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Can you use your Premium membership to get land for a shop?


Scar Ayres
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Hi everyone! Would you believe I've been playing SL since 2007 but never had to deal with tier? I've always just... rented land. Now that I'm in a better financial position, I've finally gotten myself a premium membership. I'm aware that we get some kind of free land with our membership, but I'm vague on the details. Is it possible to use that land to create a shop? I desperately need space to sell my cats and advertise my RL charity, but I'm trying to avoid spending too much that I might not make back in these early days.  

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2 hours ago, Scar Ayres said:

Hi everyone! Would you believe I've been playing SL since 2007 but never had to deal with tier? I've always just... rented land. Now that I'm in a better financial position, I've finally gotten myself a premium membership. I'm aware that we get some kind of free land with our membership, but I'm vague on the details. Is it possible to use that land to create a shop? I desperately need space to sell my cats and advertise my RL charity, but I'm trying to avoid spending too much that I might not make back in these early days.  

you can simply buy land up to 1024 sqm for your premium tier level ( in Linden homes stores aren't allowed)

the way you use your land has only to comply to TOS, so no adult shop at a moderate or general zoned sim... all other kinds of use are at your own phantasy.

Edited by Alwin Alcott
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8 hours ago, Scar Ayres said:

Hi everyone! Would you believe I've been playing SL since 2007 but never had to deal with tier? I've always just... rented land. Now that I'm in a better financial position, I've finally gotten myself a premium membership. I'm aware that we get some kind of free land with our membership, but I'm vague on the details. Is it possible to use that land to create a shop? I desperately need space to sell my cats and advertise my RL charity, but I'm trying to avoid spending too much that I might not make back in these early days.  

Your Premium membership includes 1024 sqm of TIER, but not does actually include the land itself.  Thus you would have to buy land - any MAINLAND - and the first 1024 of associated Tier will be covered by your membership (anything bigger and you'll pay for the extra tier monthly).  Once you buy the land you can put a shop on it if you wish, because mainland doesn't have rules preventing such (other than a few specially themed areas) - and as Alwin mentioned, you must stay within the 'zoning' of your location.

Edited by LittleMe Jewell
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Ummmm .... no.  If you own land, you always pay monthly land fees. If you rent land, you always pay rent, and the landowner pays the land fees.  ( To clear up another confusion, Tier is technically a level of your fee liability, like a tax bracket.  It's not an amount of L$, although many people use the term loosely so it sounds like one.)  Read LittleMe's post carefully.

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6 minutes ago, Scar Ayres said:

Wait... so you have to pay tier in ADDITION to your land rental costs?  Whaaaat.  Why would anyone do that if they could just rent on an estate and just pay rent once? 

My brain hurts. This concept is confusing. 

NO ONE said that. You BUY the land (up to a 1024 of MAINLAND). You then have free tier from your premium membership. "TIER" equates to "rental cost" in some ways. I think of it more as "taxes" or "land use fees". But NO you do not pay both. 

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1 minute ago, Rolig Loon said:

Ummmm .... no.  If you own land, you always pay monthly land fees. If you rent land, you always pay rent, and the landowner pays the land fees.  ( To clear up another confusion, Tier is technically a level of your fee liability, like a tax bracket.  It's not an amount of L$, although many people use the term loosely so it sounds like one.)  Read LittleMe's post carefully.

OK. I think you confused the OP more LOL.   You DON'T pay any monthly land fee as long as you don't own more than a 1024 mainland lot.  

OVER that you will always have fees, yes.  

EACH PREMIUM AVATAR CAN HAVE UP TO A 1024 LOT WITHOUT PAYING ANY MONTHLY TIER FEE. YOU DO HAVE TO BUY THE LAND. 

They will of course have the fee that goes along with Premium, be it yearly or monthly or quarterly. 

 

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Oh!  I think I've got it now! Seriously, I had to go glare at a wall for ten minutes until my brain suddenly put it into RL terms and it makes sense. LOL. It's so late at night right now.

Okay, so in RL terms, if you buy land or a house, you pay the purchase price up front to the seller, but you still pay the council rates every month/quarter/year. I'm not sure what it's called in other countries, but here you pay a fee based off the amount of land you own, which covers services like garbage collection, drains, etc. 

So in RL terms, tier is the council rates, yes?  So my premium membership covers my "rates" for owning up to 1024sqm, and anything over that I pay extra rates for?

Okay so if I buy a mainland parcel that's less than 1024sqm, I just pay the purchase price but no ongoing fee?

Sorry for the confusion, all! I've barely even had to rent a parcel on an estate for the last decade. I mostly just slum it on a friend's land. LOL.

