will vary quite a bit and all depend on the Estate.  Most will give you more than the 175 per 512 sqm because they have a lot of common areas that are not using many prims and so they can allocate the extra to the residents.  

The chance you take with renting - or buying on an Estate, which is really renting - is that a variety of issues can cause you to suddently lose your land.  The owner can just flat take it back, the owner can leave SL for a variety of reasons and then LL gets the land back, etc...  That is why it is not usually a good idea to pay more than a week or few weeks of rent at a time.  If you do lose the land due to any of those reasons, you are just out of luck.  LL does not get involved in resident to resident issues.

As to whom is best to rent from - that is subjective.  I've seen owners who have been here a long time suddenly go belly up.  

Edited June 23, 2017 by LittleMe Jewell

[Lisa006 Baxton]

You will not have to pay tier that is why you pay the landlord "weekly fee" so THEY can pay linden lab tier. Some landlords even give a discount if you pay multiple weeks in advance. You are simply buying the land to have full permissions to it.

Nobody really OWNS land in SL, there is always a monthly fee owed to Linden Lab. The landlord is giving you the convenience of paying it weekly to them and they pay Linden Lab the monthly tier. There is alot of estates out there, so yes do your homework. The marketplace has a section dedicated to Real Estate. 

Prims are pretty much what everything in second life is made out of. You can right click > EDIT any object in world and see the land impact of it in the edit window. This will tell you how many prims that object will allocate on a piece of land. So if you are shopping for a home, or a lamp, or a chair for your new land, the marketplace product page will usually tell you how prims the product takes up. 

Here is some more info on renting from another resident from the wiki:

What a prim is wiki link 

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Prim

Edited June 23, 2017 by Lisa006 Baxton

[AlameerRX]

@Lisa006 Baxton @LittleMe Jewell

thanks very much and I appreciate your help