Apartment/FLat Mod

When playing the sims 2 I have always wanted a way of my sims being able to rent an apartment/flat, so that sims that are just starting out can live in a nice place without have to spend a lot of money. When trying to make a mod to enabled this I couldn’t find a straightforward way to achieve this, but this selection of objects should help to achieve the desired effect.
To set up a lot to be rentable you need to follow these steps using the objects I have included in the zip file.

First of all you need to place an empty lot in your neighbourhood in the place and of the size that you want the lot to be in.
Then go into build mode on the lot and starts building the house/block of apartments, at this stage only add the foundations, walls, wall textures, floor textures, swimming pool (but not the ladder, slide, lights etc), roof, fences, half walls. Once you have finished this checking the value of the lot using the ‘lot info’ tool in the top left hand corner of the screen, and the add enough of the “dentedtrain_valueadjuster1_xxxx” shrubs to lower the value down as close to zero as possible. The “dentedtrain_valueadjuster1_xxxx” are in 5 values, which are 100, 1000, 5000, 10000 & 25000, so for example if your lot value is 100,000 just add 4 of the “dentedtrain_valueadjuster1_25000” onto your lot to lower the value to zero.
Next continue building your lot using the rest of the options from the build mode sections, so add your windows doors, plants, trees, driveways, driveway extensions and so on, just don’t go into buy mode and add any objects from there yet. Then when finished you need to count up any elevators on the lot and add a “dentedtrain_valueadjuster2_1250lift” or “dentedtrain_valueadjuster2_1400lift” shrub for each of the elevator of equal value that you have on your lot. Then check to lot value again and added a combination of the “dentedtrain_valueadjuster2_xxxx” shrubs (which again are in denominations of 100, 1000, 5000, 10000 & 25000) to lower the value back to as close to zero as possible.
Next finish your lot adding objects from buy mode until you have the desired level of furnishing for your apartments. Then in each of the rooms that are going to be rentable add a “dentedtrain_rentabledroomassigner” object don’t place one in any room that is going to be classed as a community area and don’t place one outside. The place a “dentedtrain_rentcharger” object and a “dentedtrain_billsadjuster” object somewhere on the lot. Then check the lot value again and add a combination of “dentedtrain_valueadjuster3_xxxx” gnomes (again available in 100, 1000, 5000, 10000, 25000) to lower the value again to as close as possible to zero.

Now this means that you will have a lot that any sim can move into and they will only have to pay a nominal amount to move in. When you move a sim into the lot the first thing you need to do in click on the “dentedtrain_rentcharger” object select the setup option and select ‘make objects stay’. This will mean that when you move the sim out of the lot the furnishings will stay put. The reasons to do this first is so that once this is set any further items you add for you sim that will be sold when they move out, and the original items will stay. Next in any of the rooms your sim is not going to rent click on the “dentedtrain_rentableroomassigner” and select hide objects. This will hide the objects from view and your sim will no longer try to use any of the hidden objects.
Then you are ready to go and the lot is setup for rental purposes, when you move your sim out the lot will be ready to accept its next tenant without doing anything.

All files just need to be placed in your sims 2 download folder as per usual, the files will work fine if placed in a subfolder of the download’s folder.

Object Info

dentedtrain_valueadjuster1_100, dentedtrain_valueadjuster1_1000, dentedtrain_valueadjuster1_5000, dentedtrain_valueadjuster1_10000, dentedtrain_valueadjuster1_25000

dentedtrain_valueadjuster2_100, dentedtrain_valueadjuster2_1000, dentedtrain_valueadjuster2_5000, dentedtrain_valueadjuster2_10000, dentedtrain_valueadjuster2_25000

dentedtrain_valueadjuster3_100, dentedtrain_valueadjuster3_1000, dentedtrain_valueadjuster3_5000, dentedtrain_valueadjuster3_10000, dentedtrain_valueadjuster3_25000



Located under build mode…/Garden Centre…/Shrubs
This objects can be placed anywhere and on top of each other

Dentedtrain_billsadjuster



Located under buy mode…/General…/Misc
This object makes it so that the bills delivered to the lot are always equal to $100

Dentedtrain_rentabledroomassigner



Located under buy mode…/General…/Misc
You have the option to change the model on this object using the change model option in it pie menu this will help you to match the décor of the room it is placed into

Dentedtrain_rentcharger



Located under buy mode…/General…/Misc
This object charges you rent at 0400 each day the default amount is $50 per rentable room, you have the option to change the amount to $75, $100, $150 or $200, by using the objects pit menu.

dentedtrain_amcollection

this is just a collection file to be added to your sims2 collection folder to make the objects easier to find

StayThingsShrubsGlobFix

The dentedtrain_rentcharger object uses some code from Inge Jones StayThingsShrub this fix file stops the fridges from malfunction once being flagged to stay on moveout. ( thanks to inge for the code and fix file)

Update 01/06/2007

have updated two of the files to solve an error that would happen if you sim didn't have enough money to cover rent, now if the sim doesn't have enough money the rental charge is added to the bills.
Main zip file has the updated files, if you have downloaded before just download the Update file and overwrite the files in your downloads folder.

Additional Credits:
Usual thanks to the creators of SimPE and creators and administrators of MTS2 website.