For Renters - What would YOU want in a rental?

[Coraline017]

Hi all, I hope I'm posting in the right section. Still learning SL, I suppose.

 

So, some backstory:

I have had a handful of rental homes up and open for about a month and a half (?), and, for about the same amount of time, have been posting 2 different classifieds for the main hangout on my land that include a mention of my rentals. The main hangout is on ground level, accessible to anyone, and the rentals are on a sky platform, accessible by joining my group. I set it up this way because you need to be part of the group to rezz things, and also for some semblance of privacy, since the platform has no sky - just the SL sky. People are coming to the main hangout, where I have info about renting (including group join), but no one has joined the group, so I know no one has been interested in the rentals.

I tried to make the rental platform extra nice, so it is a huge prim-suck. There are only 5 as I have a 1/8th sim, and I left them empty with set prim allowances (ranging from 75-125 - they're small-ish), but they feature great sunrise/sunset views and I also put down some landscaping and a clubhouse with a pool table, TV, drinks, and some seating. I'm trying to re-do/vamp up the main hangout, but I am fast running short of prims. I want to keep the rentals up, and it would be worth it if even one person showed interest ... but nobody is.

 

My question is - What would YOU want in a rental? Or, what do you think most people would like? Any suggestions would be helpful.

[GirasolMx]

Hello Coraline,

I'm kind of new to forums.  For my SL time i have rented for 1 1/2 yr a skybox that at the moment was really nice for what i needed, that was mainly a place where i can do my stylings in peace, with enough space, low rent and why not some prims to decorate in some seassons.  I found a good one (which i am actually in) i think is a 1024 with around 25 scenes to choose from. At first it had 50 prims then they lowered it to 35 for $50L/week.

As for me i would expect a good customer service, some privacy (they have security orb), good cost-benefit regarding to size-prims-weekly rent.  That last thing is what made me choose this after weeks of looking for a place.  What i consider here opportunity areas are: sometimes i've had people landing on my skybox (which is solved with security orb) but still, about 4 times my scene was changed by "someone", their time to answer is around 2 days, and now for example is the first time in 18 months that i pay my month hours after my rent was due and all my stuff was returned, scene changed and place available for rent (maybe they have all this automated).

Also i can tell you for me it was a journey to find them, i don't know how most of people search for their rentals, i did a search inworld (did one here in forums without luck for what i was looking for), also in FB which is also not easy to find. So maybe you could do something to drag bit more traffic to your place so in the search you go upper, maybe also pay some ad to be listed on the search window, or advertise in places you think your ideal end user can be.  FB and Instagram could be good to post. Location and lag of course are important too.  We do ask a lot, don't we? lol

Don't know if this helps you but this has been so far my little experience in rental.  Hope your business grows fast!!  Happy easter.

[So Whimsy]

Had nothing better to do so checked out your rentals to see what you could improve.

- When you enter the parcel you land in a really bland rock cave and the sign of your rentals is absolutely tiny. So tiny that even zoming in the font is barely legible. That's not advertising rentals, that's more of an after thought. People hardly read signs as it is and having such an unassuming one is shooting yourself in the foot BIG time.

- Your TP below the sign doesn't work.

- There is an LM in your notecard, but since you have teleport routing set to landing point you cannot use the notecard slurl to tp to your rentals, it will always just tp you to the landing point.

 

In short I was 100% unable to even access your rentals!

[Rowan Amore]

I've always rented from well established rental companies.  I've heard too many people complain about the person they were renting from up and disappearing one day leaving them with all their items returned or lost into the SL abyss and their money gone.

You've only been in SL 6 months.  Personally, I would want a landlord who was more firmly established as a resident in SL.

Edited April 14, 2022 by Rowan Amore

[Chic Aeon]

Here's my input   and a screen clip for those wondering. 

 

You have a lot of my favorite Trompe Loeil houses (blogging for the brand for over a decade  and lived happily in some of them).  The rental prices are very good.  

 

BUT 

 

I couldn't find any rental info at all and I looked hard and clicked on a a couple of signs.  I just started flying up and happily found the houses fairly close to the ground.  The houses are very close together and have a variety of themes. I am an eclectic gal but this seems very "hodgepodge" to me and definitely not the styling simplicity that the ground level has.  

