Q&A: For Rent

Unit Tax is a flat-rate fee of 50 simoleons per unit, per day. If each unit makes less than this in rent each day, you will run at a loss.

I had this issue trying to run a 16-room boarding house with minimal amenities in each rooms (just beds, dressers and mini-fridges). Rent never went above 24 simoleons, and even adding a suit of armour (10 environment) only boosted it to 36 simoleons or so for the room I put it in.

Conversely, starting with a small 2-unit Residential Rental (one for Property Owner to live in and a second to rent out), each with a full (but basic) set of suggested amenities, was way more profitable.

The system seems to encourage quality over quantity to turn the best profit, or at least up to a point I haven't reached yet.

I did some testing using a single-unit, self-contained house (Nookstone starter in OS) and my 16-room boarding house. The boarding house has 3x4 bedrooms/units, a communal lounge, 2 communal kitchen/dining rooms (stove, counters, 4-seater table and chairs, no fridge, but unit mini-fridges are loaded when playing in it), 2 communal bathrooms (3 sinks/loos & 2 showers in each) and communal deck/grills. They are built in the same neighbourhood with the boarding house built on the Agave Abode lot, so local/off-lot Amenities are the same. This way I had one extreme at each end (self-contained unit vs. nearly everything shared).

Seems to mainly be unit size and unit environment score that effects the Max Rent. I don't think having ALL Amenities in units are as important as long as basic needs are met, likely because they can be shared.

Changing the Nookstone's house/unit size so that the kitchen/dining room was almost non-existent made the unit size and the Max Rent drop by around a third.

For décor I tested in my bare bones boarding house. Max room/unit (3x4) rent was 24 simoleons, regardless of the number of beds in it. All had a mini-fridge, and a dresser (if there was room) too. Adding a suit of armour (10 env.) to the shared space didn't effect Max Rent at all. Adding one to a unit increased that unit's Max Rent by ~50% (I think it was 36 or 38 simoleons).

Removing Nookstone's kitchen (all except fridge) did nothing. Removing 1 full communal kitchen and 1 full communal bathroom from the boarding house - I had 1 of each per floor - also did nothing. The sims still had their mini-fridges in their rooms, and other communal kitchen/bathroom, plus the deck/grills, so all needs were still being met, just with less options.

The way it works you could basically have very low end, and more fancy/decorated units in the same RR lot, but with very different price points. They would all have the same shared Amenities, but this could be varied by clever building so that more exclusive areas are only accessible from certain units, or by using locks.

Tenant sims acquired via the Tenant Picker way won't usually pay the Max Rent, but I got 1 simoleon short of it with one Tenant. The better the unit rating, the more potential Tenants you have to choose from, so the better chance you have of getting close to Max Rent.

Alternatively, you can set the rent to Max Rent and move in sims manually via Manage Worlds. These sims will pay whatever the rent is set to.

Overall, it depends on if your want to use the Property Owner Tenant selection gameplay as intended.

The number of Tenants that show when playing as a Property Owner is tied to the unit rating and simulates it's desirability as a home. The lower the rating, the less sims there are interested in it.

I'm hoping this will be moddable to show all sims/more sims at each level. There is a similar mod that shows all/more sims to hire as employees.

You can view your Tenant Agreement on the phone, under the Home App. This brings up the same UI a Property Owner sees when setting rent, lease length and rules, but it can't be interacted with.

You can view unit info by clicking the Tenant Agreement button next to each unit in the Residential Rental Business UI. This brings up the same UI you see when setting rent, lease length and rules,

The UI can be interacted with, however, you can't change any of this outside of the Grace Period (starts at the end of each lease cycle, lasts 24 hours from 9 am). During it you can raise rent and change rules. Lease length can't be changed while there is a Tenant in residence. Leases auto-renew after the Grace Period is up.

A Lease Breaking fee (500 simoleons), plus any owed rent, will have to be paid when using the Live Mode moving options on both the computer and the phone. If you wait until the Grace Period, you would only pay the overdue rent... Unless you get evicted before then.

The fee and overdue rent can likely be avoided by evicting/moving sims via Manage Households, so it's up to you how realistic/avoidant you want to be.

Rent is automatically collected from the majortity of Tenants. You get a lump sum of cash for all paid up units and a notification when this happens.

If there are outstanding rent payments overdue (someone didn't pay) you will have a notification on the Tenant Agreement button for that unit, and have various ways to nag your Tenants for rent (mail, in person, via front door - as with as collecting fines), before choosing to Justly Evict them if you wish.

I can't recall when rent is collected, I've played more as a Tenant so far. Not sure if it's tied to lease length, sorry. Will update if I play more as a Property Owner.

There are ZERO required items for Residential Rental lots/units (a Mailbox will spawn one is if not placed though). There are merely Suggestions (needs objects, skill/hobby objects & décor are suggested to increase rating).

I will likely furnish most units in my save because if you want to start out unfurnished you have that option when moving in. If you move into a furnished unit, you are buying the contents, like in City Living/Eco Lifestyle Apartment lots. This means you can edit the unit to your liking.

You can edit inside your own unit, and add/move/change objects in shared spaces freely.

Some unit architectural details like roof texture/wallpaper/floors/fences/columns/wall décor on the exterior of units seem editable, and some (windows/doors/stairs) don't.

