Buy your own home

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Nothing beats owning your land and house in Second Life. As in the real world, you can seek refuge and enjoy privacy there. When you buy land, it's generally yours to do with as you please. You can build the home of your dreams or landscape the surroundings into your perfect garden.

The catch is that you have to be a premium member of Second Life to buy property, and you'll also have to pay a monthly property tax.

For between 5,000 and 20,000 Linden dollars you can purchase a reasonable block of land - and you can buy it directly or via auction. Once you have the land, you can drop a pre-fabricated house on it. Land in Second Life is generally not sold with a house on it. Houses can be easily added later.

So once you've upgraded your membership to premium, search for land below.

The process of buying land has its own permanent tab in the Second Life search form.

In the Land Sales tab, qualify the search by selecting Mainland from the All Types drop down and Mature Only. Mainland means that the Search will bring back only plots available on the mainland. Buying land on the mainland of Second Life (instead of the Second Life islands) is like buying land from the government. There are normally no covenants on the land, you are the final owner and pay land tax directly to Linden Labs. Mature Only means that you don't have to worry about engaging in activities that might scare the neighbour's kids.

Buying land on Second Life islands owned by private individuals is different. Even if you purchase the land you will have to abide by the covenants and rules of the island's owner. The island's owner pays the monthly land fees to Linden Labs. Buying on an island has been likened to renting because, ultimately, you still answer to a landlord.

Jeb's going to buy a plot of land on the mainland. Although he can buy land and a house, the key is the land, since houses are disposable and can be easily added. To narrow the Land search to what Jeb needs, he's looking for plots that are at least 512 square metres in size. That's the minimum amount of land you are entitled to in Second Life one you become a premium member, and is obviously the cheapest way to enter the market. But 512 square metres is a small plot. You can't fit a large house on it, more a cabin with a couple of rooms. If you can afford it buy a plot of 1024 or more square metres.

When you find a plot you like, teleport to it. You need to apply many of the criteria you would use if buying land in the real world. This plot, for example, is sloped, which means Jeb may need to flatten parts of it when he puts a house on it. It also has an ugly brick wall next to it.

This is a flatter block, but a giant building next door towers over it. Not ony does it block the view, but those living or working in it will look down on Jeb's house.

It pays to have a really good look around the land. Jeb clicks the Fly button and goes for a short reconnaissance flight around the plot, where he can see into his neighbours's properties. Remember to click on the name of the plot you're inspecting in the top menu bar, this will bring up more information on the land and also clearly outline its boundaries.

The land information box tells you whether there are any covenants on the land.

But Jeb's still looking. He wants something more private and flatter. In the search results, he selects a "Flat Green Mature" plot on the mainland.

It looks promising.

Make sure you know where the plot's boundarie are by clicking on the plot's description in the top menu bar. This will place yellow boundary lines around the plot. Jeb is going to buy this 512 sqm plot. It's not large enough for a big house but he just wants it for a cabin (which he'll either purchase later, or retrieve from the freebies he's picked up in his Inventory box).

Click on Buy the land infobox and you get a Buying Land dialog box. Importantly, it tells that you can own land and how much your land use fees will be per month. Interestingly, the monthly land use fees that you will pay to Linden Labs are not in Linden dollars, but real US currency. The dialog box also tells Jeb the land costs L$5680, but Jeb only has L$2540 in his account. So it suggests purchasing enough Linden dollars to cover the cost of the land.

Jeb gets his extra Linden dollars and agrees to the purchase. He get a box summarising the transaction he is about to carry out.

Jeb clicks OK and he gets an infocard (top right) acknowledging his purchase.

The infocard. The cost of his Second Life land in real dollars? Around US$24. This purchase will be listed on Jeb's owner's credit card.

Jeb can now set his newly purchased plot of land as his home destination, World > Set Home to Here.

His plot is also listed under World > My Land.

That brings up a list of all Jeb's landholdings. Now he needs to find a house to put on his land.

Jeb searches for "homes." Most will be pre-fab homes that he can drop onto his plot. Jeb finds lots of free home kits in the search results (and, of course, he also has the free homes he picked up earlier on Freebie Island and Help Island's Freebie store).

But Jeb wants a pre-fab home that will fit on his 512 sqm plot. A regular mistake by home buyers is to purchase a home that's too big for their plot. He searches for "homes 512 sqm" and finds a store which sells them.

Here are some homes that will fit onto a 512 sqm plot. Jeb likes the look of the Rock Cabin. It's small but not divided into multiple rooms, giving it a large open plan single room that can accommodate large pieces of furniture or rugs.

He buys the Rock Cabin, and, to be sure, also adds a Japanese Style Home and a Brownstone cabin. These are all added automatically to his Inventory List. He then teleports back to his land.

Drag the Rock Cabin package from the Inventory onto the plot.

Right clicks on it and select Open. This brings up the contents of the box.

Click on Copy to Inventory.

The package is now in a folder in the Inventory list. Drag the rock cabin onto the land.

Voila! He walks around the house, making sure it fits within the boundaries.

He clicks on the door, it opens, and he checks out his new home.

NEXT: The "special" furniture