The Housing Market on Extended Games

Personally, I just move them in manually, in from Manage Households, as I found that the game doesn't move Sims in very much on its own regardless of the setting -- only very early in a save. Another option is to use the mod suite MC Command Center's option to fill houses. It's very effective. You just tell the mod how many houses you want to leave empty.

I just use MC Command, as @luthienrising mentioned. It works very well. I tell it to leave only 2 open houses and in very short order every lot except 2 has sims moved in. Previously to the game I'm playing right now, those houses generally were full within less than one sim generation and they stayed full even as sims passed away...in large part because MC Command is also good at making babies for existing sims. If anything, the biggest problem over time is the households tend to get too large.

For my current save, I redid every lot in every world, making them more live-able and seasons-compatible. I also removed almost all of the EA premade sims (except for a few favorites plus the new ones from GF). Letting the game (with MCCC set to use sims from my gallery) fill in all the sims, so it is taking longer to fill the houses, but it is happening.

The game itself, without mods, doesn't really have 'progression' per se. I think their failure to implement it well in TS3 led to them just not bothering at all in TS4 because they knew modders would just do a better job anyway. (cynical...I know)

You could use the code "freerealestate on" to move the game generated sims into those more expensive houses.

Turn aging off. Never have kids. Create/download hundreds of bachelors/bachelorettes. Place a bunch of night clubs. Turn the music up. Place a juice bar on every lot. Live young. Live forever. Live the dream. Woohoo with Nancy Landgraab, Bella Goth, Zoe Patel, Eliza Pancakes, and the Caliente sisters every single night. Never slow down. Never stop partying.

@luthienrising and @Stormkeep is there a way to keep a particular house empty? Or should I just go back and remove it for now, until my Sim is ready to move into it? I have MCCC, but don't yet know all the ins and outs of it.

@GalacticGal, You can definitely set a household to never move OUT, but I dont' know of any way to lock a house in such that it stays empty. I haven't searched particularly hard for such a feature though, seeing as I don't really care if other sims move into a house I will want for myself later. It is easy enough to evict them once I need it and it's not like NPC sims make changes to it while living there.

"GalacticGal;c-16862634" wrote:
@luthienrising and @Stormkeep is there a way to keep a particular house empty? Or should I just go back and remove it for now, until my Sim is ready to move into it? I have MCCC, but don't yet know all the ins and outs of it.

How about marking that lot as generic for the time being?

"Stormkeep;c-16862659" wrote:
@GalacticGal, You can definitely set a household to never move OUT, but I dont' know of any way to lock a house in such that it stays empty. I haven't searched particularly hard for such a feature though, seeing as I don't really care if other sims move into a house I will want for myself later. It is easy enough to evict them once I need it and it's not like NPC sims make changes to it while living there.

Problem is that the furnishings often disappear under those conditions. I think I'm better off just removing the house, for now. I jumped the gun a bit. LOL It's my singer Sims' house, but he's a long way from moving out on his own. :open_mouth: What was I thinking? Oh, that's right I wasn't thinking. :p

@galacticgal You need to not move sims out with furniture and the furniture doesn't disappear. It's counter-intuitive, but the option to "sell furniture" is how you get furniture to stay in the vacant house.

Furniture does not disappear unless you make it do so. :)

The suggestion from @Silentkitty to set the lot type to 'generic' instead of residential is a very good one too though, it will keep the house there, but MCCC won't move anyone into it. Then, when you are ready to move in, set it back to residential.