A question many have, and will ask: Why buy land in Second Life?
Answer isn’t simple, and most likely it’s personal question, but nevertheless, i will try to give YOU some reasons to consider your own land in Second Life.
Hangout
A place for You and Your friends to hangout, or maybe all bypassers, place to relax and chit chat, and do fun stuff like playing monopoly, chess, cards, Tiny Empires. A place for You and Your friends to gather.
Your hangout could be like a club, beach, garden, or maybe a camp place with night sky sparkling with stars?
Sandbox
Like building? Want to learn building? Hate public sandboxes? Need privacy or more permanent place to sandbox, maybe you are developing dataservers which require to stay longer than mere hours or a day in the place? Then you need your own land, or a sponsor. All public sandboxes have others working too, and time limits how long your stuff can be there. Using someone else’s land with incorrect permissions isn’t the best solution either, for various reasons.
In that case you need your own land. For sandbox you have a lot of choices too mainly, unless you need specific terrain.
Showcase/Portfolio
Artist? Musician? Photographer? Builder? You might need a place to showcase your works, let others enjoy, and give feedback on your works, or maybe even sell your works!
Private Place
A place to be in private. Being in private is hard in Second Life, but the need is there nevertheless. With instant messages, instant transportation, among other things, it might not be easy in Second Life. Maybe You, and maybe your girlfriend/boyfriend want a private secret place? Then you should consider acquiring your own land.
These were some of the many examples for what people generally need land, everyone have their own reasons, and no one is the same than the other. Maybe you want a club exactly to your taste?
The cost can also be offset with many ways, one of the biggest worries for new land owners is can they make the tier? How to get the money now to acquire the land?
There’s many reasons, if it’s a place to hangout with friends, you might ask them to chip in with you and have the land under joint ownership (using a group). Tier is also a lot more expensive for small land owners, you could rent your tier, for example from Ninjaland (Elanthius Flagstaff / Skye Whitcroft), or maybe just rent the land?
Sometimes you can rent land for cheaper than your tier cost would be! Think about cheap? 
Many people argue that SL companies vanish overnight, if you are worried over such, choose a large business doer who has been in business for longer (For example, us, SLIB Real Estate. We’ve been in business since Dec 2006, and in larger scale since Spring 2007).
On the flip side of the coin, price is not all what matters. For example, a estate with higher tier costs basicly means that they are going for more financially stable business model, and are that much less likely to disappear. We have seen several larger estate owners disappear, largely due to neglect towards profit margin, and doing “favours”(letting people go over due significantly). Small profit margin means that the company is more susceptible to market downturns.
Also, you might want a pretty LAKE front, instead of oceanfront, or high up in the hills, or snow land. These all are cases where cost is significantly higher. However, if you are lucky and watch the market, you can sometimes snatch a bargain from these types too.
Mainland vs. Estate is ever-lasting debate also, along with ownership vs. rental. (Estate land ownership is real ownership for the most part too, not lease. Land taxes are present also in Real Life.)
Mainland offers lower running costs, with higher acquirement costs … and usually worse views and no governing at all. However mainland offers definite TANGIBLE value.
Estate offers higher quality land, with governing, and usually with atleast some degree of landscaping. All estate owners are also significantly smaller than corporate Linden Lab, and usually offers more personal level service. However, estates have higher running costs, and not always have definite resale value. Estate land value is highly susceptible to whims of the market. However, this is often offset by lower acquirement price.
There is some mainland spots offering even higher quality than estates generally (or almost ever) offer, but they do come with very very high price tag. From my personal experience, these are insanely rare and hard to come by, with SLIB Real Estate having just a total of few of these places over the time so far! There is also some communities built by Linden Lab, and very often the higher quality & value is associated with Linden Content, roads, bridges etc. For Linden Lab, it’s financially viable to make these ultra high value and quality spots, while as estates have very slim profit margins compared to Linden Lab, that it’s very hard to come with any reason at all to create such landscaping, as usually the surrounding area to the very high quality spot is undesireable, or alternatively, so much land has to be tied up into landscaping.
As for renting, you never own the land, but it’s a cost effective means to get your hands on a piece of land you can call Home. Also, you can have an mortgage for the land to have means to acquire more land, and the exact type you want, now, rather than waiting and saving money for a long time.
