How many levels do you prefer when playing in a house?

Single level is my preference since I can see what everyone is doing, and going up and down stairs is a waste of time that could be better spent elsewhere. With that being said, if I have a large family I will often door off a second story and make a "in-law suite" for my founder sim or one of my favorite spares. That way I can still keep track of them to an extent, and I can enjoy their company, but I can focus most of my energy on my heir.

It's a hassle to get toddlers up and down the stairs of a 2+ story house.

2 or 3 storey. I live in a 2 storey home, so hard for me to play single storey.

I tend to favor two levels when my Sims start making more moola and need more space. Larger one level houses doesn't look as nice to me, although I'm not opposed to them. Having a variety is always better.

The higher the better lol

Single storey but the exterior design makes it look like it's 2 or 3 storeys high.

One to two stories for my houses. They feel... Normal that way. They just feel too tall to me if it's a three of more story building.
Sometimes I make three story houses if I want to make something grand, but usually make more modest homes.

Usually it is 1 basement level (I live in europe, practically every house has a basement) and around 2 levels aboveground

Generally 2: kitchen, dining, living/parlor, & bathroom downstairs; bedrooms, additional bathroom(s), misc. upstairs. If doing a historical Vicky in TS2 will sometimes have 3, if only for visual effect.

There's actually not a strict rule for me. I'm fine with homes with stairs though. I'd say most of the houses that I play are multi-story.

When I download a home, I definitely download homes with stairs. I guess I like to have a yard and possibly a pool, so I prefer to stack the floors. I'm ok with basements too though basement space is just for certain uses in my households such as laundry or "rec rooms".

I just recently downloaded an actual palace and added a royal family in my game. It sounds cheesy but it seemed appropriate for this save. I decided that Prince Alistair Von Haunt has returned to the save with his princess wife, Claudine, and young son, Lionel. They own the Von Haunt estate but they don't actually live there anymore. That's just their official, historic palace that is open for public tours. They have a second modern palace on the large lot in Newcrest which is now a swanky area, where they actually live privately. They also own the Von Haunt winery.

Anyway, their palace is a gorgeous download from the gallery that someone clearly did ridiculously detailed recent work on since it was published after Seasons was released. I mean, those sims don't have other jobs so they have time to walk around all those floors and corridors.

I play with a lot of other demographics too including much more modest families. I like to play a whole bunch of different characters and see how they interact with each other.