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Flipping Houses in the SIMS?
tangledwings
Posts: 8 New Member
I absolutely loved the resort management system from the Sims 3: Island Paradise and it got me thinking: how many Sims fans are into HGTV? Probably a lot! We love to build and decorate and advance our Sims's careers. Wouldn't it be great to have a house flipping career?
Here's how I envision it working:
1. Your SIM wakes up in the morning and uses her computer to view a list of "foreclosure properties"
2. She chooses a property and drives down to city hall to participate in an auction
3. Your SIM bids against AI SIMS to buy the house (this can take place in a pop up window)
4. She travels to the property only to find that most of the appliances are broken, there is trash everywhere, the house has a weird layout and cheap furniture
5. She either repairs the appliances or pays someones to repair them, same with trash
6. She enters build/buy mode to play with the layout of the house, the design, furniture, and landscaping
7. She may create art pieces to put in the house or look for junk furniture to refurbish
8. She chooses a price for the house
9. She has an "open house" where AI real estate agents inspect things and give her feedback on the price
10. She goes home and waits for offers to come in (via cell phone or mailbox.) She may have to lower the price in order to get offers
Making this career fun:
1. This career is not just about design. Part of the fun MUST come from trying to get a good deal on the house, setting up and managing your reno budget, and figuring out a good sale price
2. There must be a good chance that you will lose money if you manage things poorly. Otherwise it's not exciting
3. You should lose a small amount money every day that you own the house (in the form of property taxes, loan fees, or interest accrued from loans) so that there is some incentive to get the house done and sell quickly. This also ensures that the player can't set the price too high and then wait around forever to get lucky
4. There needs to be a lot of variability/randomness in the price of the houses available, the amount the AI bids on them, as well as the offers that come in from buyers. A great deal shouldn't come along every day and players should be excited when they get one. They should be dropping out of bidding wars sometimes because the price has gone too high, and they should sometimes get lucky when they highball the end price
5. The scrapyard from the SIMS 3 would be great. You can scrounge for old/broken furniture and appliances and use your skills to restore them to their former glory. Then you can put them in your house to increase its value
6. It would be great to come up with a few more things that could go wrong with the house. It would be great if the grass/plants took time to grow/green up, or other mechanics that would require you wait a few days rather than just going into buy mode and finishing the house in 0 SIM minutes.
7. The absence of the create-a-style design tool will make things a little less interesting. At the very least we would need more furniture and decor to make this career fun
Establishing the value of the house:
1. Even if the player isn't 100% sure of where to set the price, the game needs some internal mechanism for determining the "true" value so that the AI buyers can act accordingly
2. An enclosed space = 1 room
3. Rooms must have a minimum number of tiles in order to count as a room. This way players can't simply make four tiny rooms and sell the house as a four bedroom
4. Naturally bathrooms (rooms containing a toilet) can be smaller than other types of rooms
5. The game should classify rooms as "small" "medium" or "large" based on the type of room and the number of tiles. Larger rooms add more to the value of the house
6. Additionally, bathrooms become more valuable as they gain "pieces" (a toilet and a sink are a 2 piece powder room, a toilet, sink and shower/shower-tub are a 3 piece bathroom, a toilet, sink, shower and tub are a 4 piece etc.)
7. The value of furniture like counters and appliances should be included with a mark up (ex: base value + 5%)
8. OR you can classify the furnishings as "budget" "mid range" or "upscale" based on the value, and then set a sale value for each category (ex: +20k for mid range appliances)
9. Landscaping can work the same way (ex: value of the plants +10%)
10. Any messes, broken furniture, pest infestations and other issues should significantly decrease the value of the house.
Remember that the list price for the foreclosed house should be related to the "true" value, but have a lot of randomness/variability involved as well. Same with the offers you get on the remodeled house (though this range should be much smaller, since hunting for deals is more fun then waiting for bids.)
More implementation issues:
1. The "foreclosure" houses will need to be pre-made rather than randomly generated. That means there will be a limited number of houses, but the SIM fan community is very active and loves to share. I am sure fans will contribute more disaster houses after the standard ones have been fixed up.
2. The houses do not need to be in the neighborhood or visitable after sale. Making them permanent neighborhood fixtures would be too difficult with the current size of SIM neighborhoods.
3. Having said that, there should be rival flippers/real estate agents with wacky names that show up over and over again. This gives the player the sense that they have real rivals.
