I have Sims 3 + LN

It is possible to purchase additional residential lots, both with and without improvements (houses, etc) on them. I cannot see the purpose in doing so, however. Unlike the community lots, they appear to generate no revenue. Other than bulldozing the whole thing and converting it into a community lot (which is silly), what purpose does this serve?

Aside from the egomaniacal factor of land-grabbing just for the sake of doing so, of course.

The purpose, other than switching homes when you're bored with the other, is mainly for Island Paradise where it features the resort ownership. It means that your additional owned community / residential lot can be turned into a resort lot.

Also, in Isla Paradiso, the world that comes with Island Paradise, has a number of hidden islands you can discover. Once you unlock the hidden islands, the island will become yours as an additional residential lot.

There are other purposes I can think of:

- it makes it possible to own a houseboat and a lot on land and switch depending on what you're currently doing
- you can have a summer and a winter residence
- you can meet your secret mistress in one house while the rest of the family is in the other
- if you live on a houseboat an additional residential lot might be a good idea if you want a big garden, too
- if you live very far away from the town centre an additional home downtown can be quite useful (especially when your children have to get to school in time)
- and it's also a way to manipulate story progression: owning an empty house means that no random families can move into it. Selling it afterwards makes it available for random move-ins

I am very happy about this new feature. Ever since vacation homes were introduced with World Adventures and the possibility to own more than one in every location I have wished that the same was possible in the homeworld.

You've just given me an idea...

It should technically be possible to have that mistress even join the household and have them locked into the extra home. Give them the Hates the Outdoors trait and they won't even miss the outside world. They should be able to survive without you taking special care of them. If you cook on your main homelot the food is available in all fridges on secondary lots, too. You'd probably have to tweak the jealousy settings using WooHooer, though, unless you enjoy the drama.

Well, I usually let my sims purchase a lot for gardening purpose...
For example, when my sims live in an apartment in Bridgeport, I let them purchase a tiny lot for their gardening activities...

I like the function too, my legacy are able to have an apartment in the city, a houseboat in the water and a big ol' house in the suburbs. I do wish there was some sort of functions to assign Sims to each property, but it's probably not possible.

I only have LN, so any features from other expansions are not available to me. The RP factor of being a real estate mogul or the mistress thing, etc is all I can use out of that -- though the lot just for gardening is a nice idea.

The problem with seasonal homes (which I HAD thought about) is that I think the game would still treat the lot where my sims actually reside as my "home lot" IE: if I order a pizza or invite someone over, they would go to the main lot, and not the secondary one, even if I were to call from the secondary lot, right? So even if I were to roleplay moving them into the second house and I threw a party, everyone would go to the first house. And if I actually use the household mover function to simulate moving to my summer/winter home, I would lose the household value of anything I left behind in the old house. It would still be there when I moved back, but then I would lose the value of the items in the secondary home, etc.

What I am really looking for, I suppose, is to be able to rent out the houses on the lots of the residential lots. Thats the intuitive purpose of buying more than one residential lot, given that is essentially what we are doing with the community lots. That doesnt seem to be an option here.

Other than that, when one of my kids gets married and wants to move out, I could set them up in the second home so they "live apart" from the main family but I still retain control of them along with the main household -- but still run into the same problem with NPC interactions being tied to the home lot. And i like my maid service keeping my house tidy :D

Well, as far as I'm aware you won't lose anything when you move between your owned lots. Both lots are still "open" for you (i.e. you can enter and leave at your will) and all objects can be accessed, sold or placed into the inventories. In fact, I think the new system is more flexible than the vacation home system in that the only restriction applies to the things you mentioned, like ordering things or where Sims go to when you click the "Go Home" arrow. I haven't tried parties yet but maybe the "Throw Party At..." option includes owned homes, too?
I think the main purpose of this new system is for story telling reasons and to give you more variety within one neighbourhood.

There are a lot of possibilities from this.

> You can make the extra house lot as a workshop to store all the workbenches, alchemy lab, easel, sculpting station etc. They don't look good in every home, and having a dedicated workshop seems to be the best way to handle these careers.

> You can make the extra lot farm lots for farmer sims out there. Combined with some of the Store stuffs like the gardening station and chicken coop, you can own a full fledge farm away from your home.

> You can make it into a storage area where you keep all the gems, aquariums, terrariums and whatever stuffs your collecting sims seems to have.

> Hall for activity center like pool table and various other games.

> A dedicated private gym building, especially if you own the sport stuffs.

And various other possibilities depending on your imagination.

Or you could play the "Big Love" version of the Sims and have multiple wives.

I think it's great; I used this feature as soon as it was added in the pre-IP patch, and have continued to use it.

In the first scenario I tried, I had a loner fisherman dude who lived on a small island in a bamboo shack. When he married, his wife had a mainland job she needed to get to, so they bought a modest house on the shore. My original sim still used the island property as a fishing retreat, but as they became wealthier (they had a dog who was good at finding tiberium >< ) they fixed up the island property with sauna, hot tub etc and spent weekends together there.

In IP, my houseboat-owning family bought an island lot for the eldest daughter when she aged to YA, and her boyfriend moved in. Yes, you have to direct the sims to the appropriate house rather than just using the "go home" button, and there is a little weirdness... for instance, a burgler who was trying to rob the secondary property wound up going to the primary one to be arrested And when you invite people over to a secondary lot you have to use "invite out" to make sure they wind up at the right place. But really it's not that much of a problem.

Should also point out that you are not restricted in which lot is primary; you can change that designation as often as you want with a couple of clicks, so if you want to throw a house party at the other lot, for instance, just make it primary for the party; can switch back afterwards.

In Bridgeport, you could have both an apartment for easy access to nightlife, and a suburban estate... sounds like a good solution for sim families who outgrow a small apartment but don't want to give it up.

All in all I think it's a great feature, adds lots of new gameplay.

Now that is an excellent idea!

They also make great lots for Stables for Horses, if you have Pets. They just take up so much room on a regular lot.

I really like this feature. I am currently playing Darren Dreamer in Lucky Palms. I love his house so much, the sparseness and layout especially. His wife is into many different things (alchemy, gem collecting, gardening, nectar making) and while I *could* fit all of those things into this property, I didn't want to spoil the feel of it. So, I bought the tiny house with a large yard near the Wonder Wells Garden lot and set it up for her. I replaced the bed with the Super Sleeper, gave her a garden, hobby room, pond, and even let her get a horse! It's the perfect situation for this family. Their daughter just became a YA and will be going to UNI to pursue a science career. I believe I will let her have a futuristic-style house to suit all of her needs in her goal to become a Mad Scientist. :D

Exactly what I've been doing for my farmers Plop a lot that snaps to the road for the main house and another huge lot behind it for the actual "farm".

So far, my NUMBER ONE use for a spare lot is for my stylists. They now live during the 'work week' above their salons, and go home to their dream home on weekends. This has really made the Stylist career much more playable for me....my auntie was a stylist, owned a salon for over 20 years, and would sleep upstairs during busy weeks like prom time and in June *weddings*.

And YES, my stylist is having an illicit affair with one of her 'clients'.....if her husband wasn't such a slob about himself, maybe he would catch her....lol

Just try not to do what I just did. I had to save and quit just after my Sims family went to sleep. When I restarted the game they were gathered at the base home, deadly tired all of them. The parents just had to walk to bed but the daughter and her fiance, who live on a houseboat in quite another part of IP, and the son who lives on an island in yet another part, scarcely survived the journey home. The son's lover was still sound asleep in their bed, though. Makes one think.