Buying second homes possible ?

Without mods. If you have get to work you can technically buy another home but as a business. I have done this. I didn't furnish it as a business but as a family home. However, you will have to lock all doors for household only as other sims will just wander in even though the business was closed.

I have also purchased retail lots and used them as second houses. In my experience, only paparazzi tend to come onto the lot when the business is closed, but to be on the safe side, locking the doors is a good idea.
The other annoyance of using a retail lot as a house is that every item you interact with (and some that you ordinarily couldn't) has a "set for sale" option. If you accidentally click it when you're intending to open the refrigerator to get leftovers, it can disrupt your sim's morning routine.
I haven't tried using a different type of business lot. Maybe a vet clinic or restaurant would work better.

Vet works best because you can use moo to hide the required objects.

What I tend to do is to have my family move to a new home....when they do that I have them sell the furniture so it is all left behind. They can then go to the new home and remain there as long as they want to before moving "back home"

It's time to give us that option in game.

Look like using the retail system is the only option for now. Hopefully the sim team will update to give us a reason to be rich. Being rich in ts4 now is boring.

"jimbbq;c-17550524" wrote:
Look like using the retail system is the only option for now. Hopefully the sim team will update to give us a reason to be rich. Being rich in ts4 now is boring.

Haha I literally just complained about this very thing on a different thread ?

There was one that was made to do this but it has been removed from the creator's website. However, there is another that you can make this work.

More Buyable Venues and new Venue Types

The second home option was present in the most recent sims 4 poll, so it’s safe to say that at the very least, the devs are considering it.

"TheFlyingGentleman;c-17550499" wrote:
Vet works best because you can use moo to hide the required objects.

@TheFlyingGentleman wouldn't it be easier to build a basement room (no stairs) & put all the required objects in it? As long as they're somewhere on the lot it doesn't matter where.