Please comment with your own ideas about a "flipper" career! Would the idea I've laid out work? What could make it better?
Here's how I envision it working:
1. Your SIM wakes up in the morning and uses her computer to view a list of "foreclosure properties"
2. She chooses a property and drives down to city hall to participate in an auction
3. Your SIM bids against AI SIMS to buy the house (this can take place in a pop up window)
4. She travels to the property only to find that most of the appliances are broken, there is trash everywhere, the house has a weird layout and cheap furniture
5. She either repairs the appliances or pays someones to repair them, same with trash
6. She enters build/buy mode to play with the layout of the house, the design, furniture, and landscaping
7. She may create art pieces to put in the house or look for junk furniture to refurbish
8. She chooses a price for the house
9. She has an "open house" where AI real estate agents inspect things and give her feedback on the price
10. She goes home and waits for offers to come in (via cell phone or mailbox.) She may have to lower the price in order to get offers
Making this career fun:
1. This career is not just about design. Part of the fun MUST come from trying to get a good deal on the house, setting up and managing your reno budget, and figuring out a good sale price
2. There must be a good chance that you will lose money if you manage things poorly. Otherwise it's not exciting
3. You should lose a small amount money every day that you own the house (in the form of property taxes, loan fees, or interest accrued from loans) so that there is some incentive to get the house done and sell quickly. This also ensures that the player can't set the price too high and then wait around forever to get lucky
4. There needs to be a lot of variability/randomness in the price of the houses available, the amount the AI bids on them, as well as the offers that come in from buyers. A great deal shouldn't come along every day and players should be excited when they get one. They should be dropping out of bidding wars sometimes because the price has gone too high, and they should sometimes get lucky when they highball the end price
5. The scrapyard from the SIMS 3 would be great. You can scrounge for old/broken furniture and appliances and use your skills to restore them to their former glory. Then you can put them in your house to increase its value
6. It would be great to come up with a few more things that could go wrong with the house. It would be great if the grass/plants took time to grow/green up, or other mechanics that would require you wait a few days rather than just going into buy mode and finishing the house in 0 SIM minutes.
7. The absence of the create-a-style design tool will make things a little less interesting. At the very least we would need more furniture and decor to make this career fun
Establishing the value of the house:
1. Even if the player isn't 100% sure of where to set the price, the game needs some internal mechanism for determining the "true" value so that the AI buyers can act accordingly
2. An enclosed space = 1 room
3. Rooms must have a minimum number of tiles in order to count as a room. This way players can't simply make four tiny rooms and sell the house as a four bedroom
4. Naturally bathrooms (rooms containing a toilet) can be smaller than other types of rooms
5. The game should classify rooms as "small" "medium" or "large" based on the type of room and the number of tiles. Larger rooms add more to the value of the house
6. Additionally, bathrooms become more valuable as they gain "pieces" (a toilet and a sink are a 2 piece powder room, a toilet, sink and shower/shower-tub are a 3 piece bathroom, a toilet, sink, shower and tub are a 4 piece etc.)
7. The value of furniture like counters and appliances should be included with a mark up (ex: base value + 5%)
8. OR you can classify the furnishings as "budget" "mid range" or "upscale" based on the value, and then set a sale value for each category (ex: +20k for mid range appliances)
9. Landscaping can work the same way (ex: value of the plants +10%)
10. Any messes, broken furniture, pest infestations and other issues should significantly decrease the value of the house.
Remember that the list price for the foreclosed house should be related to the "true" value, but have a lot of randomness/variability involved as well. Same with the offers you get on the remodeled house (though this range should be much smaller, since hunting for deals is more fun then waiting for bids.)
More implementation issues:
1. The "foreclosure" houses will need to be pre-made rather than randomly generated. That means there will be a limited number of houses, but the SIM fan community is very active and loves to share. I am sure fans will contribute more disaster houses after the standard ones have been fixed up.
2. The houses do not need to be in the neighborhood or visitable after sale. Making them permanent neighborhood fixtures would be too difficult with the current size of SIM neighborhoods.
3. Having said that, there should be rival flippers/real estate agents with wacky names that show up over and over again. This gives the player the sense that they have real rivals.
Please comment with your own ideas about a "flipper" career! Would the idea I've laid out work? What could make it better?
5
Comments
I have to say I kind off feel the same way--though why they continue to ask us for ideas, then, is beyond me. It would be nice to see a lot more tweaks done to the game to give people the small things they are asking for.