(This is a version of one of my handouts at my former "Gateway to the Mainland". At "Gateway" I had put together all the information I could find about buying land. I got most of the tips from the web, from my own experience, and from suggestions on the forums. "Gateway" is in the process of being moved.
Bitsy is imaginary. She represents a new resident who wants to buy a Mainland parcel. Most residents would not be as picky.)
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Bitsy lives in Bellisseria, but she would like to buy a parcel on the Mainland. She has saved her sign-up bonus and two months of tier so she thinks she can spend up to $L3400*.
These are the things she does before she starts looking for land.
First she reads all the land-buying articles on the Second Life Wiki starting at https://secondlife.com/land/purchasing. She reads other web articles and asks questions on the forums.
She learns that if she abandons her present home she will be able to hold up to a 1024 square meter parcel without having to pay additional monthly tier, but she also learns that she will have to find and buy the land and anything she puts on it.
She doesn't want to give up her home in Bellisseria just yet, so she decides she will pay the additional tier for holding more than 1024 square meters until she decides which parcel to keep.
(Tip from Chic Aeon: "Keep in mind that if you HAVE a Belli home or another parcel of mainland and do NOT want to pay the $7 a month extra tier you MUST give up your home or other land before purchasing the new plot. This is stated but not really underlined :D and plenty of folks have been caught paying extra tier for owning two plots of land -- even for one minute." She took the tour on the "Quick Tour of the Mainland" notecard that she picked up at the "Gateway" so she has a general idea of what 'Mainland' is, and what areas she likes.)
Bitsy starts to look for land:
1. She checks the land auctions.( "Second Life Land Auctions")
2. She checks the land-for-sale on Mainland posts in the forums. ("SL Forums")
3. She checks the Marketplace. The 'real estate' listings are mostly rental agencies.
4. She looks under Content/Search/Landsales and puts in her price range and the parcel size. She visits parcels that look promising.
5. She goes to World/World Map/checks the 'Land Sale' box and starts to teleport from one yellow 'for sale' parcel to another. She makes landmarks for places that she likes so that she can find them again.
By being booted off parcels with security orbs she finds out that sometimes the World Map still shows parcels as yellow "for sale" even after they have been sold.
6. She goes to World/Show More/Land Owners so she can see 'for sale' parcels while she is in an area. (This won't work if entire parcel is covered by a large build).
7. She has watched some of the videos on YouTube ("SecondLife 2021 Real Estate: Making Lindens With Abandoned Land (1 of 6)") and she considers finding an abandoned piece of land and asking the Lindens to cut out a 1024 square meter parcel and sell it to her, but she is too impatient.
8. She de-renders anything covering the terrain.**(Click on object, choose 'De-render Temporarily or Advanced/Highlighting and Visibility/Hide Selected. )
(Tip from Yukiko Yeshto - "...whenever I want to see the outlines of a parcel quickly, or want to be able to click the ground but without the hassle of having to derender objects manually: "Ctrl+Alt+Shift+9".)
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| "Water" land for sale |
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| 'Land' derendered. |
10. She checks the neighboring parcels to see when the neighbors bought their parcels. Are they newbies like her, or long-term residents? She notes things like privacy walls or one-prim spite skyscrapers that might indicate that the neighbors are jerks.
11. She does 'Area Search' (World/Area Search) to see what kind of objects are nearby.***
12. She checks the parcel boundaries (World/Show More/Property Lines or Control/Alt/Shift/P) to make sure there isn't a little patch in the middle that the seller may want more money for later.
13. She checks the fps rates (upper right or Advanced/Performance Tools/Lag Meter & Statistics Bar)****
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| Statistics bar - higher fps is better |
14. She sets her draw distance as high as it will go, and looks around. (Under Graphic Preferences (Command 'P' ) If she sees clutter on any parcels she checks to make sure that it is deliberate clutter, and not things left by squatters because the owner left 'auto return' under the About Land/Objects tab at '0'*****
15 She puts on the free E-Terra Chute she got at Stillman, goes into flying mode, sets World Map Coordinates to 4000 meter's up, and teleports. After looking around she stops flying and, circling slowly as she falls, checks to see what all is up in the sky. If she wants to put up a skybox later, she wants to make sure there is room. (Tip from Logan Fornier - Type "gth" followed by elevation into chatbar to get to elevation quickly). |
| 4000m over Brenner |
16. She checks 'Traffic' on the About Land/General tab. High traffic numbers might mean that the parcel used to be a club or popular store and you may or may not want people using old landmarks dropping in.
