Land.

[Will3240]

How do i buy property and then design the inside of it? Does it cost a lot of money to buy all the things to design it myself if i don't buy no stuff for the inside?

[Rolig Loon]

The absolute best way to find out is to rent for a while.  If you are a Premium member, you have already paid for access to a Linden Home, which is on its own parcel and is essentially rent-free.  If you're not a Premium member, you may rent anywhere in SL.  I suggest taking time to wander around and see what's available, or maybe browsing in the Land forums here to get an idea of what rents are like and what you can expect to get for your money.

Furnishing property can be as expensive as you want it to be.  There are loads of builders in world who make good quality homes at reasonable prices, but you would be well-advised to do a lot of window shopping.  Get the land first and then decide how large a home you can put on it, and how much land impact allowance you have to work with. To get you started, I recommend first spending time reading through articls in the Knowledge Base (tab at the top of this page) and I strongly recommend taking a free class on land ownership and management from Lindal Kidd.  She teaches at Oxbridge University in world every Saturday noon SLT.  If we are lucky, she is typing her own reply to you here right now ....

Edited August 29, 2018 by Rolig Loon

[LittleMe Jewell]

15 minutes ago, Will3240 said:

How do i buy property and then design the inside of it? Does it cost a lot of money to buy all the things to design it myself if i don't buy no stuff for the inside?

For starters, since you are Premium (per your comment in your other thread), I would suggest that you first try a Linden Home.  You can use this link (https://land.secondlife.com/en-US/lindenhomes/land-selection.php) to start the process of getting your house.  Then you'll either need to buy some L$ (see your other thread) or wait until next Tue when your first L$300 is given to you.  In the mean time, you can browse the Marketplace (https://marketplace.secondlife.com/?lang=en-US) to look for free items for your house - until you have some money to buy other stuff.

[Lindal Kidd]

Hey, Will!

Let's get our terms straight.  In worlds like IMVU, you have "rooms", where each room is a complete environment.  It can look like an outdoor setting, or the inside of an apartment.  No matter the looks, it's all one "thing."

In Second Life, we have "land" and we have "houses"...two very different and separate things.

Land can be rented from another resident.  If you're a Premium member, you can buy your own parcel of land.  If it's smaller than 1024 sq meters, you won't pay any monthly land fees on it.

You can build your own house on your land, using SL's built in creation tools.  Or you can buy any number of houses (and other structures) made by others.  When you buy a house, keep two things in mind.  It has to physically fit on your land...the "footprint" of the house cannot go past your borders, or your neighbors will be upset with you.  Most 1024 parcels are 32 x 32 meters.  Also, your land has a limit as to how many objects it can have on it, the "parcel land capacity".  A 1024 parcel has a capacity of 351.  When shopping for a house, be sure its "land impact" is well under your land's capacity.  You'll want to also put in some furniture, and maybe some landscaping, so for a 1024 parcel, I try to keep the house's land impact at under 110 or so.

You can be creative with your housing...the house does not actually have to be ON the land, it can be OVER it.  These structures up in the sky are known as "skyboxes".  Some people make their homes under water, too.

As LittleMe says, starting with a Linden Home is simple and easy...they are on 512 sq m land parcels, and the house is already provided.  You have a land impact allowance of 175, but the house doesn't count against that amount, so you have enough capacity to decorate, as long as your furniture doesn't have too high a land impact.

[animats]

In SL, land is expensive, but buildings to put on it tend to be cheap. About L$300 to L$500 is typical for a nice but modest house. Furniture ranges from free to very expensive. Some buildings come furnished with the basics.

Running out of "land capacity" is indeed a problem. Before you buy something, check its land impact. There are lots of freebies around, but they tend to be older designs with higher land impact.

For a sense of what's available in houses, try one of the big prefab builders. Inverse and Danger Gum have big selections. They, like most house builders in SL, have a demo system at their store which lets you pick a house from a big menu and then watch it assemble in front of you. Then you can go inside and look around.

The demo station at Inverse. The woman on the right is shopping for a house. Inverse tends toward suburban architecture. Danger Gum has more industrial and urban.

Look around and see what you like.

Land in SL has many of the issues of land in real life. Neighbors. Road access. Waterway access. Landlords. Zoning. (Some areas have restrictions on what you can build.) Type of neighborhood. You can buy land from Linden Labs directly, or rent from a third party landlord.

There's an enormous range of possibilities. A little house in a Linden Homes area is cheap, easy, and risk-free. Some people buy beachfront property and set up a luxury house with a yacht. That's expensive. Skilled builders make their own custom homes. One has an underwater steampunk dome house reached via underwater glass and iron tunnels. That's hard. You can modify some buildings; I have an industrial garage converted to office and work space.

Take Lindal Kidd's class on land before buying land.

Edited September 3, 2018 by animats
typo

[Lindal Kidd]

Thanks for the plug, Animats!

My Buying and Renting Land class is at Caledon Oxbridge University, every Saturday at 12 noon SL Time!  It's free to attend, and generally lasts about 1-1/2 to 2 hours.