The Neighborhood Screen
The Neighborhood Screen is the entry point or Main Menu of The Sims. It depicts Sim Lane, a Neighborhood consisting of 10 Lots. Each Lot on Sim Lane has an address and can hold one House. When you place your cursor over a Lot, it displays the address and whether it is occupied. A Family can be moved into a House on any Lot that isn't occupied by another Family.

Downloading Families From The Sims Exchange
When downloading a new Family (Family 1) from The Sims Exchange, it is important to take note of their Lot's address. If a different Family (Family 2) already lives in that Lot in your Neighborhood, Family 2 will be evicted and their House will be bulldozed. After downloading Family 1, the next time you see the Neighborhood Screen, you will be asked if you want to import Family 1 at their specific address.

How to Trade Families Off-line
One of the most compelling features of The Sims is the ability for users to exchange Families, Houses, Objects, character Skins, Floors and Walls. While The Sims Exchange makes it easy to download new Families into your Neighborhood, users can also trade these files off-line.

Families Without Custom Skins, Objects, Walls and Floors
To trade a Family that doesn't contain user-created content (Floors, Walls, Skins or downloadable Objects) there is only one file that needs to be exchanged.

Go to the UserData\Export folder in the directory where you installed The Sims. In this folder should be a .FAM file for every Family in the Neighborhood. The .FAM file contains all of the information necessary to import a Family into The Sims.

To import a new Family copy its .FAM file into this UserData\Import directory. This can be done while the game is running in the background. When there is a .FAM file in the Import directory, a dialog will come up in the Neighborhood screen asking if you would like to import the Family. If a Family or unoccupied House already occupies the Lot needed for the new .FAM file, that Family will be evicted and the House replaced.

Families With Custom Skins, Objects, Walls or Floors
To trade a Family/House that contains user-created content (Floors, Walls, character Skins or downloadable Objects) there are several other files that may be needed.

Place custom character Skins and Bodies (.cmx, .skn, and/or .bmp files) into the GameData\Skins directory.

Custom Walls (.wll files) go in the GameData\Walls directory.

Custom Floors (.flr files) go in the GameData\Floors directory.

Objects created for download by Maxis will install themselves in the correct location. Each Object will have its own subdirectory that contains all of the files necessary for the Object to function.