So how do I get the "out of Money" problem under control?

[DrBob75 0]

so I keep losing houses to being "out of money", I can't firgure out how to fix it.  I have plenty of jobs, and my bus system and Streetcars are both in the green, so all of my sims should not be having issues moving around.

 

Has anyone firgured out how to fix this issue?

[Griffon 19]

lowering taxes for them help but doesn't stop the problem altogether, in 1 city I set taxes to 0% and still had the problem but the rate it happened at was a lot slower

[perafilozof 143]

The problem comes from sims that spend the entire day in transit never finding a job, or sims that get fired. When they go back to their residence they lower the happiness and the wealth of the it and get the house on the road to abandonment. You can try changing the configuration of your C and R, add some extra roads or bulldoze some others.

 

In other words you have to manage the agent pathfinding problem.

[DrBob75 0]

Thanks, I will try that.  It's no fun playing whack a mole with all of the houses going under due to being out of money. 

 

After my cities get above 60,000 it seems like I am constantly having to bulldoze 10 houses at at time due to out of money.  Doesn't make the game fun. 

[DVDGuy 16]

SimCity 2013 is all about traffic. You have to make sure the agents can get to work in time, get back, and go shopping, all in a day's time ready to start the next day. If sims can't do this for whatever reason, then they'll run out money and you know what happens next.

 

And it's almost always due to traffic problems. Even if you don't have "orange" or "red" patches on your roads, it doesn't mean that the sims aren't having trouble getting their daily routines done. You may have to do some major restructuring in order to fix traffic problems, but don't be afraid to do it, since cities rebuild themselves rather quickly (I restructured once, population went from 70k to 19k, but after about 3 in-game days, it was up to 140k - so if you have a good economy, don't worry too much about laying waste to large sections of your city).

 

A couple of other things to note: make sure you have the right balance of low/med/high wealth sims, and check the population details panel to see if you have jobs catered to each class of sims. Best not to have too many unfulfilled jobs (as that can invite neighbouring sims to flood in and congest your city entrances), but ensure there isn't unemployment either. Put commercial zones mixed in with your residential ones (you only need 1 or 2 C block for every say 6 R blocks), as this allows sims to get to these jobs faster/easier, and also to go shopping in these areas after work is done.

[SockoJr53 51]

I find that expanding outward too quickly causes a lot of the money abandonment issues in my cities. The "Out of Money" houses are always on the outskirts, sometimes far away from the commercial core, or the industry tucked in the downwind corner. I'm experimenting right now with placing some more commercial interspersed with the outlying residential areas to give them a closer destination for jobs, that way not everybody commutes to the commercial in the center. but rather some can just walk a block away to find a job.

[MINIggy03 227]

I'd love to have a "Demolition Office" that goes around and destroys all the abandoned homes for you for a monthly service cost.  

[kgpurrs 107]

so I keep losing houses to being "out of money", I can't firgure out how to fix it.  I have plenty of jobs, and my bus system and Streetcars are both in the green, so all of my sims should not be having issues moving around.

 

Has anyone firgured out how to fix this issue?

Bulldoze abandoned out of money building, remove the residential zone from that blank area where you bulldozed.  Re-zone commercial.  You just solved residential money problem and eased your traffic at the same time.  Two birds - Meet Stone.

[Zpike 79]

 

so I keep losing houses to being "out of money", I can't firgure out how to fix it.  I have plenty of jobs, and my bus system and Streetcars are both in the green, so all of my sims should not be having issues moving around.

 

Has anyone firgured out how to fix this issue?

Bulldoze abandoned out of money building, remove the residential zone from that blank area where you bulldozed.  Re-zone commercial.  You just solved residential money problem and eased your traffic at the same time.  Two birds - Meet Stone.

 

 

 

Correct:  You "marble" your retail into your residential.  This gives Sims local jobs, a place to shop close to home, cuts down on traffic, and solves the "out of money" issue.

 

Note: Also replace any failing retail with residential.  This does the same from the opposite direction.

