Today Linden Lab announced that they have lowered the land setup fees!

I quote from the announcement on the SL website;

Decreased Land Set-Up Fees and Changes to Transferring Regions by Linden Lab on We are pleased to announce two changes that make it less expensive to get your own Private Island in Second Life! Price Drop for Land Set-up Fees Effective immediately, all new Private Island set-up fees are up to 40% cheaper! Whether you’re looking to expand your estate or just getting started with your first Private Island, it’s a great time to buy. Here are the new, reduced set-up fees: Full Private Island – previously $1000, now $600

Developed Full Private Island – previously $1029, now $629

Homestead Private Island – previously $375, now $225

Developed Homestead Private Island – previously $395, now $250

Openspace Private Island – previously $250, now $150 Qualified educational and nonprofit organizations will continue to receive a 50% discount off the applicable set-up fee (as well as 50% off ongoing maintenance fees). For more information about our discount program, please visit this page. If you have paid a region set-up fee in the past 14 days, you will receive the difference in fees back as a credit (in US Dollars) to your account balance.

I think this is a very, very good idea.

The costs of land have in the past stopped me from expanding my project and I am sure it has kept many from even starting one.

It will make things just a bit more attractive for people to take that big step and start their own sim.

I have suggested lowering and even scrapping these setup fees in the past and am happy this is now happening.

I don’t want to be rude and look a gift horse in the mouth but I still think it is too expensive, $600 bucks is a lot of money especially as the tier remains the same and we still don’t have the option to for instance buy half or even a quarter of a sim, or maybe sims that are only online in the weekends.

Something I’ve also suggested in previous posts here and here.

But nevertheless it is a great step in the right direction and it makes things a lot more attractive for those of us owning sims and wanting to expand and those who are thinking about starting their own sim.

And who knows, maybe more news like this will follow and other prices might start going down as well.

I for one am keeping my fingers crossed.

Let’s see if the amount of regions, which dipped below 25.000 recently, will now go up again.