The Danger of Sudden Homelessness in SL

For the past 9 months, I have been the proud renter of a lovely little island set in a sim designed to be a replica of Tuscany. The sim was very well designed early on, but soon changed piece by piece until my island was the only piece of the sim that remotely resembled Tuscany.

My rental agreement was well priced for a 4096 sqm island ($L2200 per week), with 937 prims. However, the rental restrictions were a bit odd, with no changes allowed in the areas of sim music choice, land elevations or visitor restriction. The limited rental permissions were due to the sim owner's desire to gain "purchase" along with rental. For $L7600, plus the same weekly rental, permissions were more liberal. I opted to try out the place for a few months, but music was not important to me and the shape of the island was what I liked about the place anyway, so I searched thoroughly for an Italian style home to plop on my island and continued to rent all these months without paying the purchase price since that was not a requirement.

I loved my place but was getting frustrated with the ever changing environment around me. My Tuscan sim soon changed into a mess of varied, chaotic neighbors who could switch to a tropical theme or build a giant house of cards next door without any land design restrictions imposed. Despite these horrid changes around me, I still loved my place.

Some of these changes increased after my landlord informed me that he was no longer the manager of the sim. I think he gave me the name of the new owner/manager, but my rental box was still paying the same manager, so life went on without much incident.

Due to some RL changes, my recent SL use has been very limited and the thought of letting my villa slip away was very tempting. My rental box had notified me that I had 2 days left before running out of rent. So the next day I attempted to enter the sim to pay for one more week to get some pictures and remove my stuff before letting the rent run out for the last time.

That's when it happened.....I attempted to go to my sim to pay the rental box, but the transport failed with an error that said the sim was down or no longer existed!! I waited a few more hours for another try and then tried again the next day, but all subsequent attempts failed to find my beloved, yet crazy sim.

After a few more attempts, I looked at the old manager's profile, and suddenly, my sim, which had been one of his picks, was no longer listed as it had been a couple of days ago. That convinced me that something was horribly wrong and so I contacted the former manager to ask what was going on. He explained that he was no longer the manager again, but failed to tell me what had happened. I also noticed that NONE of my personal property had been returned to my lost and found!! I was not only homeless, but ALL of my belongings had been stolen in the process!

I tried further to get some information out of my former landlord, but he would only provide a partial name of the avatar that had taken over.....I was smelling something very rotten in Tuscany (Tuskany Sim). After some bugging and hostile verbal exchanges, he finally offered to give me a new parcel in his other sim for the same price and to reimburse me for the lost property. I estimated about $L8000 since my structure and boat were copyable, and this would cover my furniture/garden losses. He paid me the money without hesitation and then left without any word or explanation.

I know the former manager now has a huge Itland sim with residential and commercial complexes, but after this fiasco, I wouldn't take him up on that offer for any sweetened deal imaginable. The owner is actually a native Italian which I thought would help with maintaining a traditional Tuscan style sim.....I thought wrong.

So there really isn't any moral to this story except that if something like this happens to you, you could complain to Linden for fraudulent behavior if the owner/landlord did not reimburse you....and there are mediation/litigation groups in SL, but I'm not sure how much power they actually have. However, in all of my rental experiences I never imagined anything like this could actually happen without any warning. Can you protect yourself? I doubt it unless you restrict your home/furniture purchases to copyable items, but that's not possible for most of the really creative items out there.

And of course, no one can reimburse you for all of the shopping time you took to get your home looking just right.....farewell fond villa, it was my favorite place so far....on to the next place.....maybe I'll go with a well established sim that has been around for a very long time....maybe that will help guard my rental investment.....but there are no guarantees.

Your friendly neighborhood nomad,
Sif

House Hunting Part III - Renting Land

When the concept of rezzing my own house on land came to my attention, I immediately thought I had to upgrade to a premium account and purchase the land. However, when I began to search the land sales listings, only a small percentage were actually for sale. The rest of the "land sale" listings were actually rentals offered in the guise of land purchase. If you truly purchase land, you do need a premium account and have to pay monthly tier fees to Linden if you purchase anything over the allotted 512 square feet size - which is, in reality, a tiny parcel. Then, if you get tired of your parcel, you have to continue to pay the tier fees until you sell the land to someone else. Based on the sheer volume of small land parcels available in SL, selling a parcel could take months, unless you spend more fees for classified ads to attract buyers.