 

Folks should be able to teleport directly to the rentals. Even if folks knew there were rentals they can't get there (I tried :D).  And no one wants to join a group just in order to see rentals.   I would reduce the amount of houses and up the prim allotment on them as most people want some land impact (more than is currently listed).  Spread the house out. Like FOUR  in whichever theme you want to keep and give the perspective renters a little elbow room.   Also they way you have it now it seems like their friends couldn't get to visit them without joining the group. 

 

You have a good start, just need to make some adjustments -- in my mind anyway. Hope that helps. 

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

A landlord who doesn't unexpectantly sell the sim from under you to a new landlord, who then tells/forces you and other renters to take all your stuff and get out....  😥

Edited April 15, 2022 by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[diamond Marchant]

5 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

Personally, I would want a landlord who was more firmly established as a resident in SL.

 

4 hours ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

A landlord who doesn't unexpectantly sell the sim from under you to a new landlord, who then tells/forces you and other renters to take all your stuff and get out....

Exactly! I wouldn't rent unless I had a certain location requirement,  or needed space for a short term, or the rental deal was too good to turn down (highly unlikely). Thing is, Linden Homes are such a good value that the rental would have to be sub $2 (for 1024sq) to be competitive, given that after stipend, Linden Homes are around $1.75 a week on a monthly plan. And with a Linden Home, you can change locations FIVE times a day (ha ha). If I could spend more, I would buy the best place I could afford and pay tier. This is because I am in it for "the duration" and want a stable situation.

To the OP, my experience with landlords in SL is that it is a very competitive business. Good luck!

[Marianne Little]

I want nothing of what you offer. No community center, no landscaping and no house. I only want a piece of land, where I can put my own houses and landscaping on.

But that is me, and lots of people want more than empty land, so I am sure you will do well by following the suggestions you got. Good luck! ❤️

[Ayashe Ninetails]

Like Marianne, I only ever rent empty land plots so I can change homes/scenery as the mood hits. I also like having full land rights and being with an established company that specializes in the rental business - less chance of the land disappearing at random and there's a team for live chat support outside of SL, if needed.

I used to live in rental home complexes many, many years ago and the downside to me was how close everybody was. That'd be my biggest critique here.

[Jasmine Linnaeus]

There are a few things that are a must for me. These include being parceled for privacy, having some security access like an orb or having ban rights, and being able to use my own music stream. Also having a decent size plot with some landscaping is always nice, and an updated house. I agree with the other comments that if I land somewhere browsing for rentals and I have to look really hard to find anything, I often poof out rather quickly. Good luck!

[Coffee Pancake]

Renters looking at land tend to want a few key things, some of which are beyond your control.

Coast line. Plots at the edge of a region will rent before inland ones (corners especially). If you want some land yourself on the region, consider occupying the center of the sim.

Nice (looking) neighbors. This can be hard as renters really dislike a landlord presiding over what they want to call home. Except when they want that. Good Luck !

No red flag items. Breedables mainly.

Price. Don't try to compete only on price, you can't stand toe to toe with the bulk land owners.

Theming .. bare land is .. bare land. Belli has demonstrated very clearly that people like a little infrastructure. you can create some road and dividing fences (etc) and then place the root prim on a parcel you own, so it's basically free for your renters, or better, when dividing your land up, leave a gap between parcels that you retain ownership of and place paths and trees on that. 

[Prokofy Neva]

15 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

I want nothing of what you offer. No community center, no landscaping and no house. I only want a piece of land, where I can put my own houses and landscaping on.

But that is me, and lots of people want more than empty land, so I am sure you will do well by following the suggestions you got. Good luck! ❤️

I think most tenants do not actually care about community areas or community activities -- except some do, which is why they move to Bellisseria. Or why they rent in or near our land preserve.

But if you *don't* put in community areas and some kind of activities, at least like a kayak or a quest or something,  not necessarily organized MC'd themed picnics and dances, then people feel like they have too crowded or boring an environment. I belong to one community that has activities with themes and prices every night practically, and people enthusiastically turn out. It depends on the theme and people who have built up around it. It takes time. I find it can take *a year* to get a community to gel, to work out the problems, to get tenants of course, to work out their likes and dislikes, and of course make back what you paid. It's not a money-making scheme certainly on the Mainland.

