Newbie buying Land Question.

[iCade]

Hello, it's me again! First I'd like to thank each and everyone of you for answering my previous questions! Thank you SO kindly it's amazing what a helpful community this is!

Now, to my current question. After being here a little over a week, I'm hooked and would like to buy myself a small place to call home, preferably somewhere snowy. Preferably 2-3 rooms with 1 hidden room that people cannot simply access.

Now I have googled and read FAQ's and quite frankly, I'm confused as all hell. So let me break my questions up:

1) If I were to upgrade to premium do I get to choose where I build my home and what I build? Is it pre-made in any way?

2) At this page: https://secondlife.com/my/account/landfees.php?lang=en-US at the bottom it says I can purchase additional land for $5 for 512m² (for example). Can I do this and bam have my place? If yes, same questions as in 1) apply. (Also, why is part of that site in french? I don't understand french =/)

3) What would be the most cost effective? I'm not looking to spend more than $10 per moth for rent, is my snowy dream place even possible? And if yes, should I look for a weekly rented parcel (how many prims? How much is a good price per week?) or just go premium and purchase additional m² if I go into a building frenzy?

4) How can I even have a secret room other's can't access? I have seen this in a few homes where people kindly showed me, how do I do this?

Any and all help is VERY much appreciated, you can also contact me in game at iCade Resident if you'd rather directly talk to me about all my question! Thank you so much!

 

[Ariel Vuissent]

1) With a Premium account you get EITHER a Linden home or the ability to buy a 512sqm plot of land WITHOUT having to pay any cost except the upkeep of your premium membership. With a Linden home, you have a limited number of premade houses to choose from. Those premade houses are set on prechosen plots of land. You cannot choose what to build, and don't have much choice on where it is. However, you get 117 prims NOT counting the prims of your house. You can choose to buy a 512sqm plot of mainland (usually inexpensive) INSTEAD OF choosng a Linden home. That plot of land also does not cost you anything beyond your Premium account fee (except that you do have to buy the land; you don't get it automatically, but you also don't have to pay regular rent on it, just the premium fee). The upside is that you choose what plot of land to buy, so you do have a choice in location. The downside is that anything you build there counts against the 117 prims on that land, including any house you build.

2) No. In essence, you are purchasing the ability to own additional land, not the land itself. You have to spend Lindens inworld to get the land. So it would be $5 USD, + X amount of $L, for a 512sqm plot. So if you have a Linden home and a 512 plot, you pay your premium fee + $5 per month (+ the one-time land purchase fee). If, however, you do not get a Linden home, you may have a 512sqm plot + another 512sqm plot (total = 1024sqm) for the price of your Premium membership fee plus $5 USD per month (+ the one-time land purchase fee). If you opt to have no Linden home and just get one 512sqm plot, your total would be Premium membership fee + one-time land purchase fee. (Note: You don't have to buy two 512 sqm plots separately; you can buy one 1024 sqm plot. It amounts to the same thing.) (It's not in French for me...Not sure why it is for you.)

So, in essence, if you do not choose to have a Linden home, you get the ability to purchase up to 512sqm of land free, and are charged an additional USD amount, charges listed on the chart you linked, for owning more than that. If you buy another 512 sqm of land, you will be charged an additional $5USD per month. If you buy 513sqm, it puts you into the next tier group and you will be charged an additional $8 USD per month even though you don't have 1024sqm. The amount of land you own must be the exact amount you are qualified for or less.

3) It depends what you're looking for. If you wish to rent, you do not have to upgrade to Premium; you can simply find land on a private estate and rent from the owner. The risk is that the owner may walk away from SL at any time and stop paying their tier, thus leaving you homeless. $10 per month is quiet low, but possible. You're unlikely to get many prims for that, though. If you go Premium, for $10 per month (cost of Premium membership) you get 117 prims without the risk of ending up homeless because someone else doesn't pay. I suggest you hunt around and see what's available for $10 per month in private estates, how many prims, etc., and compare.

4) This is tricky. Even a locked door can be easily entered simply by camming into the room and double-click teleporting or sit-cheating on a piece of furniture inside the room. You can ask the people who showed you their secret rooms how they made them; or perhaps someone else here can give you better advice about that.

[LoveAngeL Lyre]

Hello again iCage!

1)If you upgrade to Premium, usually to get a parcel on Mainland 512sq m2 with a Linden Home (there are several themes to choose) and 117 prims available to use as you wish (to decorate your Linden Home). You can choose a different parcel but you can't have a request choosing a specific one. If you don't want the parcel with the Linden Home, you can choose another one empty (again 512sq m2 with 117 prims) where you can rezz your own house without additional cost if you have first abandon the previous parcel.

