Premium Questions

[Kirito216]

Hi so I am considering getting premium but I wanted to ask a question first, If I get it and get the land house etc and then go back to basic do I lose the land and house? Or do I keep it?

[Rolig Loon]

You lose it.  In fact, you have to abandon it in order to downgrade to Basic.

[Kirito216]

I see so if you want your own home than you are in for the long haul

[Lindal Kidd]

There are several ways to have a house in SL, and they don't all require a Premium membership.

You can lease a parcel on a Private estate, or rent a parcel on the Mainland by the week or month.

I teach a class on SL land at Caledon Oxbridge University, Saturdays at 12 noon SL time.  It's free to attend.  Maybe I'll see you there!

[Madelaine McMasters]

If you are just looking for a simple place to call home, there are skybox rentals for at little as L$50/week, maybe even less. I live in one that has 60+ different scenes you can select, from beach scenes to city rooftops. They offer decent privacy, but have very low LI allowances (35 for mine) and mediocre server performance.

[Rolig Loon]

8 hours ago, Kirito216 said:

I see so if you want your own home than you are in for the long haul

Look at it this way .....  Everyone with a "home" in SL is renting space.  The question is whether you are renting directly from Linden Lab or from another resident.  Financially, the difference is in favor of people who pay the Lab directly.   After all, a landowner who charges rent to tenants still has to pay Linden Lab herself.  To make ends meet or hopefully make a small profit, the total amount of rents has to be at least as large as the landowner's own payments.  Still, rent for a single parcel is a small amount compared to an entire region, so it's within most people's recreational budget. You can pull out easily if you can't handle the rent payments or you just decide to take a break from SL.  Making the leap to being a landowner yourself requires an initial outlay for buying the land and then a long-term commitment to paying the Lab every single month, even if you are sick and out of RL work or have decided to take a family vacation.  So ..... there are advantages and disadvantages to owning land.  Yes, once you make the decision to buy rather than rent, your commitment horizon changes.  You are in it for the long haul, accepting both its benefits and its risks.  Sort of like RL.

Edited July 28, 2020 by Rolig Loon