Not everyone wants to put their own home or skybox, or can manage doing it. But I think you do have to have dedicated parcels so they can re-name them, put in a stream, have their own ban list, set the landing point, etc. And the rentals that stack people up with holodecks and some Internet radio or the same stream for everyone may get so far, and there is a market for that, but I think the longer people are in SL, the more they want to control their own space, so that's what you have to give them.

 

[Persephone Emerald]

I've rented and I've been a landlord. In my earlier days in SL I wanted a rental house on the ground, in some kind of themed community, with a house that didn't have alpha glitching. I wanted a cheap price, my own music stream, and a landlord who would get back to me in a timely manner when I had a problem. When I rented more recently I also wanted a pretty view of water with the sound of waves, the ability to pay a month in advance, and a really good-looking natural environment. In my more recent rental, I was able to either use the furniture provided or return it and use my own. I could sit on my porch and look out at a lovely Scottish loch or go for walks to the small town and back. It was peaceful and lovely, all I needed from SL at that time.

As a landlord, I initially offered 2 styles of low prim (what's now called low Land Impact) house, with a few trees and a little stream running through the shared space. Tenants had a choice of ground level or on a sky platform, everyone with their own music and media stream. Later, I offered a simple low Land Impact house or let the tenant use their own house, either on land or on a sky platform. One was a dragon, who used his own cave for his home on a sky platform. I included group access to rezzer-style holodecks and a skybox beach. The ground level was on the coast, with a nice meadow loosely resembling the Headlands California state park in Mendocino. I think my tenants on the ground liked the view, but I think a good price,  privacy and me being responsive to their requests were more important. 

When Linden Lab introduced the first set of Linden Homes, the home rental market largely dried up in SL. Landlords had to be able to offer a good-looking environment, a community feel, good prices, control over one's own land, and timely responsiveness to their tenants.

I've had alts rent from Prokofy Neva a couple times too, and I really liked his rentals. They were low cost, easy to rent, and were in interesting environments. 

If you're set on being a landlord, I think you should try to use low Land Impact houses, so you can give your tenants as many as prims as possible. You might consider having only one or two houses on ground level, then one or two on a landscaped sky platform, so people feel like they have more privacy. Section your land into 4 pieces, so each can have their own music and media stream. You may have difficulty getting tenants, but you absolutely must have good advertising and easy to use rental boxes. I had Hippo vendors that showed pictures of which houses were available and which were rented, and included LMs to the available houses. 

Edited April 16, 2022 by Persephone Emerald
to add

[Kalegthepsionicist]

cheap price, high prim, large land,

good sim no lag. prefer homestead

thtas all

[diamond Marchant]

On 4/15/2022 at 10:29 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

I think most tenants do not actually care about community areas or community activities -- except some do, which is why they move to Bellisseria.

I agree and think the "not caring" also applies to Bellisseria. From what I have experienced, the perceived Bellisserria "community"  does not have the locality that you find in RL. Rather, it is a small percentage of the thousands of Linden Homes residents that enjoy group chat, posting in the forum, making blogs,  organizing things, and making little games (I am guilty of this one). I think people move to Bellisseria, not for community, but because it's a good value  (net cost less than $2/week) and there is a covenant that offers some protection from annoying neighbors. Your typical Bellisseria resident has few interactions with neighbors other than an in initial "hello", unless there is a dispute.

On 4/15/2022 at 10:29 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

I belong to one community that has activities with themes and prices prizes every night practically, and people enthusiastically turn out. It depends on the theme and people who have built up around it. It takes time. I find it can take *a year* to get a community to gel, to work out the problems

Yes. The communities of that seem the strongest to me are the ones that are based on common interest (e.g. music, sailing, freight hauling).

It is worth noting that Bellisseria is very valuable to Second Life in general (not just Bellisserians) because it is important to all the Second Life communities that are based on vehicles.

Edited April 17, 2022 by diamond Marchant