 

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5 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

OK. I think you confused the OP more LOL.   You DON'T pay any monthly land fee as long as you don't own more than a 1024 mainland lot.  

OVER that you will always have fees, yes.  

EACH PREMIUM AVATAR CAN HAVE UP TO A 1024 LOT WITHOUT PAYING ANY MONTHLY TIER FEE. YOU DO HAVE TO BUY THE LAND. 

They will of course have the fee that goes along with Premium, be it yearly or monthly or quarterly. 

 

It all depends on whether you are taking a "look at the forest" view or a "look at the trees" view.  In the end, anyone who occupies land in SL pays a monthly fee for it, either in land fees to Linden Lab or to a landowner, as rent.  If you happen to be a Premium member of SL, you are paying the monthly land fee by paying your yearly membership fee.  The land you have is not "free".  You just paid for it by paying to be Premium.  And you lose value if you have a Premium membership and don't use land that your membership paid for.

And yes, if you actually buy land, you have to pay the one-time purchase price, no matter what your membership level is.

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2 hours ago, Scar Ayres said:

Okay so if I buy a mainland parcel that's less than 1024sqm, I just pay the purchase price but no ongoing fee?

 

Now you've got it! 

I teach a class on Second Life land on Saturdays, at 12 noon SL Time, at Caledon Oxbridge University.  It's free to attend!

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Congratulations!  Land ownership can be a complicated business, even if you've got all that you need.  I suggest that you take Lindal up on her invitation to join her class next Saturday.  She's pretty good at anticipating most of the questions you are likely to have, and introducing you to ones that you have not thought of yet.  It would also be a good idea to start reading Knowledge Base articles related to selling in SL.  

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On 6/19/2018 at 12:28 PM, Lindal Kidd said:

Now you've got it! 

I teach a class on Second Life land on Saturdays, at 12 noon SL Time, at Caledon Oxbridge University.  It's free to attend!

Thank you. I also had an interest purchasing land as a premium member with the goal of establishing at least one or two sims. The query was with purchasing that land permanently. I would not want to be bothered with monthly payments so would I have to remain a permanent premium member for that sim to continue existing? Anytime I chose to leave SL and delete my account would it impact on my created sim as well? (Or, even if not deleting my account but deciding on not remaining as an active member)

Edited by spicedtea
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1 minute ago, spicedtea said:

The query was with purchasing that land permanently, as I would not want to be bothered with monthly payments and would I have to remain a permanent premium member for that sim to continue existing?

As far as I know, you do not have to be a Premium member to buy a full "region" (not mainland sim) from LL or the region resale market -- but you would still have to pay the monthly maintenance fee that LL will bill and collect monthly. 

If you are Premium, you can buy as much Mainland as you want, but again, there will still be monthly tier billed & collected by LL.

Using groups, there are ways to get around being Premium to purchase and hold Mainland.  However, then you will be paying someone else for the tier, either weekly or monthly or whatever interval is agreed upon.

If you purchase portions of regions from others, then you are really renting from them and will have to pay them on whatever interval they decide.

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28 minutes ago, spicedtea said:

I also had an interest purchasing land as a premium member with the goal of establishing at least one or two sims. The query was with purchasing that land permanently. I would not want to be bothered with monthly payments so would I have to remain a permanent premium member for that sim to continue existing?

Everybody pays monthly fees for using land.  It doesn't matter whether you are a Premium member, and it makes no difference where the land is.  If you own the land, you pay monthly fees to Linden Lab.  If you rent, you pay rental fees to the landowner, who has to pay her fees to Linden Lab.  If you are a Premium member and if you own land on the Mainland, you may apply your Premium land fee waiver toward paying some of those monthly fees.  (That's partly what your Premium membership fee is used for, whether you ever buy land and use the waiver or not, so you might as well own land.)  You cannot use it to pay for monthly fees in private estates.  Anyone can buy a private estate, and our membership status does not affect our monthly fees.  As a Basic member, I have owned a private region since 2013.  I would get no extra price break as a Premium member.

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Rolig's Wise Words:  "Anyone can buy a private estate, and our membership status does not affect our monthly fees.  As a Basic member, I have owned a private region since 2013.  I would get no extra price break as a Premium member."

This is true.  However, LL has recently given EVERYONE some price breaks on land.  Last year, the number of prims land will support was raised 50%.  This year, monthly tier fees on Mainland were cut by 10%.  The tier free land allowance was increased from 512 to 1024 sq. m.  This month, the purchase cost of an entire private region was cut from $600 USD to $349, and the monthly land cost of private regions was cut by 15% as well.

In short, LL has done quite a bit to make virtual land more affordable.

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