Building houses and hotels

Updated

Houses are how a finished district stops being a nuisance and starts deciding the match. In Rentopia you build on your turn, you build evenly across the district, and you build with a shared pile of 32 houses and 12 hotels. This page is about that choice. The rents themselves are listed on the rules quick reference, and the cash side of tearing a building down is in cash management.

You need the whole district first

A house button does nothing until every street in the district is yours and none of them is mortgaged. Old Town and Skyline are two streets, so this is a small condition. Garden District, Lantern Quarter, Ember Row, Sun Coast, Evergreen Hills, and Harborside are three. If one of the three is mortgaged to pay a bill, the other two cannot take houses until you clear that mortgage. Clearing costs the mortgage amount plus 10 percent, so a panic mortgage inside a district you meant to build is expensive to undo.

Owning the district with zero houses already doubles the empty rent. On Cobbler Lane that means $4 instead of $2. On Skyline Point it means $100 instead of $50. Sometimes that double is enough for a lap or two, and the house money is better kept as a reserve. Sometimes the double is still pocket change and the houses are the whole point. Old Town is the second case. Skyline is often the first, until you are rich enough that $200 a house is comfortable.

Even building

The default rule spreads houses. In a three-street district the legal patterns are one each, then two each, then three, then four, and then hotels. You cannot put a hotel on Orchid Avenue while Rose Court and Peony Place are still empty. That stops a player from hiding all of the rent on the street people land on most and leaving the other deeds bare.

Plan the spend as a set. Garden District houses cost $100. One house on each of the three streets is $300, not $100. Ember Row is $150 a house, so the first even row is $450. Evergreen Hills and Skyline are $200 a house. Two houses on each Skyline street is $800 before you have touched a hotel. If you cannot see that money, do not start the row.

What the rent does at each level

Rent jumps hardest in the middle levels, not at the first house. Cobbler Lane goes $2, $10, $30, $90, $160, then $250 at the hotel. The first house is a small step. The third house is where Old Town starts to annoy a rich player. Skyline Point goes $50, $200, $600, $1,400, $1,700, then $2,000. The third house, at $1,400, is already a match-ending landing for someone who built too fast on the other side of the board. You do not need the hotel to make Skyline scary. You need the cash to survive after you have paid for those houses.

Hotels also free houses. A hotel replaces four houses on that street, and the four houses go back to the bank. If the table is stuck because all 32 houses are on the board, the player who can reach hotels gives the supply back and can keep building while everyone else waits. That is a reason to finish four houses on a cheap district even when the hotel rent is not the main prize.

The shared supply

Thirty-two houses sounds like a lot until three players each hold a district. Four houses on a three-street district is 12 houses. Two such players have used 24. The third player may find the bank short. When limited buildings are on and more than one player could legally buy the next house, a shortage opens a claim window, usually 10 seconds. Players queue the houses they want. If the claims fit the bank, they are built at the printed price. If they do not, the extra buildings are auctioned one at a time among the players who claimed them.

The practical lesson is not the timer. It is that houses are a resource you can deny. Building a full even row on Old Town, where houses are $50, can soak up supply that Lantern Quarter wanted. Do it when you can afford the houses and the rent behind you. Do not do it as a gesture if the next landing will bankrupt you and the buildings will be sold back at half price anyway.

Selling

Selling walks back down the same even ladder. You get half the house cost back for each level you remove. A $150 Ember Row house returns $75. A hotel that cannot become four houses, because the bank does not have four houses to give you, drops to whatever the bank can spare and still refunds each removed level at half. Sell before you mortgage inside the district. Buildings have to come off before the street can be mortgaged or traded.

The host can turn even building off, or turn the limited supply off. If they do, this page's timing changes and the rent table does not. Ask in the lobby.

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