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Help for a first-time homesteader?


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Good evening! I've been kind of curious about sim-building and management of land for awhile now, being that it is one of the few things I haven't at least dabbled with during my years in SL. I've also noticed lately that many of my in-world friends are homeless and kind of sad over not having a place of their own.

 

So I was thinking that I might go and rent a homestead sim for myself, take some time to make it all pretty, put some housing out around the place, and then let all of my homeless people in to set home and make merry. Before I do this, I have some questions!

 

1) Are there generally any hidden fees when renting something like this? I've looked at a few and their monthly rental fee tends to all be at ~$125 a month, which is the same as the LL tier fee for a homestead. I've even seen some that dip lower, as low as ~$105 a month. If this money is barely enough to pay LL tier, and even less in some cases, I am wondering if there might be hidden fees under it all that I will have to pay on top of the rental fee. These people are in it to make money, so where do their profits come from if only charging the cost of tier?

2) Are there any good resources for a first-time landowner? A Building Sims for Dummies sort of thing! They seem to come with full estate manager and terraforming rights, so a crash course in the tools that I will have available to me would be super helpful. I can always puzzle it out if I have to.

3) Anyone else who has been down this road have any 'things I wish I had known before starting' tips to pass along?

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I think they can still make a profit at what looks like cost price because the big estates get undisclosed cheaper deals on land because they are bigger landowners. There shouldn't be any hidden costs.

I have always built my parcels\land homesteads sims from ground up... But this is expensive if you haven't already been buying things suitable.

You might want to consider renting through one of the Chungs, because you will gain acces to their library of stuff including terrain maps and some premade sim setups... They are attractive and would give you a flying start to making the sim an attractive place people will want to enjoy.

I would be reluctant to give your friends their own homes.. Once they start decorating them you will soon find your prims vanishing very quickly and bring you into conflist. Better I would think to set your sim up as group access for them with areas that are "public" and some that are more private (eg. skyboxes). If you make enough space for everyone to share then your friends can enjoy the space without getting under each others feet. They can rezz stuff complimentary to your idea for the theme of the place without unnecessary duplication and you can make the most of what you are paying for.

 One way to make the most of your space on a homestead is to consider investing in scenes from Garden of Dreams (GOD) or Marian Lean (Dreamscape). They are designed to be temporary, so so long as you keep 400ish prims free then you or your friends can go the couch or leaf sit on it and decide if you want to go to a library, a romantic beach, a village scene or any number of other attractive and romantic locations. Using a Novatech Horizons system you can combne scenes from both makers in to one terminal. A bit costly to setup since each scene is around 2000l$ but they do extend what areas you can have available to enjoy for you and your friends.

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You can try to barter for a better price, generally, some landlords will go down a bit. You can get better prices from some, if you pay 4 weeks at once (only recommendable with wellknown/longlasting/bigger landlords and of course there's a rst risk).

I think you don't need a dummy place to practise, you can't really do any damage a bit of time won't repair (once you put the flattening or mountaining slider too high because you got impatient you'll know ;)). If you fear to click frightening buttons like abandon land or something, you can make a land group (you'll do that anyway), and have an alt in it with restricted abilities to play around with until you feel safer.

Take care to always pick up no-copy objects obviously.

 

Some ads on here or in-world with lower than regular prices are 'cheats', when you to to the LM you'll see the great looking price was only for the 1st or the 1st 4 weeks and the regular price is higher than from other landlords, which they conveniently forgot to mention in the ad, so never click buy before you read everything on-site, too!

And if it's important for you to (now or maybe even in future to give trusted friends Estate Manager rights so they can e.g. ban griefers or restart the sim if needed and you're not around), ask how many EMs you'll get with your deal, that differs, I've seen as little as 2, because some landlords keep those EM slots for their staff. You can't instate EMs yourself if you rent but have to give the names you want as EMs to the landlord to do it. You appear as 'owner' on the sim land tab, but if you click further you'll see that your landlord still stands there as the true owner.

Prices vary quite a bit, I've seen from 6400 to around 7500/week for homesteads, cheap sims may have badly sellable names, renaming a sim costs 20K I think, or not as good service as more expensive ones, which matters or matters not depending if you want a nice name for your sim and if you actually ever need the landlord's help beyond giving you the aeM rights and accepting your money. And of course there are some landlords with quite a bit of bad rep if you scan sl forums for it. That's for you to decide wether to take that into account or not.

Personally I had a more expensive sim with the Chungs as well as a much cheaper one with some other big landlord, both without any real problems.

Have fun!

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Aside from the discounts large estate owners get, another reason why you may find a homestead that is cheaper than most is the sim is 'grandfathered' at the older tier rate of $95US before it was increased to $125US, so the owners can offer a cheaper rent and still make a profit.  The grandfathering ends when a sim is sold to a new estate owner, so if you find one of these the estate owner has owned that sim for several years.

It isn't always true that the service you get is better at a higher price, particularly if the sim is grandfathered or is discounted to a large estate owner.  These estate owners have been around a while and that wouldn't be possible if they gave terrible service.

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  • 2 weeks later...

What you will pay will average around $100 a month, give or take. Some of the rental companies mentioned are not all what they are cracked up to be, so do be careful in who you rent from, bigger is NOT always better.  Giving friends free homes....I HIGHLY advise against that.  Perhaps a discounted rent, but there are MANY free loaders in SL, that will smile to your face and call you friend all day long if they see opportunity, they feed like sharks when they smell blood in the water. Caution advised!

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