current state of mainland real estate Just starting a small rental company with a friend. Is this still feasible on the mainland?

[Resi Pfeffer]

On 11/18/2022 at 2:36 PM, Lewis Luminos said:

I wouldn't worry about it. Klytyna's only contribution to the forum is to laugh at everybody. 

Not so convinced about that. Her current hiatus may just be the calm before the storm, what i really hope and wait for.

[Prokofy Neva]

On 10/29/2022 at 9:00 AM, xDancingStarx said:

I think mainland rentals will become more viable in the future when LL has implemented their improvements on mainland usability, which will most likely not be restricted to making the process of buying mainland easier but also renting out.

Hard to say what the impact of the  Premium Plus Homestead option on mainland or mainland rentals really could be.

There are a few hundred (near) full sim mainland parcels at the moment. Among these you have big rental companies, mainland projects like airports, other commercial sims, premium locations at the blake sea, clubs etc. Only a very few mainland region owners will be willing to downgrade to a homestead.

Then you have those (more than the above) who own a lot of mainland parcels that in sum add up to (near) region size or more. A lot of these parcels will also be more premium land like protected water, making it less interesting to get rid of these. You also have mainland dedicated people among them. It will depend on how happy or unhappy these people are with their current mainland parcels to have them consider switching to homestead. Recession may be a small factor here, too. I suspect that it's to hold these people on the mainland why Patch announced the upcoming mainland pricing changes, whatever they will be. Or at least to make it cheaper for others to hold the parcels that are gonna be given up in this process, because of course you may also have those people that currently own less mainland, are not as invested, and more willing to upgrade to a homestead.

In the end I think that LL will be interested in keeping mainland an option, and situation for rentals can only improve.

This is an interesting observation and I'm happy to give it much thought and gather observable data for it -- but the reality is, we can't know.

The Lindens do not tell you their motivations or reasonings for things like this.

The Lindens do not provide (any more) the facts on how many Mainland sims there are, how many of them are Governor Linden's property, and how many of them are in tier-payers' hands -- and then report out how many are leaving their parcels to get homesteads now, and how many are getting parcels with the $5.99.

My own personal estimate from long watching the land is that out of 9000+ Mainland sims, the number of Bellisseria sims is now 2,000+ or more, nearly reaching or overtaking the number of Mainland sims held by tier payers - which is 3,000. The amount of abandoned land (which is in Governor Lindens's account maybe 25% or 2,250; the amount of Linden-owned land for roads, water, easements, special venues etc is 1,750. That is, jigger these numbers to 2500-3000 for Belli now; lesson Mainland from 3000 because of new homesteads -- the Lindens would only be happy if they could delete Mainland full-prim sims they have to keep spinning and replace them with lighter homesteads, yet other than some old Teen Grid sims, I'm not aware they've deleted any empty Mainland sims. Maybe they will start soon -- I have no idea. Surely they will keep only homestead special builds from the original Lindens homes, which they can now delete because they just fixed up the Trads better.

We don't know whether the Lindens plotted out this compensation from the beginning, realizing they've once again created a problem competing with their own customers, or making obsolete a product they just bought last year (Silicon Valley does that all the time as a business strategy, not as a charitable catch-up, so let's not be too dewey-eyed about it).

I suspect that the number of people at long last leaving to get a homestead who yammered about it all these years instead of buying an island an adding one -- is not that big. These facts aren't issued. Tyche Shepherd, God bless her, does a lot of work tracking all this, but she doesn't have the time and the bots to get this granular a detail: how many new homesteads are there? She tells us how many private islands there are, and leaves it at that. Homesteads are a type of private island.

I suspect that the number of people who got the $5.99 account isn't large, and rather than being a sop to keep Mainland going when Homesteaders leave, it's a prop to keep the people dumping 11.99 old premium accounts who may have only kept them to play "Game of Homes" in Belli -- which they can play less of now because a) the new Premium Plus account for $29.99 lets you chose your Belli home; b) the styles are being improved now across the board which may get people to settle more.