17. She isn't interested in opening a club, but if she were, she would check to make sure there wasn't another club in the same region to avoid 'region capacity' issues.
18. She would like to try doing some minor terraforming, so she makes sure that some terraforming is allowed******. Check under World/Region Details to see the terraforming limits, and the natural textures for that region.
19. Finally, as she is relaxing by taking a pod ride she sees a 'for sale' sign on a parcel and gets off to get a better look.
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Bitsy examines the parcel:
She wanted a parcel with road access, and there is no barrier between the parcel and the road. She checks off the items on her checklist, and then sits on the parcel for a while to see if the parcel 'feels' right.
She decides to buy the parcel.
Note that the form tells you what your new tier will be. If she had a 1024 on the Mainland and wanted to claim a premium home, she would get a message that she needed to upgrade her tier. You can only have one premium home per avatar, but you can have as much Mainland as you can afford.
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*Parcel prices vary widely.
**Also look to see if there is a large textured prim covering rough terrain or rock. Remember that terrain texture can't be changed unless you own a whole Region. Bitsy won't buy 'water land' because her friend who sails hates them.
***She's not just nosy, she's looking for things like '500 actively breeding bunnies'.
****She just knows higher fps is better than lower fps, all other factors being the same. For more information she could watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6GPUeXbEIg
*****When land is sold, 'object return' is automatically set to '0'. Without some kind of object return, errant objects start piling up, and you might even get squatters.
******Most Mainland can be terraformed 4+/-
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Remember that there is no one in Second Life policing real estate claims. Here are some terms I've seen in property descriptions:
Possibly misleading real estate terms:
'Water view' - Notice it does not say that you will have access to water or even that it IS water - it could be Void Ocean or not be navigable.
'Access to water' - Again, it says that you can access water, not that you will be able to sail on it. Try going to Advanced/Rendering Types/Water and turning off the water, then see if you can find a path to sail. Remember that privately-owned parcels could be closed to navigation at any time - usually only "Protected Land" gives safe passage.
'Roadside' - I've seen this to describe a parcel that had a herd of cows between the parcel and a road.
'Near the road' - This was on a parcel that had a skyscraper between it and the road.
'Protected' - Only official "Protected Land" gives protection - a road, for example. Abandoned land or 'Maintenance' land may be sold at any time.
'Water Land' - This usually refers to land that is actually on top of what would be a river or other water feature that could be used for sailing. I believe it is bad karma to buy these.
'White sand beach' - this one was not 'water land', it was just sandy terrain that had had water channels carved around the parcels, but the water channels belonged to private residents. The 'water' actually belonged to the parcel owners and there was no water passage. There are other 'water parcels' that have very well-crafted simulated beaches with real waves splashing on them, but they are still 'water land'.
'Pretty view', 'Sunset view', 'Nice quiet neighborhood', and 'low lag' may be true, but the future holds no promises.
'Objects included in Sale' - Check to make sure objects shown are transferable.
'Unblockable view' - Probably on the edge of the Great Void Ocean.
Sometimes parcels that are either for sale or for rent will have something in the description like "You are welcome to use all items on the parcel as long as you want." This is for renters. If you look further down you will see "Objects not included with sale."
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Update note from 4-4-22. Although Bitsy is an imaginary character, she is based on my own avatar. I followed all these steps and bought a 1024 parcel with a road in front and some abandoned land on four sides. The neighbors had nice builds and fps was good. A few weeks after my avatar moved in, a land group bought the large abandoned parcel across the road and sold it to a club which had a big rotating sign in front of it. Another parcel that was nearby now has a bakery building on it. A neighbor who had a quiet place with nice trees sold his parcel and now some kind of dating service moved in. Sigh! That's the Mainland for you.
Update 4-29-22. Izzy Linden and Strawberry Singh have put together a learning tutorial about buying land. It covers subjects like telling the difference between abandoned land and for sale land, cutting and joining parcels, and buying land for a group.
The 'land sales' tabs in the Official SL Viewer look different than those in Firestorm.
You can also visit Tourist Information in Celchu.
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