2)If you keep the first parcel with the linden home and your get another one you will have a charge 5US$/ month. If you abandon your linden home, there is no cost. As Premium, you have the right to own 512sq m2 on Mainland. Bigger parcels = more prims = montly land fee as you see on that table. Only Linden Lab can answer you why this part is in French some days now.

3)It is really up to you. Buying a parcel in a Private Estate (weekly tier required) will give you more options to fulfill your snowy dream place but it is more expensive. You can get 1/8 of Homestad, it is 8.192sq m2 with 468 prims with about 800-900 L$ / week, means about 3.5US$ / week, or same prims in a Full sim (it is cheaper but the parcel is smaller).

4)You have a secret room if you rezz at your land a skybox. More infos about here. Very informative also link here.

Have fun!

[Knowl Paine]

If you upgrade to Premium, allowed use of 512 square meters of Tier (land) is included. You can use this Tier credit to support the land a Linden Home sits on, or, you can search the Mainland for Land for sale and purchase a 512 sqm plot or parcel. Your credit of 512 sqm of allowed use will pay the monthly Tier. As long as your land holdings do not exceed 512 square meters, you won't have to pay and extra 5$ each month. Paying the extra 5$ would increase your allowed holdings to 1,024 square meters.

The Linden Homes are unfurnished prefabs.

Most Mainland plots for sale are empty or have a few decorative trees or bushes placed ther by the Land Seller in an attempt to make the plot look better. 512sqm can be purchased for as low as 512L$ and even less.

Rental Land is a great option without having to Upgrade to Premium. Most Rental Lands do not require Premium, you pay weekly or monthly. You should avoid paying a rent too far in advance. I recommend finding a rental with weekly rates.

 

I prefer owning Mainland, but with a little searching a Private Region owner will create any kind of plot with almost any ability, for the right price. Rental Land is difficult to compete with.

The 1 year Premium Membership is probably the "best deal" when all things are considered, but you are still new, there's plenty of time to discover SL.

A secret room could be a skybox. You rez (create) a house (skybox) on the ground and send it up in the air, then fly up there and create a Land Mark there, or fly up there every time.

You could subdivide the Land and create an area only you could enter or those on the list or in the group.

The French thing is a gliche, ignore it for now. The magic of the internet will fix it, someday.

The Premium Sandboxes are really nice. fyi

 

 

 

 

 

[Rolig Loon]

Ariel and Angel have done a great job of answering most of your questions, so I won't repeat what they have said.  You'll get many opinions about whether to buy or rent, and where to do it, so you'll have to make up your own mind. 

My personal choice has been to rent a parcel on a private estate.  Ariel is right in saying that a private landlord might decide to pull up stakes at any point, leaving you stranded.  We hear from people with that experience, and I wince.  Frankly, I think they are a small minority, however.  I have had shops on four different sims, two of which no longer exist.  Both of those landlords let me know well in advance and were kind enough to refund a portion of my last month's rent.  The landlords on each of the sims were helpful and responsive, and so is the landlady for the sim where I have rented my home for the past couple of years (she's a very good friend, too).  As I talk with people who have been in SL as long as I have -- about 5 years -- I hear much the same thing from almost all of them.

When you rent in SL, follow some of the common sense rules that you know well from RL:

(1) Research the neighborhood.  Look at how the other parcels are kept, visit at different times of the day and see what the traffic is like, read the covenant carefully to see what's allowed, and talk with current residents if you can.

(2) Have a clear idea about how you want to use the land.  Do you value privacy or do you want do entertain a lot?  Do you plan to spend a lot of time indoors or will you prefer gardens?  Do you want space to use as a private sandbox? Do you want to be able to terraform the land?  Do you want "beachfront" property?  Do you want to be able to open a shop? 

(3) Get referrals from people that you trust.  Talk to friends about places where they rent or places that they would avoid.

(4) Know your budget before you shop -- not just what you want to spend but where that money is going to come from.  I decided a long time ago never to rent more land than I could expect to pay for with my average monthly earnings in world. That was a personal decision.  You may decide that you will never buy more than L$6,000 each month with RL dollars, so that's your cap. (BTW, I know of at least one private estate where you can rent a decent-sized parcel for L$600/week, which is about your $10 USD limit.)

(4) Remember that unlike RL, you can leave a rented parcel at any time if you find a better place or decide that you made  crummy choice.  You might forfeit a little rent, but you can pack up your entire house and all your stuff and be gone in 10 minutes if you have to.  No land decision is irreversible.

 

[Lindal Kidd]

You've gotten some great answers.  If you would like something a little more in-person, come to my class on buying and renting land at Caledon Oxbridge University, Fridays, 5 pm SL time.