I thank you for the link. I printed the page, and I'll give it a try. I was just wondering if there were an outside program that had the same capabilities.
To my knowledge, no. If you want to build sim houses, you need to run the sims game. I have two sims2 folders. The Sims 2_Current and The Sims 2_Build. I just rename whichever folder I want to use for the game to The Sims 2.
The folder I use for building has no custom content so the game loads blindingly fast.