Apartment Rent Variation

[Saint Landwalker]

So I just noticed something very interesting while getting ready for a block of 2-BR Apartments.

In one of the units, I can build a basic 2-BR that will collect $505/day in rent, or a luxury 2-BR that will collect $585/day. That makes perfect sense.

On the same floor, a few units down, I can build a basic 2-BR for $580/day, or a luxury 2-BR for... $510/day. Wut?

Is there any light to be shed on what exactly is going on here?

[Saint Landwalker]

Further abbreviated experimentation suggests two findings:

• The rent of an apartment is based on the appeal of that particular area for that particular type of apartment. For 2-BR offerings, luxury apartments don't like being near elevators, while basic apartments do like elevators. So the closer to an elevator you get, the more a basic tenant will pay for the unit, while a luxury tenant will pay less, and vice versa when moving away from the elevator. I see similar effects when manipulating appeal in other ways.
  
  
• At a quick glance, it does not appear that changes made to the area after the unit is built will affect the base rent number. For example, after building a luxury 2-BR, I then built a medium sculpture next to it, and this did not change the base rent for the already-finished unit. Presumably, however, the added happiness would allow me to increase that unit's rent manually.

[SomaSim]

Did the economy change in between? That can impact buildng costs.

[Saint Landwalker]

There was no change in the economy—this is literally a comparison amongst a block of zoned-but-not-yet-built 2-BR apartments spanning a couple of floors, not a Time A vs. Time B comparison.

The construction costs are flat for each 2-BR option, with the usual allowance for "higher floors cost more to build," so that isn't a question mark. It's just the potential rent collections that exhibit the behavior mentioned above.

[SomaSim]

Ok. Let us dig into this one and see what's going on. Thanks for all the info. Should make tracking this down easier.

[Saint Landwalker]

Not a problem. And honestly, it didn't even strike me as a huge problem once I... I don't know about "figured it out", but at least "rationalized it." =P

Once I get home tonight I can see about posting some screenshots or something, should that be of any benefit.

[Shintai]

I got the same. If I a to build a 2 BR small apartyment now. I will get the following rent.
2 BR apartment 480
2 BR luxury apartment 330

[Tarot1970]

Originally posted by Shintai:

I got the same. If I a to build a 2 BR small apartyment now. I will get the following rent.
2 BR apartment 480
2 BR luxury apartment 330

2 BR apartments love to be close to the elevator.
2 BR Luxury apartments hate to be close to the elevator.

[Tnx]

Do the aesthetic plopables affect rent prices at all?

[Tarot1970]

Originally posted by Tnx:

Do the aesthetic plopables affect rent prices at all?

If the tenant says they 'like to be near art and pretty things,' then yes.
If they don't care, then it seems to be no.

[Saint Landwalker]

Originally posted by Tnx:

Do the aesthetic plopables affect rent prices at all?

I'll see about confirming this when I get home, but my initial recollection is as Tarot1970 says. Additionally, it only has an effect if the artwork (and remember, it has to be actual artwork, not freebie aesthetic decoration) is built before the apartment itself is built (read: before the apartment is built, not necessarily before it is zoned).

[SekiSelu]

I've run into some VERY strange rent behavior with apartments. Since studios are the highest income/space, I've been building a luxury studio apartment tower.

I did build a few Large 2 BRs, for fun, and rented them all out at once, starting from the left. The rent for each one went down rapidly, and I'm a little confused as to why.

As for the studio tower, I noticed a strange behavior approaching floor 30. The price of a Basic studio was going up, but the price of a Deluxe or Luxury one was going down!

I wondered if this continued, so I built all the way up to Floor 79. Strangely, the price was the same from 28-78 (or reset to that? i'm not sure atm), but on 79, the price reset to the "normal" (IE: Floor 1-10) price. This caused quite a discrepancy.

Some light on the subject would be appreciated. There's a 4-floor gap of completely empty (other than util cabinets) space between the 2 BRs at the bottom and the next floor, so I don't think this would be an external influence...

I did save and reload, and verified the $50 gap between 78 and 79 stays around, as well as destroying the floor out from under them and rebuilding them.

Edit: Cross-posting to Bugs forum.

[Saint Landwalker]

Originally posted by Landwalker04:

Originally posted by Tnx:

Do the aesthetic plopables affect rent prices at all?

I'll see about confirming this when I get home, but my initial recollection is as Tarot1970 says. Additionally, it only has an effect if the artwork (and remember, it has to be actual artwork, not freebie aesthetic decoration) is built before the apartment itself is built (read: before the apartment is built, not necessarily before it is zoned).

Got home, tested.

Zoned a normal 2-BR apartment on the 24th floor. Projected rents were $535/day for a Basic, and $635/day for a Luxury, without adding any aesthetics. I added a Small Painting directly adjacent to the apartment, and there was no change in projected rents. I then tried throwing down a Medium Sculpture, with the same results.

However, when I deleted the "zone" and rezoned the same thing, I ended up with projected rents of $535/day for Basic (no change), and $674/day for Luxury.

So the lesson is that if you want the base rent to be affected by artwork, place the artwork first, or bulldoze whatever you had placed to begin with and re-zone it.

Edit: I then deleted the Medium Sculpture, and then bulldozed/rezoned the apartment yet again with just the Small Painting present. The results were identical to what they had been when both the Small Painting and the Medium Sculpture were present.

[SomaSim]

Can you send that saved game? It sounds like it not be updating when you remove something like artworks. support [at] somasim.com

[Saint Landwalker]

Originally posted by SomaSim Games:

Can you send that saved game? It sounds like it not be updating when you remove something like artworks. support [at] somasim.com

Ask, and ye shall receive. It is sent.

[SomaSim]

The fix for this is coming out in the next release.