Renting out land, is it worth it with new prices?

[Cricket Soup]

Hi all, I am interested in owning a private sim and renting out land. I have a passion for landscaping. I used to day dream back in the day of setting up my own sim for others to live in and landscaping it but the pricing was too much and the pay off was too little for just one.

I've recently returned from a long hiatus away from secondlife and see that the pricing has changed, is it profitable? Are there other profitable ways? I heard one way was to rent from a sim owner?Thanks in advanced! 

Edited September 19, 2018 by Cricket Soup

[Rolig Loon]

Well, my region pays for itself.  That's all I expected -- a place to live, rent out parcels for my close friends, and play with landscaping.

[Lindal Kidd]

Renting from a sim owner and then subletting has always been a losing proposition.  In this situation, you are competing directly with the private estate owner.  By the very nature of things, they can offer their land cheaper than you can.

You are better off either arranging a transfer of a full private region from the current owner to you.  I would shop for a "grandfathered" region and pay the extra fee ($600 USD) to transfer the grandfathered tier rate ($195 per month).  This lets you offer the best price to your tenants.

As an alternative, consider buying a Mainland region, or at least a large portion of one.  Tier on a Mainland region is only $175 per month...but be careful you don't over-spend on the purchase price.  Some Mainland region owners are asking insanely high purchase prices.

[ellestones]

1 hour ago, Cricket Soup said:

Hi all, I am interested in owning a private sim and renting out land. I have a passion for landscaping. I used to day dream back in the day of setting up my own sim for others to live in and landscaping it but the pricing was too much and the pay off was too little for just one.

if the idea is to use your passion for landscaping and then hope to attract others to rent parcels so that you can profit, then landscaping alone won't necessarily do this for you. Mostly because people who do rent want to be able to mount/mod their parcels. You can set aside areas of the sim as landscaped common non-rental but then your parcel rents need to increase proportionately to cover the costs 

If you can provide other benefits on top of landscaping then is more possible. Other benefits can include: access to public waterways, common community, themed genre, roleplay, etc

[Lindal Kidd]

I dunno about that, Elle.  I have seen some private sims that offered ONLY nice landscaping, and they seemed very desirable to me, compared with all those flat sandy waffle grid sims.

Of course, the next step up would be a themed genre and/or roleplay, but this cuts two ways.  It's more appealing to those who are looking for that in particular, but less appealing to those who aren't into that theme or genre.

[Phorumities]

On 9/19/2018 at 12:02 AM, Lindal Kidd said:

Renting from a sim owner and then subletting has always been a losing proposition.  In this situation, you are competing directly with the private estate owner.  By the very nature of things, they can offer their land cheaper than you can.

You are better off either arranging a transfer of a full private region from the current owner to you.  I would shop for a "grandfathered" region and pay the extra fee ($600 USD) to transfer the grandfathered tier rate ($195 per month).  This lets you offer the best price to your tenants.

As an alternative, consider buying a Mainland region, or at least a large portion of one.  Tier on a Mainland region is only $175 per month...but be careful you don't over-spend on the purchase price.  Some Mainland region owners are asking insanely high purchase prices.

The trick is to find a vacant mainland sim, then start getting LL to sell you pieces of it. Start small if you want, but the more you buy the greater the chances LL will continue selling you parcels directly. In this way, you can get a whole sim for about $65,000 L and laugh at all the flippers asking  10 times that much for a full sim.

Preferably get one with a LL road running through the middle of it, then you can build your community with full mainland access.

Plus deed it to group and you can buy an extra 10% at no additional tier level.

Edited October 7, 2018 by Phorumities
added a word, added a line

[Lindal Kidd]

I don't care for Linden Roadside parcels.  While they are technically "protected" on that side, roads seem to attract biker gangs, while protected waterfront attracts boats with scantily clad girls.

[Nalates Urriah]

On 10/7/2018 at 11:25 AM, Lindal Kidd said:

I don't care for Linden Roadside parcels.  While they are technically "protected" on that side, roads seem to attract biker gangs, while protected waterfront attracts boats with scantily clad girls.

Whoa... there is someone that DOESN'T want to attract 'scantily clad' girls?

I've recently been sailing and exploring SL via boat. It is an interesting experience and there are uncountable interesting places. I have also noticed that those with Black Thumbs are not restricted to RL. There are some remarkably ugly places in SL. So, your well-landscaped places will likely rent.

With the coming of the Enhanced Environment Project (EEP), a better Windlight, you have the opportunity to create some places with novel new environments. New, striking, and beautiful generally sells.

With EEP you can landscape the sky too, and at four different elevations.

 

[Lindal Kidd]

I was drawing a distinction between types of "protected" land, and saying that I prefer protected waterfront and the passing boats full of beautiful yachties to protected roadside land with its periodic invasions of motorcyclists.