Some things are probably not intended to be changed, but could be (remember this isn't the final build/software) - E.G I made a bedroom of one trailer bigger, but then couldn't undo it without going in to build mode via Manage Worlds. The windows didn't move with the wall, but the unit boundary did.

This is a checkbox that indicates which unit the active household lives in. While loaded into a household and in Build Mode, you can easily move to any unoccupied unit on the current lot by simply clicking the Home Unit checkbox for the one you want to live in.

You can move into any of your owned Residential Rental units in the same building by simply selecting the Home Unit in build mode.

You can move via the phone in Live mode or via Manage Households on the map.

If you want to continue owning your previous Residential/Tiny House/Haunted House home, make sure you turn it into a Residential Rental lot and assign all the rooms to the first unit (or designate multiple units) before you move.

Remember to Sell furniture when moving so that it remains in the house.

No. Sims need to be moved in via Manage Worlds, Manage Households or as Tenants while playing as a Property Owner.

I'm hoping this can be modded for random new neighbour chaos to ensue.

From testing so far it seems like evicting via Manage Worlds has the same ease as Moving In from Manage Worlds.

Unjustly evicting while playing as a Property owner will likely get you sued and means you'll have a fine to pay.

In this mode, you aren't playing as a Property Owner, but rather as the player/Watcher. There are no repercussions for Property Owners when evicting sims this way, and it can be used to free up units/make households homeless the same way you would use it to free up any other home lot type.

Yes! And yes, with caveats.

Initial rent always seems to default to be a lower amount than the calculated Max Rent amount, likely due to initial Maintenance level always starting out Poor (to always give you something to improve).

Max Rent per unit seems to be calculated based on unit size and unit décor/environment score (possibly unit amenities too, but didn't effect the units I tested with). Deleting private/shared amenities did nothing, adding shared décor did nothing.

You can't change the rent as a Tenant unless you are also the Property Owner.

However, much like setting up Retail stores in game, you can have a sim buy the lot, set up rent for each unit and then resell it. Rent will stay as set until it is changed.

I tested if changing the unit size after setting the rent makes a difference to the rent set, and it doesn't. You could potentially charge way more than a unit is worth by reducing the unit size after setting the rent to Max Rent manually. You can charge way less than a unit is worth (even nothing) at any time, so no finagling needed here.

I don't know if the rent settings carry over when the lot is saved to Library/Gallery and then placed on a new lot/in a new save, like Retail setups do, as we have no Library/Gallery access in the CFE to test this. Hopefully it works the same, though.

By default, all unassigned rooms are Shared. All unassigned non-rooms (outdoors, etc) also seem to be Shared, but I'm unsure if they are used in rent calculations etc. Sims will be drawn to use various objects in both types of area.

I did notice in Build Mode that the the Amenities (suggested objects) are listed (with + marks to indicate their presence) both in the overall Lot Info panel, and in the Unit Info panels separately, and that the lists can be different. This makes me believe that lot objects are counted, but I haven't checked if these are items in shared spaces or the lot in general yet.

Yes! Just click and assign as any other room.

This may be the case with certain outdoor spaces like rooftop gardens, balconies and gardens made from the deck tool and grass/soil/paving floor tiles.

Yes, but with a few caveats.

• The space has to be accessed through the unit, with no other entrances. If you do have access to the fenced in area from shared space you would have to lock the gate/door leading to it - Any sim living on a Residential Rental lot can lock any door in shared space, so could potentially hog communal resources as things stand right now.
  
• Any sim who has teleportation powers or devices (or a Watcher who cheats) can access private outdoor spaces (such as flat roofs, balconies, gardens and decks) regardless of access points and locked gates/doors.
  
• Private yards/rooms with access to/from more than one unit will be shared by all units with access - Assign them as shared if you aren't planning to lock gates/doors, to keep rent fair for all units using the space.
  

You can use any mailbox you want, be it singular or multi, and the gameplay is the same.

With several separate mailboxes on the lot (trailer park) I did get the warning from the Mail Person NPC that they couldn't reach my mailbox a few times, but it functioned for my sim as normal.

I used debug wall mailboxes on each trailer and have most mailbox interactions on any mailbox on the lot. The Get Mail interaction is only available on the mailbox closest to my unit front door. I tested this by loading into 2 different units on the same lot and the Get Mail interaction moved when I did.

Mailboxes can be a target of the Snoop interaction, the target family will be whichever unit is loaded at the time. You cannot Snoop through mail on an uninhabited lot/unit.

There is an option to Sort Junk Mail while your own home unit/lot is loaded that uses the same animation of shuffling through the mail. This is only available while there are bills/mail in the mailbox to sort.

I noticed during one of James Turner's videos that he found a coupon in the mail (75% off of computers), but missed how he got it. I think it was this interaction though. I haven't found any myself yet.

This is how a sim would move out. If it's mid-lease (say day 3 of a 7 day lease agreement) they need to pay a fee for breaking their lease. There is no fee during Grace Periods, which last for 24 hours after one lease period ends and a new one begins.

This is an offsite way for a Property Owner to try handling a Tenant Revolt during the Tenant Revolt Event.

This is a way to donate to charity during in a Community Event being held in the building.

Offsite way to issue (and try to collect on) Tenant fines for breaking rules in other units and lots. You can also issue/try to collect them via the rule breaker's front door or the sims themselves.

There is one premade lot in the Library, but it's none of the ones from the trailers.

https://i.imgur.com/hVG6vae.png