This is kind of a last resort, I would love to have an apartment lots with “owned” businesses. I say that with quotation marks because I know they can’t actually be owned, and I’m fine with that.

I have the mod that will allow for shops on apartment lots, so I guess what I’m really looking for is a way to have the sims who will be living there pretend own them. As in, actually doing something there. I’ve considered just cloning their appearances onto the NPC’s, but that would be weird because the sims would actually be living there.

I can’t find a way for them to live on community lots (which would mean they could use one of the market stall mods I’ve found, which allow for multiple sims to own shops on the same lot, as the only two I could find require being on a community lots to work) and I can’t really use residential lots, since I can’t even get the normal community lot objects on them.

I know this is an odd question, and I might not have been clear with what I wanted. I apologise if that’s the case. I just want a way to have some kind of owned businesses on an apartment or residential lot, any lot sims can live on (excluding home businesses from OFB, unless there’s a way I’m not thinking about to make that work for multiple other “businesses”). Even if it’s just pretend, which it almost certainly will be. Thanks to anyone who decides to respond to this. I would appreciate it a lot.

I think having the lot type be residential and making the shop a home business would be the way to go. There are mods around to lock regular doors so they only go cook or sleep in their own 'unity/apartment'. Like the key colour system.
Of course in this situation would have to play all of the sims at once unless you set them as non selectable and let them fend for themselves.
But owned business on an apartment lot is certainly not possible at the moment.

Yes, I do think this would probably be the best way to go about it. I’m glad I asked, because I hadn’t really thought about it before, believe it or not. My biggest question now is how I could make it seem like there were multiple businesses, when there’s only one? I will probably work that out though, Thank you for your help!

There are decorative cash registers, You could tell a sim to 'pose stand still' behind each one. Maybe using an auto till near the door out if you are building a small mall.

Can stacked lots be used in this way?

They probably could be, but stacking lots seems very complicated, especially for what I want to make.