Question, Can we not have a home Business?

I lived my whole sim's life at a Retail lot once. I just maintained an empty residential lot elsewhere (the smallest obviously) but I never visited it. The game will auto send your sims to the residential lot if they are returning from school or work, however and you have to employ an extra load screen to move them back to the retail lot. The game will still send you bills for the residential lot but they are mostly low and you can pay them from any phone or computer. This set up worked for me as it allowed my newly created sim to start a business right away and be able to afford to build a building for it with just a small kitchen and bed in the back.