[DrBob75 0]

Thanks for all of the suggestions, I did a city today where I put commercial at the beginning of any residential street and just added or deleted commercial at the start of the street based on either getting the "out of money" or "no shoppers" buildings on each street.  It has worked our really well with my city of 80k, so thanks for all of the help.

[jerbyrd25 1]

Honestly though, it's a stupid solution. Noone wants to zone both residential and commercial on the same block in a checkered pattern when they have made all these mass transit options and given the map is only 2k by 2k.

 

At the same time, another failure that I wish had been incorporated is mixed-use buildings.

[Catchin22 299]

My city of 110k has perfect traffic, no issues at all, the zoning is also pretty good IMO and yet I get out of money issues often. They don't seem to make much sense either since the destruction of a house will just result in another being built instantly with the same problem. A lot of what goes on makes no sense. I have a radiated area in my city where houses kept building over and over and then being abandoned. I finally just built a park there to make use, sims have no problem visiting a radiated park apparently.

It's hard to play this game using normal logic, you have to figure out the logic of the game which is often daunting in order to fix problems but that doesn't always work either.

[morriswalters 16]

Another way of saying it is to have more jobs than Sims.  Better unfilled jobs than unemployed Sims.  Residential and commercial are often mixed in the world.  When  you have a number of high density buildings face them in different directions.  Buses are messed up, they are too random.  But streetcars do work and can reduce traffic.  However if you plan well it is possible to get to 500 k with no mass transit.

 

Edit

 

Dezone when that happens.  The game will try to build back.  Don't let it.  I dezone everything and rezone what I want to return.  If something fails twice, I move it.

[SockoJr53 51]

I am just at my wits end with this "Out of Money" problem. I have tried a lot of the suggestions people have mentioned here. I have watched ALL residential buildings in a 130,000 pop city cycle through being built, losing money, and abandoning, at least 2 whole times. That's like watching 130,000 caterpillars turn into cocoons and butterflies, two separate times, except significantly less beautiful. I watch these agents mill about in the population overlay, and residential overlay, and I cannot for the life of me follow their logic. Shoppers pull money out of houses, and no one returns to the houses with happiness. Is everyone getting mugged on the way home?

There is so little traffic, tons of busses and streetcars buzzing about, these people just refuse to bring money or happiness home. my population panel shows a near perfect ratio of workers to jobs and shoppers to goods.

I just keep giving up, I'm going to go play SC4 until this patch 3.0 comes out, maybe that will help some, I dunno.

[RootBeerTuna 0]

I too had this same problem, then I read some of the suggestions in this post, applied them to my cities, and problem solved! At least until this morning when I started a city just for education and residential. I started having this problem very early on, when I was under 2,000 sims. So I started adding commercial and industrial, eventually ending up with a ratio of probably 20/30/50 R/C/I. So I bulldozed the whole city, gifted myself a few million and started over from scratch. I had almost the entire map full of just residential with a smattering of commercial thrown in and was going fine. Started upgrading my roads from low density to medium and bam, pretty much every second block of residential started giving me the out of money complaint. So I proceeded to dezone and rezone industrial or commercial, and I'm still having problems. Now I'm also getting the unskilled workers complaint in my high tech industrial, even though I have 100% enrollment with all the schools and about 5 libraries. I am also at my wits end, though I'm not ready to give up just yet. Especially since I never really got into Simcity 4, though I do have it installed. Maybe I'll give it a shot, see what I missed.

[SockoJr53 51]

Even more nonsensical: With a near perfect ratio of workers to jobs, nearly every commercial building states "Closed, not enough workers" which in turn leads to the residents crying they can't go shopping, since the stores aren't open.  Does anyone know how many workers are required in a high-density, medium wealth building? All mine float at around 100-120 workers, but still remain closed. How many do they need to be open?

Again, my traffic is nil, so how are these people not getting to work?