Then there is the problem of neighbors. You may find the most beautiful parcel of land imaginable, but a few months or weeks after rezzing your new house, you suddenly have new neighbors who build something ghastly or distracting to your guests. Then what happens? If you've purchased the land, you have to sell it to move - and good luck selling with weird builds next door. Or, as in my case, you like to change your home with your mood. I had a beach house during the summer, and a Tuscan home in the fall. This type of change is only practical if you rent the land.

If you do want to take the plunge into actual land purchase, examine the land covenant in the "about land" section when right clicking directly on the land. The land covenant will let you know what type of building is allowed. This is VERY important! Some land covenants are very open and allow almost any type of build, which is tricky as explained above. Other covenants are very restricted which detail the size of your build based on parcel size, and how close to the property line you can rez, or what style of house allowed. In my experience, for sustained re-sale value, the more restricted in the area of style, the better the overall atmosphere remains. Just because you purchase the land, does not mean you own the entire sim, so you will want to see how many prims are allowed on your particular parcel - not all land prims are the same - some sims are more generous than others when it comes to prim allowance - and don't forget to look at the prim level of the house you are going to rez!

If you decide the rent the land, you usually have the same privileges as a true purchaser, but retain the freedom to vacate as the mood hits you. Of course, renting the land might be a little bit more expensive, but not very much, so it's definitely an option worth considering.

So, if you are happy with your previously rented little space, why would you want to build your own house? For me, visiting a prefab home showroom once had me quickly hooked. Once I was made aware of the existence of these large stores, my lovely little rented house suddenly seemed inadequate. The wonderful thing about these supercenters of architecture is the ability to tour each home at leisure.

The sheer variety of homes available is staggering, although the majority of homes available in SL are contemporary in design....not only because this design is popular, but also because it is an easier design to build. Some of the contemporary designs are simply stunning due to high levels of textural quality. My preference lies in homes that closely resemble RL architecture, but the sky is literally the limit in SL when it comes to designing homes. Besides elaborate skybox houses that float high above the land, any other kind of imagined architecture can be found. Fantasy houses, such as treehouses or castles, are also very popular depending on the land you choose to build on.

Matching your house to the land is probably the first major element you should consider when toying with the idea of building or rezzing your own home. If you want a ski lodge, don't rez one on beach front property....and besides, the land covenant probably would not let this happen anyway. But, once you are ready, simply visit the potential parcel just as you did when shopping for a home rental, and pay the weekly rental box in the same manner. Once your resident group is activated, you are ready to get rezzing!

Here are a few of my favorite prefab stores:

Barnesworth Anubis Pre-Fabulous Homes and Furniture: Barnesworth is probably my favorite place for nice solid homes with great detail. However, much of the details used in Barnesworth's designs are not photographic details, but beautiful subtle shading in each prim. Designs also include very nice moulding touches with walls that are not paper thin. Stairs are also real stairs and not one prim ramps with stair textures.

Satir DeCuir's Houses Homes Prefabs: A nice favorite for historical and ancient designs. Satir specializes in cabins, farmhouses, ancient roman villas and moroccan designs. Again, great detail with walls that are think enough to keep your outside plants outside.

Fire and Water: Absolutely gorgeous prefabs in the fantasy style. The details are stunning with thick walls and the floor plans are open with courtyards and fountains. Well worth the visit to see what SL talent just waits to be experienced. The furniture store is also a great find!

Villas on Villa Prefab Houses: A fairly new designer that only offers about eight villas in two design styles. The walls here are very thin, but the wide open spaces inside with beautiful photographic textures make this a must-see for those thinking about a Parisian or Tuscan villa. Each villa also comes with a wine cellar. Prims are low, but the villas are a bit pricey. There is a treasure hunt always going on to allow winners the choice of their favorite villa as a prize....but this means a lot of visitors and quite a bit of lag.

Enjoy,

Sif