I want to chime in and say my 2 cents.
Not every sim owner is a landlord. I own a clothing business and as my ex landlord was treating me really bad, i decided to move out after one year and half of crap eaten on his land. My experience with the respective estate was so bad that had a big influence on my decision on making me purchase a new full region. This is my first month on my new home and i can say i finally breathe.
The Buy Down even arrived in a very bad moment for me economically speaking. More over, i live in europe and to the respective 295 USD tier, i had to pay the non indifferent 20% VAT that touched my funds really hard. I had to take a moment and ponder what is best for me at this point.
As everyone pointed the ups and downs, i do have my fears that this experience might not end as good as i do expect it to end. Altough before i took a final decision i went and asked help on a Live chat to the customer support. The first good (huge good) news for me was that they will not charge VAT for the 600 USD of tier, and of course the 195 USD of the new monthly price will have also the VAT adjusted accordingly. This means half price lowered down for me. I paid my last tier 370 USD there where most of the people would pay 295. With all the adjustments i will have to pay 230 USD, add there the 100 from the 600 paid with buy down and i still save every month 40 USD from only handing in in advance the 600 USD. Now, for many of you 40 $ might be nothing, but for me every penny matters. At the end of the 6 months i would have saved 240 USD for just handing in advance the respective buy down fee. Money saved are money saved, for me is well worth!
While on live chat i also asked details. My sim will stay the same. The server will not be changed, the only thing that changes is the tier sum i pay montly. I even asked about Sansar. I got assured that one will not have an influence on the other, Sansar will not kill down SL, either SL will get closed because of it as i was reading speculations. They are two different entities with totally different styles and life, if i got it well. Also there are no intentions as of yet from LL to announce a release date. Might still take years before Sansar will be launched. Until then i hope i made up my bank account enough to say that was well worth the investment.
My buy down ticket is in.
Cheers.
P. S. I wrote this post for those who are still in doubt, as i was before i decided to purchase. For days i was trying to figure out what to do and nobody was able to help me with a good advice. When i found this thread i thought i will get some good insights, but half of the discussion is OFF Topic. I hope my thoughts and experience might be of help for those who - like me - are in search of an advice from someone who actually did something regarding the subject.