Money Confusion

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JohnL83
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Money Confusion

Post by JohnL83 » April 1st, 2019, 10:07 pm

So I guess I did not have the money SP mod, so I downloaded it today.
For the most part things are straight forward and I'm understanding most of it, however, how is it that other sims can buy deeds to homes already being lived in? Can I stop this somehow? The way I was thinking is that my wealthy sims who live in mansions OWN those mansions. But apparently I am confused about Sims Real Estate. Is there a way to have my wealthy sims, who live in their mansions, own those homes outright? Or at least stop other sims from buying those homes? I don't mind them buying homes that are not lived in, or even getting deeds to lower-income homes from poorer sims. But it seems silly that a sim living in a 300K mansion and having nearly 2 mil simoleans themselves would rent the home they live in.

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igazor
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Money Confusion

Post by igazor » April 2nd, 2019, 12:43 am

Under EA standard, households that are inactive at the moment are not subjected to property taxes (the twice weekly bills). That's why, the EA way, most households or at least those who have a decent earning potential tend to accumulate vast amounts of cash after a while. Since they cannot purchase furniture or upgraded appliances and electronics, they will tend to spend some of that on wildly expensive cars and other luxury stuff they don't need but can carry around in their personal inventories. Many of us do not like this setup, it's not realistic, but the EA way we really aren't meant to care very much what is happening with the households around our own.

Under SP Money, by default with Unified Billing on, this changes and inactives do have to pay those bills. Many of us take this further by setting graduated property and then income tax rates by net worth caste levels to help equalize the wealth and make it much more complicated for inactives to become rich if they didn't come from Old Money; generally they have to progress through their careers to achieve that. You can see how much those property tax bills are projected to be by running MC > Status > Household on them.

Even with a cash balance of §2 million, if the projected tax bills on lavishly furnished lots are going to be higher than the household's expected income then that household faces a potential negative cash flow situation and the sims involved are not likely to want that because without other plans in mind that's a good way to become poor over time. They may seek to move or as you are seeing become renters to shift some of the tax burden over to their landlords.

Anyway, that's the theory behind it all. In practice, it doesn't always work out entirely as expected. I've had my own sims' residential lots sold out from under them when I was off playing elsewhere in town before I learned to lock that down on them, and I've seen sims sell their lots for negative amounts and thus pay negative rent going forward -- in other words, their landlords were paying them to live there, and that's not really intended either.

To prevent a sim's residential lot from being sold while they are living on it or from moving to a rented lot, SP > Sim (Household, Caste, Lot, Town) Options > Household: Rentable > T/F. To set this on the lot rather than the sims currently living on it, use Lot Options. Or you could do this the other way around and set the entire town under Town Options to not be rentable and them make exceptions for specific sims, households, lots, or castes. Note that none of these changes will affect sims who are already renting, they would have to buy their own property back first, but only those who have not yet entered into such a structure.

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Money Confusion

Post by JohnL83 » April 2nd, 2019, 11:52 am

Thank you Igazor, I think I understood all of that. :huh:

Another question, So if I set the lot to those settings will that lot revert back to the family?

Basically I play various families in this town, from poorest to the richest. These two families in particular I do not play very often. The Richley's are the second wealthiest family in town, ("old money") they bought the Saheed's mansion who are the 3rd wealthiest. (the Saheeds are a world class surgeon and the towns mayor or "leader of the free world".) As soon as I started with this mod the Richley's began buying up all sorts of stuff. I guess I named them aptly, huh?

The wealthiest family that I play most often are the Knowitall's and they started middle class with 10's in everything. But it didn't take them long with investments and good jobs to surpass the Richley's. I even started them out with only 10K simoleans! I'd never played a character with 10's in everything, but I was curious how that would play out. Generally I let most sims gain most skills and achievements, but since I started this town from scratch I wanted a varied group of citizens then got attached to the Knowitalls even though they weren't supposed to be my primary family. I didn't know I'd enjoy sims with karate skills and such, but it's quite fun. I kind of ignored some of those skills until this game.

Anyway, I'm still trying to figure out the whole money mod so I may be back for more tips if I don't see them in the FAQ...which in this mod's case did a pretty good job of explaining most stuff. Thanks again.

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Money Confusion

Post by igazor » April 2nd, 2019, 12:07 pm

JohnL83 wrote:
April 2nd, 2019, 11:52 am
So if I set the lot to those settings will that lot revert back to the family?
As I said, I believe that none of these settings will affect sims who are already renting. They will have to somehow buy their own property back from their current landlord. I think in at least one case I had to move the affected sims out, have the landlord sell the property, move the residents back in again (thus repurchase), and then unscramble the mess that the unexpected negative property value/rent had been making to the cash levels of both households. The supposed landlord and tenant were brothers, which made the business relationship a bit funny, the less wealthy sibling was actually in debt and recovering having just graduated from Uni and stating out fresh with his partner, but I can't say that was a typical arrangement.

There is likely another way to sort that out but am not sure what it is.

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Money Confusion

Post by Missy_Hissy » April 3rd, 2019, 9:03 am

igazor wrote:
April 2nd, 2019, 12:43 am
-- in other words, their landlords were paying them to live there, and that's not really intended either.
I'm going to chat to my landlord about this idea. This sounds much better.

Quite seriously, thanks for this thread. my Mum had this running rampant through a recent game of hers and we couldn't work out how to make it stop. This helps a lot, thank you!

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Money Confusion

Post by igazor » April 3rd, 2019, 2:45 pm

Missy_Hissy wrote:
April 3rd, 2019, 9:03 am
I'm going to chat to my landlord about this idea. This sounds much better.
Well, be careful what you ask for. You or someone would have had to sell them property you/they already own for a negative selling price first, in other words pay some huge amount to have them take it off your hands, before being able to collect negative "rent" for the privilege of living there. I don't think the tenant necessarily comes out ahead this way, depending on their life expectancy I guess and how much of it they have left to live at the time. :)

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Money Confusion

Post by Missy_Hissy » April 3rd, 2019, 2:47 pm

Hmm. Thinking more on this, that sounds a little morbid.

I'll pass. He probably wouldn't go for it anyway :D

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Money Confusion

Post by JohnL83 » April 9th, 2019, 2:51 pm

ANOTHER MONEY MOD QUESTION - Once I own a lot in town. Meaning I bought the lot and now it's icon is showing purple with a star. How do I go about renting the lot to a townie? I click and the only options are turning it into a resort, moving there, selling the lot...Nothing about renting the lot to other sims. I am confused.

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Money Confusion

Post by igazor » April 9th, 2019, 4:20 pm

I thought you removed the SP Money module. Without the module, there is no renting unless you also have an apartment mod going. But maybe am I thinking of a different player?

With SP Money, either sims will move into the lot on their own and become tenants (that could take anywhere from a while to forever) or you could MC > Add Sim some sims to establish a household that is renting on the lot to speed things up.

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Money Confusion

Post by JohnL83 » April 10th, 2019, 8:52 am

igazor wrote:
April 9th, 2019, 4:20 pm
I thought you removed the SP Money module. Without the module, there is no renting unless you also have an apartment mod going. But maybe am I thinking of a different player?

With SP Money, either sims will move into the lot on their own and become tenants (that could take anywhere from a while to forever) or you could MC > Add Sim some sims to establish a household that is renting on the lot to speed things up.
OMG Igazor. You're right, I did remove it... Sigh.... I'm so ready to be over all this at home recovering mess! My brain is fried.

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