Depends on what you're doing. If you're renting regions direct from the lab? Yeah, you're getting fucked.
If you're renting from a estate owner? Depends on who you rent from, but the usual suspects are dicks.
If you're 'buying' mainland? Depends on if you got it abandoned, as part of a trade, and a bunch of other factors.
I've mainly lived on mainland my entire time in SL. My first place was an apartment out in Gulfport which, what is left of it, is in Hotei, Sansara that I rented for I think 300L$/week. In hindsight I could have gotten much better elsewhere, but it was the sentimental value, to me. Ever since I've primarily lived on Sansara (except for that one home on Zindra that was next to a 'dirt road' that connected the northern and southern road networks of Zindra), going from place to place, with ancillary rental homes all over, from Satori and the Blake Sea to Zindra and Heterocera. Almost all of them were bought from the Lindens direct at the usual 1L$/sqm rate, and have been pretty nice, almost always roadside.
That being said you do get fucked on Land Impact, but it's a lot better than it used to be, especially if you've learned tricks like I have to shave down LI on objects and maximize tier. Do wish I was paying 20 for a 4098 instead of 40, though. :/
