Questions about landlords

[dragoness]

Nah, my landlord cleans up the old newspapers just fine. Sounds like some kind of hack conflict to me...

[ingeli]

Um, anyone else have the problem of the landlord picking up the old newspaper to dispose of it, then dropping it, then picking it up, then dropping it, over and over again? I use move objects on to delete it so he stops. It seems to be the only way he will.

I think that can be related to having a compost bin. It sometimes happens with the All-In-One maids, if you for example have hid the garbage bin to make them go to the compost bin. There was a hack for this, but I don't think it works 100 % anymore.

[Lion]

I don't have the problem with my landlord anyway.  Yes he hang about for a long time if I let him stay, or after the party, but he behaves sociably and leaves when it gets to about 2am (if he's not having too much fun being smooched over by Julien Cooke)

My landlord stayed for five days! Once I put in your Apartment Controller, he paced not in the lobby any more, but IN my sim's apartment. When got "shoo"ed, he just paced in the bathroom even when the bathroom door is marked "locked to all sims", or stayed in the apartment when the bathroom door was removed. Anyway, I finally made him selectable, and found he was all green. I slided his energy and a few other things to red, and he left after a while. He returned as normal the next day, and came and went just fine ever since, inlcuding after pizza parties.

[Inge]

I was planning to use Pescado's money orders as a way of transmitting the money to the lot owner, once a day.  Can anyone think of a reason this would not be a good idea?  I think it's good to not have too many different forms of currency in the game.

[Gastfyr]

I would love to have ownable hotels and apartments!   

One question, though:  Who would the tennants need to befriend in order to get cheaper rent in the apt?  The "real" landowner, or the "geezer"?

[Inge]

Ah...  I suppose the way I was planning it, it would have to be the geezah.  I was just going to let the normal process decide the rents and then they would be passed on to the owner.  On the other hand, there are two other options.  One is that the token does have a space for the rent to be set arbitrarily.  The other is that if the agent decides to let you off some rent, he has to make up the shortfall himself so the owner continues to get full rent.

Edit:  Actually the money orders are not gonna work after all.  I wanted something that stays in the recipient Sim's inventory rather than becoming part of the household funds.  And that will be useful when I make my hack for sims keeping their own earnings.

Later still:  No it has to be just me being thick - there must be *some* way of cashing these things?

[Inge]

Help!!! I suddenly found out how it's done and my sim has become a millionnaire.  I thought it wasn't working because he didn'#t get the money, then he got another money order out of the Buy catalogue and suddenly it all came rushing into his funds!!   Is this intuitive?  Hmm?  Anyway it's good enough

Ok well all my RTBNs are behaving themselves for a change, now I just have to link this up to the mailbox for rent collection.

[ingeli]

Hehe, I can help - send the millions to some of my poor sims

[crunk]

I love the idea of playable landlords! My only question: would they have to actually own the lot in question, or could we just assign a sim to be the landlord/"lot owner"? Either way, a good idea. With what the rents are in AL, I would expect most playable landlords to be millionaires!

[Inge]

At first, the Lot Owner (who gets the income) will be seperate from the Landlord NPC, who we should think of as the letting agent.  Later I might be able to add an option to make the Lot Owner also do his own maintenance work and rent collection, but that bit is slightly more tricky.

[Blech]

I also have that problem with the landlord just hanging out for days in the common area, usually ignoring his daily tasks. I have the ControlThisSim hack by Dolphin (I'm sure it's not updated, but it hasn't caused any problems for me), so when I notice that there's stuff he should be doing, I make him selectable and make him do his job. When he finishes, I stop controlling him and he usually goes home. He then works properly for a few days before I have to start the whole process over again. If there isn't anything he should be doing, I just ignore him and let him play chess all night in the rain, alone.

Btw, I'm really looking forward to your new shiny, Inge. I'm gonna go search for this "apartment controller", since it seems to do what I want, with the extra bonus of being current and awesome.

[Inge]

Progress report...
Good: The rent from apartments is now going to the nominated lot owner.
Not so good:  The unplayables can't see the contents of their apartments (which I sort of knew anyway) but it means they are paying a pitiful rent as if for a completely unfurnished place

Back to the drawing board!

[ingeli]

Will it be possible to nominate any playable sim, even if they live on the premises? I can see a scenario with a "houseowner" who lives in a part of the house and lives on the rent from the other apartments?

[Inge]

Yes - currently any sim you can get onto the lot (teleport etc) and make selectable for as long as it takes to make him lot owner.  At this stage the option makes the currently selected sim the owner.   I could add an all-family picker, but it didn't seem a priority at this stage

In my main test lot, one of the playable sims who is renting an apartment is also the lot owner.  It's a remote owner I have not yet tested

I think I will make it that the person becoming the owner actually has to pay the value of the lot.  It seems more realistic that way.  Anyone think this is not a good idea?

