Land For Rent Or Sale
Land for rent or for sale is a special type of land, found almost on all Geographic structures. Many articles allready exist on the wiki, help pages and forums about this subject. Current article is made only to classify landinto categories. Estimations show that more then 50% of Unused Land is in fact land for sale or for rent. On the entire grid, this kind of terrain is something between 10 and 20% of all land. So, it is important for Second Life Geography project to separate this kind of land from other categories.
Listings
Basically, land has a different status in Linden-owned land (mainland) and another status in private-owned land.
Mainland
Land for sale or rent can be divided as follows:
- Classic land for sale is what is visible on world map as yellow parcels. This land is the most easy to purchase. All needed is to move on that parcel and buy it. It might be land from a certain resident or Abandoned Land for sale. In both cases, land is available for direct purchase.
- Unconventional land for sale is not visible on world map as yellow parcels, but you might find a poster or a sign saying it is for sale (or in the parcel name it might say 'for sale'. This kind of land is usually for sale (on rare occasions the parcel owner might have changed mind or the land just have been sold). Mamy land owners like to talk first with the buyer before they sell land. The reason for this is that they still keep a parcel nearby and want a friendly neighbor (for example they don't want ban lines, entity orbs or other kind of Land With Restricted Access near them). This land is cheaper.
- Land Auction is sometimes done by the Linden officials. They sell parcels of Abandoned Land, looking for the best price. They are visible on map with dark-blue color.
- Land For Rent is a special kind of land. This kind of land is created from the Linden tier policy. The tier for an entire sim is 195$ and a sim can be divided into 128 parcels of 512 meters. The tier for a single 512 meters parcel is 5$. So, a land corporation that holds an entire sim will pay 1.52$ for each small parcel. As a logical result, if a land corporation offers for rent 128 small parcels with 2$ per month, it should make profit if majority of parcels are occupied. Since 1$ = 248L$ (January 15th 2014), a fee of 2$ means 116L$ per week (note that this is a simple calculation and the land corporation will make profit if more then 70% of land is rented). Land for rent might sometimes refer to a skybox and not to ground surface. For example, there is a rented sim in Sansara with 32 sim-wide skyboxes and every resident has one. In this particular case, you can get for rent a larger surface, but only a limited space on vertical and a smaller allowed prim number per surface.
Private - Owned Land
Private-owned land does not require premium membership for land owning and might be cheaper then mainland (both on purchase cost and land fee/tier). It has the missadvantage of a lack of stability (many estates vanished through time).
- Land For Sale in private-owned land is different. The tier is not paid directly to Linden Lab, but to the land corporation that owns land. Usually, it is paid inworld in L$, just like a rental tier. The estate owner has the right to remove any right of property sold. There are various covenants, depending on estate setings. Land is not expensive in private-owned land, usually it has only a simbolic value.
- Unconventional Land For Sale is also present on private-owned land and and is exactly like the unconventional land for sale on Linden-owned land. This kind of land is not visible as yellow spots on map. It is found more rare, since the estate owners have the right to make covenants for land and they can take back land ownership at any moment.
- Land For Rent is also common. Basically, the only difference between owned and rented land is the property status. Some estates use a higher fee for 'rented' land then for 'owned' land.
In majority of cases, there is a tier box close to the land surface. The land tier (for purchased land) or rental fee (for rented land) can be directly paid to the box. It also has a script that automatically counts the amount of time the tier is paid and returns land to the estate owner if payment is not done.
Note: It is true that estate owners can take back the land from their clients, but this has been seen on very rare ocasions (themed places or when certain residents are disturbing their neighbors). In past, many land corporations came to life and then died when they could no longer pay the tier. Currently, the grid reached a state of maturity. As seen on List Of Microcontinents And Sim Clusters, not many gridd structures vanished from August 2013 to January 2014. More then this, Gridsurvey shows that the overall number of private-owned sims is not changing as fast as it did in past. This means that currently private sims are more stable then in past.
Land Commerce
Like in real world, many people try to make money with land. It is true that land prices vary from time to time. In the first years of Second Life, land prices grew up to 30 times. Then, they came to a recession period. Currently (January 2014), prices are a higher then in summer 2013. It looks like prices are higher in winter then in summer each year. Prices very from place to place. A piece of land with road, water and railway access will be much more appreciated then a parcel surrounded by abandoned land.
Some merchants made money with land affairs, some did not. Land transactions require time and time means land tier to pay. The final price must be higher then the purchase price and land tier together, to make proffit.
In some places (for example Zindra, there are searching bots that automatically detect land for sale. If the price is too low, they will purchase it immediately. So, if you decide to give land to a friend (for free or for 1L$), it is important to specify tihs and not set land for sale to everyone.