Cash management

Updated

Rentopia does not run out of things to buy. It runs out of cash on the turn a rent is larger than what you can raise. The players who last are not always the ones with the most streets. They are the ones who can pay Skyline, Evergreen Hills, or a repair card without selling the district they just finished. This page is that cushion: salary, taxes, mortgages, and the moment to stop building.

What actually pays you

You start at $1,500. Each time you pass START, and when you land on it, you collect $200 unless the host changed the salary. A full lap is one salary. It is not income you can spend twice. Landing on your own streets pays you nothing. The money that matters mid-game is other people's rent, plus the occasional Fortune or Town Fund card that pays $50, $100, $150, or $200.

Property Levy takes $200 the moment you land on it. That is a full salary, gone, on the first side of the board. Yacht Tax takes $100 on the last side, just before START, which is rude because you can see the salary and still not have it yet. Neither tax is optional. If you have $80 when you owe Yacht Tax, you are in debt for $20 even though the number looks small.

Mortgages are a loan, not a sale

Mortgaging a property gives you half the printed price, rounded down, from the bank. The deed stays yours, but it charges no rent while the mortgage stands, and a street district with any mortgage cannot take houses. Cobbler Lane and Tanner Row mortgage for $30 each. A station or Amber Square mortgages for $100. Sapphire Bay mortgages for $175. Skyline Point mortgages for $200.

Buying the mortgage back costs that amount plus 10 percent, rounded so the interest is at least the fair tenth. Cobbler Lane costs $33 to clear. A station costs $110. Skyline Point costs $220. The interest is small next to a hotel rent and large next to a mistake you repeat every turn. Do not mortgage a street, unmortgage it, and mortgage it again as a way to move cash. You are paying the fee to stand still.

Order matters when you are in debt. Sell buildings first if the district is not the one you are trying to save, because buildings return half their cost and a mortgaged district cannot be rebuilt until it is clear. Mortgage stray streets and extra stations before you mortgage inside your only finished district. A finished Old Town with the mortgage on Cobbler Lane charges nothing on Cobbler Lane and cannot grow houses. You have turned the district off to raise $30.

How large a reserve is

Look at the worst rent you can currently hit, not the average. Early on, that might be a doubled Harborside street or two stations at $50. Later it might be Crimson Heights with three houses, or Skyline Point at $1,400 or $2,000. Your reserve has to cover that landing or be close enough that one mortgage covers the gap. If the next house on your own district costs $200 and paying it leaves you $40, you cannot survive Yacht Tax, let alone a hotel.

Repair cards make the same point from the other direction. Fortune can charge $25 per house and $100 per hotel. Town Fund can charge $40 per house and $115 per hotel. Twelve houses is a bill in the hundreds on a single draw. Building every house you can afford is how you become unable to pay the card that taxes the houses. Leave a gap between "I can buy one more house" and "I should."

Debt and leaving the match

When you owe more than you hold, the match waits while you sell, mortgage, and trade. Other players may offer a deal. They do not have to offer a kind one. If the assets you can raise still do not cover the bill, you go bankrupt and leave. Streets you owed to another player move toward that creditor, buildings come off, and mortgage fees get settled from what is left. Streets you owed to the bank are auctioned back to the table. The last player who has not gone bankrupt wins, even if that player is not the one with the most buildings.

Resignation is the same door if you are done with the table. Use it when you mean it. A room does not pause for a long argument. The turn timer, usually 90 seconds, keeps going, and an idle match eventually ends on its own so empty rooms do not run all night.

The host can raise the starting cash or the salary. A $300 salary makes reserves easier and makes hotels slightly less fatal. A $100 salary does the opposite. Hear the number before you build as if the default $200 were still true.

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