I don't see a  lot of new 512 owners in my travels (you look at the claim date); I do wonder if the Lindens now are finally going to clear out the class of 2007 512s they handed out to pals in the industry which have unfinished builds on them; builds from 2007; no log-ins all this time; and worst of all, left on 0 autoreturn so junk piles up. Nobody puts a credit card on a premium account in 2007 and doesn't look at it for 15 years, so they were likely free accounts with a no-billing code on them -- my theory anyway, to explain the enormous number of them.

The fact is, again, we don't know. They do not tell us. We have partial and distorted views of the scene; we can make educated guesses; we can ascribe good will or not -- but we don't know.

 

Edited December 3, 2022 by Prokofy Neva

[Jason1 Draconia]

I would say NO. When I started my land rental company back in 2010. started at nothing than grew to almost 20 mainland regions worth of land, had a Mall or three and a club or two. Now fast forward to now we are about 5 Mainland Regions and still dropping.  Hope this at least helps. We also picked up about 8 homesteads and 10-12 Estates as well during that time. The only time things changed was for 2020-2022 first half of this year than back into decline. From what our tenants have said over those years... Marketplace ( no longer needed an inworld store as they could sell there for relatively cheap), TOS changes ( the big scare over the writing about objects in SL are also LL's property to freely use(?) ticked people off all I can recall) , linden Home alotments ( free chunk of land for your premium dollar), Club/Gameing changes (any place running casino style games or 'splodder balls' etc caused chaos and panic and shutdowns etc) , RL changes (job losses, diagnosis etc)  , breedable/collectible changes (markets crashing for reselling breedables or cl0sing down suddenly, gatcha or whatever it was called before those things)....  add more if you know of anymore and correct mine.... I'm old lol     

[Alexis Crisp]

As a fellow newer mainland rental company (2020) and mainland advocate, I love to see additional entrepreneurship when it comes to land companies. Rental companies get a bad rap, but the way I see it: The more rental companies there are, the more competition and less of a possibility that people get ENORMOUS, which is how rental companies get a bad rap in the first place. That said, to everyone's wise critique, a lot comes down to demand. Right now, SecondLife is purposefully pushing for users to be land owners rather than renters and likewise, pushing people to private regions for rentals as much as possible (i.e., the way web search is oriented). To add insult to injury, LL hasn't done a large mainland campaign for quite some time and unfortunately, the whole mainland vs. private region is extremely confusing to new players. This confusion ultimately hurts mainland... people really don't see the benefits of being open-grid, they are pushed more in the direction of premium homes or private region by default from LL. As such, I do feel for the most part you are working with a smaller audience for the rental market with mainland. 

This all said, while it's harder to get into mainland rentals, it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it or you won't be successful. Many people own and rent (people forget this fact) --- some like to have two homes: a smaller premium home and a larger second plot for their SL business or just more room to run around (or even some just want an Adult land). Also, let us not forget that economies outside of the U.S. & Europe exist where the monthly premium fee is extremely high relative to their currency, so they would rather work in SL and pay in L$. In short, I like to tell everyone that's new to rentals: don't get discouraged, it never happens overnight, or even in months, but yes, it can happen. Your success will largely depend on the amount of work you're willing to put in and to @Prokofy Neva's point, having automation will make things a lot easier for you, too. 

Some helping words of wisdom: I tell everyone I meet that is interested in rentals this simple tidbit: If you genuinely love people, rentals will be easy for you and you will be successful. If you don't like people or working with them, do land sales instead (or a variation with land sales being primary). Last .... When it comes to land rentals: Most people think you must be the cheapest to be the best... but it's not exactly true. Be available, reliable, approachable and honest. You do not need to be a Walmart land baron to get customers, choose a fair price and be consistent. 

Best of luck to you and your land company... you can do it! @sunderezz 💓

[beethros Karas]

Im sorry I havent read all of the replies.
https://prnt.sc/Ye8dKNO7-Mkk
Just wanted to share what a potential tenant send me to prove to me that he had found som. cheaper ( and better) than mine!
So lets we all go ahead and do the math..
https://secondlife.com/corporate/pricing

with kind regards,
beethros Karas...