[J. M. Pescado]

Not so good:  The unplayables can't see the contents of their apartments (which I sort of knew anyway) but it means they are paying a pitiful rent as if for a completely unfurnished place

Rent does not include any furniture in the place anyway. The cost of an apartment rental is unchanged whether you furnish it or not, the calculation used to determine rent bases it purely on squareage. This is apparent when you build an apartment building, check its rent cost, move out, furnish, recheck rent costs, no change.

[ingeli]

I think that is an excellent idea Inge! More realism

[Inge]

Well... if furniture is not included in rent, then something else is wrong, since my playable sim is paying $160 and my nonplayable tenants are paying only $20 for the same sized rooms.  I am going to have to implement the original idea which is that the owner sets a rent himself and the calculated rent is ignored.  Either that or I will have to advise my land owners not to waste money furnishing the place as they will never get their investment back.

[Zazazu]

Well... if furniture is not included in rent, then something else is wrong, since my playable sim is paying $160 and my nonplayable tenants are paying only $20 for the same sized rooms.  I am going to have to implement the original idea which is that the owner sets a rent himself and the calculated rent is ignored.  Either that or I will have to advise my land owners not to waste money furnishing the place as they will never get their investment back.

That would be fantastic, actually. Dumb game won't let you get crappy high-priced slumlord apartments.

[Lion]

I think I will make it that the person becoming the owner actually has to pay the value of the lot.  It seems more realistic that way.  Anyone think this is not a good idea?

I can think of one exception, that the landlord does not have all the money for the building but can take out a loan (read: mortgage). I'm thinking of Monique's auto payment to repay the loan.

Talking about the furnishing, is there a way to rent a furnished apartment. The current business model is so limiting. Autonomous calculation that includes all the furnitures would be so nice.

[LauraW]

I can't wait for this mod! It will work great for a period neighborhood. I also like that the landlord can live on the lot. I have this vision of old houses split into apartments with some doddering old lady in the downstairs apartment as the landlady.

I actually prefer that the landlord has to buy the lot. Its more realistic. Also, is there someway the landlord can be charged a maintenance fee or something for maintaining the building? Of course, I could always do that through other hacks.

Thank!

[Inge]

The initial test version is up now, but missing a few features I am planning to add.  I think I would advise at this early stage that people use a test hood, and remove all the included files from their Downloads before opening their serious hood.  I don't want broken tokens littering an otherwise nice area

Edit:  Ok as I don't get time to play much as I am always hacking the code instead, can someone let me know the range of apartment rental prices they have seen?  Also the range of Hotel room prices per night?  Max, min and typical please.

[Gastfyr]

Cheapest apartments I've seen are around 200 simolions per week, and that's for a tiny place with no bathroom (just a small kitchen; I think the whole place was an 4/12 rectangle) and the most expensive rent I've seen was about 3000.  However, it would be easy to make rent a lot more than that by just making the place huge.  Also, I guess the cheapest rent would be for a tiny room with only room for one single bed an nothing else.   

Rent isn't just based on apratment size, since 4 apartments of the exact same size (in my expirence) alsways have small varriations in rent.  It seems to me that more expensive floors/walls come into play, since I don't paint them all exactly the same.  I don't know about windows/doors though.  Supposedly, the kitchen and bathroom pieces that come with the apartment also factor in, but I really don't know if this is true.  I've also read that if you have boolprop testingcheatsenabled true active and shift-click on an apartment door you will have the option to "rent furnashed" and supposedly this is exactly the same price as renting the same apartment empty.

As far as hotels go, they are stupidly expensive in my expirence.  I think about 400 per night for a tiny room is about the cheapest I've seen.  Highest was around 2000 I think?  My sims usually just go camping!

I'm sure someone else will have better numbers.  I really havn't played many vacations since they are generally very annoying (Hotel maids not cleaning, dirty dishes remaining on the lot even after the family goes back home...I find I have to re-do the whole vacation hood before it is even playable).

[Inge]

Well that gives me an idea of the range, thank you

[ingeli]

I definitely agree on the silly expensive hotels. Its hard to play a medieval guesthouse in the mountains, priced 1000 simoleons/night, or a Gypsy Travellers Camp for that kind of prices. A possibility to have really low prices would be excellent (100-200 a night would be so much better).
Over all, total freedom in setting the prices would be best. I mean, that way you can always take in the counting what tenants you want, what they can pay, and how fast you want your house owner to get richer.

[Inge]

Well I really wanted to just offer a range of about 10 prices so they all fit on one menu without going "more".  I *could* use my option from the whatever-I-made ages ago that lets you just keep clicking "more" till you get a totally custom-chosen rent.