[Cob92 360]

Even more nonsensical: With a near perfect ratio of workers to jobs, nearly every commercial building states "Closed, not enough workers" which in turn leads to the residents crying they can't go shopping, since the stores aren't open.  Does anyone know how many workers are required in a high-density, medium wealth building? All mine float at around 100-120 workers, but still remain closed. How many do they need to be open?

Again, my traffic is nil, so how are these people not getting to work?

 

 

Maybe they are riding the transit system all day instead of working?

[tnobles 38]

Not sure exactly how it works, but "the agent" (almost an AI) goes to housing and gets the required amount of workers. I would guess it goes to the closest housing and continues until the required amount then rinse and repeat for the next job place. Not sure which job places have the highest  priority either. If there are workers too far (probably the last ones). I read somewhere that they need to arrive before their shift ends, so if he gets there a few minutes before it counts as full shift () same with students). The problem is placing housing as close to commercial and industry as possible.

 

§§ Wealth Tier                        §      §§       §§§      Total       Goods       Freight Orders

§§ - Low Density (2x2)            6       4       2            12               6                    60

§§ - Medium Density (4x4)    20     10       4           34             34                   180

§§ - High Density (4x4)       400    200     70        670            355                   360

 

 

Got it from here.

  Edited May 8, 2013 by tnobles  

[tnobles 38]

Just shot my own theory down;

So now, I have no idea.

[SockoJr53 51]

Thanks for the table tnobles, it answers my question.

Your screenshot shows the same thing I always see, full employment, and yet everyone is broke and every residence goes abandoned. What do they all do with their money before they go home?

EDIT: In doing some more searching for this issue, I found a rather extensive thread on EA's forums:

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Miscellaneous-Issues/quot-Out-of-money-moving-out-soon-quot/td-p/779840

It's a long read with quite a bit of math, but worth it if you want to see what is really causing this.

Short answer: The agent system fails from the get-go.

[tnobles 38]

Thanks for the link.

 

Well, after reading the entire post, I come to the conclusion that the agent (AI) needs some I.

 

I think it was something that happened in the 2.0 patch because I don't recall having the problem before. Maybe it will be addressed in the next patch or so.

[morriswalters 16]

The agents behavior is random so a certain amount of out of money events follow from that.  Overtime some will refill.  But there is no point where it will go away.  Not with a city of 1000 or 500,000.  The cities are not precisely static, but again over time they will pretty much get to a point and then bounce around it.  Abandoning and refilling.  When it reaches this point you can watch for buildings which repeat this process and bulldoze if you wish.  The homeless will follow this trend.  If you are building it will be much worse since every change you make cascades though out your city.  Maintaining open jobs helps.  But there is no way to know where open jobs are at. I have a city currently of around 460 k which is making money hand over fist.  But still I get abandons, even with 7000 or so open job slots.

 

Edit.  I have never seen a building that is closed for lack of workers reopen, and I'm not sure that they don't have workers.  but anyhow.

[Blackheart_72 1]

I have stopped playing the game now due to this, my city was doing fine until the last update and now all I ever see is "out of money" and then abandoned buildings even though I have no unemployment in the city.

[RootBeerTuna 0]

I have stopped playing the game now due to this, my city was doing fine until the last update and now all I ever see is "out of money" and then abandoned buildings even though I have no unemployment in the city.

Same, but I'm still going to play it because I have nothing else to do. My edumacation system is screwed up now too. In a city with close to 9,000 students, I can only get a max of 2,200 at my university. And if I plop more than one of the same type of school they all start going to the new one and stop going to the old one so my attendance plummets. Very frustrating!

[MoridinUK 0]

 

Same, but I'm still going to play it because I have nothing else to do. My edumacation system is screwed up now too. In a city with close to 9,000 students, I can only get a max of 2,200 at my university. And if I plop more than one of the same type of school they all start going to the new one and stop going to the old one so my attendance plummets. Very frustrating!

 

I can't even plop a second uni! 

 

no idea how to get more students to it.  The ones not enrolled do not even try to go to school!