...since 2007! (uh oh)

[beethros Karas]

On 12/7/2022 at 5:11 PM, Jason1 Draconia said:

....  add more if you know of anymore and correct mine.... I'm old lol     

hehe
you crazy old Drago..!

You had bought a 1/4 sim for 8K next to my mall at Olber back in 2010 which they had offer me b4 they put it up for the same price and i decline it.
How mutch I knew !
I never grew.. (24% VAT was always a hard thing to deal with) more than a couple sims..
Those days I had just a Mall of a 1/4 which was shut down for the almost exact reasons you mentioned.
And then  I had focus only at the full perm rentals to prove that Mainland was "better" than regions or whatever..
I was always afraid to swimm in deep waters and thats why I never grew it.,. ( other ppl bypass or made profits more than the VAT and they grew just fine*)

Now that I am old and wise  ( /rolleyes) I wish I could grow my rentals! 😛

Wishes for better life(s)
greetings from Greece,

beethros Karas

[Setsuki Takeda]

There's a market between the absolute cheapskates renting "50 L$ multi-scene: spots in massive towers stretching from land to build limit and actual land owners. Those who do not have a membership can't own and not all want to live in a private sim with no connection to the world. If you have quality mesh and nice furnishings it is possible to rent to people on the mainland. I had a treehouse village for a while, with vardos areound the campfire, and I was thinking of adding hobbit holes in the back. It was nicely landscaped, low on the lag, and had no massive neon eyesores near it but was still roadside so they could rez a vehicle or mount and go explore. The city had small rentals over the shops, and a TP door on the back wall to a skybox "bedroom" for more "adult" activities. People loved them, but I offered options with high-end furniture and custom mods of things to fit types of decor rather than just rezzing the same Ruckus couch in every room like many places do.

Honestly, though, not much makes money in SL. Tier is insanely expensive, and most users are incrediby cheap, so when you build something it's best to never count on even coming close to breaking even. I'm pretty sure most of the huge 50 L$ rental spots are old accounts that have the grandfathered pricing, even with so many packed on top of each other it would be hard to make money off them with tier being what it is today, let alone leave SL for years at a time and have scripts maintain it for absentee landlords.

[Prokofy Neva]

17 hours ago, Setsuki Takeda said:

There's a market between the absolute cheapskates renting "50 L$ multi-scene: spots in massive towers stretching from land to build limit and actual land owners. Those who do not have a membership can't own and not all want to live in a private sim with no connection to the world. If you have quality mesh and nice furnishings it is possible to rent to people on the mainland. I had a treehouse village for a while, with vardos areound the campfire, and I was thinking of adding hobbit holes in the back. It was nicely landscaped, low on the lag, and had no massive neon eyesores near it but was still roadside so they could rez a vehicle or mount and go explore. The city had small rentals over the shops, and a TP door on the back wall to a skybox "bedroom" for more "adult" activities. People loved them, but I offered options with high-end furniture and custom mods of things to fit types of decor rather than just rezzing the same Ruckus couch in every room like many places do.

Honestly, though, not much makes money in SL. Tier is insanely expensive, and most users are incrediby cheap, so when you build something it's best to never count on even coming close to breaking even. I'm pretty sure most of the huge 50 L$ rental spots are old accounts that have the grandfathered pricing, even with so many packed on top of each other it would be hard to make money off them with tier being what it is today, let alone leave SL for years at a time and have scripts maintain it for absentee landlords.

I find "hobbit" just never, ever moves. I love elves and hobbit stuff myself. I make entire communities of them; a few parcels rent that people merely use to put something in the sky. Hobbit huts just don't rent EVER. I have different ones, they do not rent. OK, maybe they rented once, one year. But I finally picked them up. They are a bad move, like "space," which I still continue to play with because I like "space" and "future". But people generally don't want planets.

I find that people who are serious about elves and hobbits move into an RP sim that is very organized with rules and culture and they try to fit in there. That's why random rentals don't work.

The pile-up ugly scene changers probably make some money from bulk as they are all over, but I see them 3/4 empty a lot of the time. I hate them and won't put up rentals like that myself as the tenant can't have a ban list, invisibility, music stream of their own, description on their land.

Put the little $50 vardo on its own 256 parcel; you will get a tenant.