Two people have asked me questions about land pricing in SL over the past couple of days. What makes land worth less or worth more in SL?

I should first issue a disclaimer that I have not made any money on the land market, and so have not followed my own advice. In fact I lost money in heaps buying snowland when it first came out high, and selling it low, and in buying up a lot of worthless land in Darkwood in order to try to help save the themed sim when the Lindens released the land they once held in trust.

There is no simple answer to the question. However. What makes land valuable for one person in SL may make it worthless for another. If you are looking for a quiet residential area with strong zoning regulations, then private sims where land for rental or "buying but not really owning" imposes strong restrictions may be worth a premium, for you.

If on the other hand, you have a yen to build multicoloured skyscrapers and fill them with noisy clubs, quiet land where people only ever teleport to their house and no one explores, will be worthless to you. You may be looking for high traffic land where people get out of the buildings and explore and give you some hope of attracting them to your place.
In general, that's now a faint hope. There are a few sims where land is expensive because there are old-established attractions in close proximity, which may lead to passing trade. But with point-to-point teleporting, and the search menu (when it's working) few people actually mosey around sims unless they see a lot of dots in one place and set out to investigate. The days when land around high traffic telehubs went for fabulous sums are, I think, past.

For people wanting to own a lot of land, a private island sim offers a lot more control and a lot more for their money, including better security and the ability to control access.

However, for those who start out with a smaller patch of land, the main limitation is that land in SL comes with prim limitations, with each parcel able to support a specific number of prims.There are some variations where land attracts double prims, but generally a 512 sq m plot will support 117 prims, or basic building blocks.

If you want to increase the number of prims you can use, there is generally only one way: buy more land. The stumbling point is that you can only add together prim allowances for parcels of land which are in the same sim. thus if you have a small plot in SimmyA and want to be able to use more prims there, it won't help you to buy more land in SimmyB. All that will happen is that you will then have a sim allowance in SimmyB, you won't be able to aggregate them and use the whole allowance in your shop in SimmyA.

As land in each sim is finite, one strong indication of the value of the land is to look at how much land is already set for sale. Then simple rules of supply and demand apply: If there is a lot of land for sale, then it is probably worth less than land in a sim where no land is for sale.

There are other influences, of course. If you have more than the 512 square metres which is included in a premium account, then you will be paying a separate monthly tier fee to allow you to hold the extra land. This tier fee goes up the more land you own, and is based upon the maximum land owned in a given period. Thus holding an extra 1024 for even a couple of extra days will incur a whole month's extra tier for that land.

Just like real life, if you are looking for a quick sale, because you want to tier down or convert to basic, then you will need to make the land better value for money than if you are prepared to wait to sell at the right price, obviously. If you find a good deal on a larger piece of land and need to grab it quickly, then you may be persuaded to sell fast at a lower price rather than incur increased tier fees -- and the balance between extra tier and lost revenue from the land will vary in each case.