how do I collect the "free" land?

[Tap Quentin]

how do I collect the "free" land?

Bill

[Alwin Alcott]

the only "free" land is where the Linden Homes are: go to your dashboard and pick one.
If you aim on a new style Linden home your chances aren't big to find one instantly, that might take a while.

If you go for mainland, only the tier level as included in your premium subscription is free, you'll still have to pay a purchase price to the selling owner.

[Rolig Loon]

In SL, as in RL, there is no such thing as "free land."  You paid for it with your Premium membership fees.  What you get is a land fee waiver that you can use to offset some of the monthly fees that all landowners in SL pay to Linden Lab.  You may use that waiver in either of two ways:

1.  You can buy land in the Mainland estate -- paying the purchase price for the land itself, of course.  Your land fee waiver will pay for the entire monthly fees on up to 1024 sq m of land that you bought.  This does not apply to land in private estates or land that you rent.

2. You may request a Linden Home, which comes on its own parcel of the Mainland. You get the land, and Linden Lab throws in a home that you do not own but have exclusive rights to.  You can read about Linden Homes here:

You should be aware that there are older Linden Homes, in abundant supply, and much newer homes, which are much scarcer and are in high demand. If you follow the process in that KB article, you will most likely be offered an older home.  Getting one of the newer ones requires patience and luck.  I suggest reading this thread very carefully >>> 

and then following some of the threads in the Linden Homes subforum of the Land forum to get a feel for how to proceed.

[Rose Mackie]

They seem to be releasing the new housing at an agonizingly slow pace. I might keep my old Linden home if they'd delete everyother one, add some landscaping, and update them. I suppose that's too difficult.

[Rolig Loon]

8 hours ago, Rose Mackie said:

They seem to be releasing the new housing at an agonizingly slow pace.

You might see how easy it is to create and release slightly more than one new, unique region full of houses, complete with landscaping, every day.  For the moles who are keeping up that  pace, I imagine that it is agonizingly fast.

[Lindal Kidd]

12 hours ago, Rose Mackie said:

 I might keep my old Linden home if they'd delete everyother one, add some landscaping, and update them. I suppose that's too difficult.

Eventually, they will do something with the older Linden Homes.  Exactly when, and what it will be, we don't know.

[LittleMe Jewell]

1 hour ago, Lindal Kidd said:

14 hours ago, Rose Mackie said:

I might keep my old Linden home if they'd delete everyother one, add some landscaping, and update them. I suppose that's too difficult.

Eventually, they will do something with the older Linden Homes.  Exactly when, and what it will be, we don't know.

Patch has already said that doing anything to the older homes is not feasible.  And he has said that they old homes will eventually go away....... after they have enough of the new ones for everyone.  At some point, anyone remaining in an old home will be forced to move.  That is still quite a ways away though.