Which is the most efficient use of land, for a casual user, in Tapped Out?

Question

Many of my friends are playing Tapped Out (a Farmville-like game based on original content from the Simpsons' creators), and I've caved to peer pressure - I'm spending time playing it, too.

I'm not an avid player of the game, though, more of a very casual one (so I won't log on every 12 or 8 or 4 hours or w/e is required for optimally harvesting the generated resources). Also, I definitely am not interested in spending money on any of the micro-transaction based in game items.

So, what's the most efficient strategy for me to use when filling in land? Or, alternatively, how can I figure out an optimal or near optimal strategy for my own game play patterns?

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[a quick, shallow, analysis, tells me that maybe a mix of blue/white houses is the best bet initially, up to a fixed saturation point, beyond which it's time to start spending money on in-game items, characters, etc... - if this turns out to be the ideal strategy, I'd appreciate seeing the math for exact, or near exact numbers]

Answer 1

Just farm blue houses, they repay themselves in only 12 taps (that's 4 days if you play every 8h). White houses are nice but they are a bit too expensive, requiring 38 taps / 19 days to pay for themselves.

Answer 2

If you're just looking to earn in-game money, there's a tutorial on house farming on tstotips.com: http://tstotips.com/archives/12302. It also breaks down the frequency you would need to log in to optimally harvest your cash. Shorter tasks earn more money (relatively), but then you need to play and tap more frequently.

But the in-game money won't get you very far. You'll need to complete quests to unlock new buildings and decorations and level up your town.

Donuts are key to a lot of the more interesting items and buildings, but they're pretty rare in-game, and expensive in terms of real-world money. I think I worked out the price of the ferris wheel to something like $8, which is a little crazy.

You can also earn money and donuts by adding friends in the game and visiting their towns once a day.