If you use Lifestyle Needs to gain additional population, you can use this extra pop to bypass basic needs to reach the normal max pop a house has to then upgrade them to the next tier. This is especially noticeable with Skyscrapers when you can amass more population than a max lvl 4 Skyscraper from the get go allowing you to upgrade a lvl 1 Skyscraper to a lvl 5 one instantly.
Some screenshots below to illustrate this:
A lvl 2 Skyscraper lacking the Department Store can be upgraded due to Lifestyle needs pushing its population higher than what it would have normally with the Department Store.
An Artisan House not having full coverage of the University that should not be upgradeable is however upgradeable because it has all 3 Lifestyle Needs granting it more population than the usual 30.
A farmer house that only has 9 farmers in it due to not full coverage of the marketplace is upgradeable through the supply of Flour granting one more Farmer in the house equalling 10 which allows it to be upgraded to a Worker house.