Running a Successful Commercial Rental Business in Second Life

Carrie Lowe
Many people find that the idea of owning land and renting out space to stores is something that catches their attention quite quickly. For these people getting started can seem like a nightmare. In order to get started easily and quickly you need to first sit down and create your plan of attack, after all, what good is it to get started creating a business if you have no idea how you are going to run it? To begin with, you need to start looking for land itself, this is something that is really quick and simple and takes virtually no time at all.

After you have found your land, you need to start building your space. Either buy a mall or shopping center that is already built that you can just rezz out, or start learning how to build yourself. Creating the mall yourself opens up the possibility of using fewer prims, and a much more customized space. However, in order to build the mall yourself you absolutely must have good building skills. Nobody wants to rent store space in a mall that looks like it was just thrown together. A carefully created and decorated space is essential to actual success.

You need to also look for a good rental system as well. There are several on the market that you can choose from. Choosing a system that offers the largest number of options is typically best, and for this you will generally find a system such as HippoRENT to be the best. With a reasonable price and free updates, this can save you a lot of time, headaches and hassles in the long run. After all, would you rather be building up your business, or running around constantly collecting the rent personally?

As you are creating your business plan, you need to spend a bit of time to carefully decide on an advertising plan as well. This is an area where many commercial landlords fail. They simply build a mall and walk away expecting the places to rent out. Storeowners who rent spaces in malls expect the landlord to actually take some time to advertise the area. This means you are going to be responsible for advertising the mall, and also ensuring that everyone is paying the correct amounts on time. You should look at your advertising plan as you are creating your mall as well. This will allow you to structure the overall design and feel of the space around the crowd that you are looking to attract as well which can be a great help for you and your business.

Published by Carrie Lowe

Freelance writer and graphics artist.  View profile

1 Comments

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  • jcorn11/20/2008

    I've never done this but it seems you know the subject well :)

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