The rules
You roll two dice, buy the unowned streets you land on, trade for full color sets, and build houses and hotels so the rent on your streets keeps climbing. The game runs the bank, and play can pause and pick up again over several evenings. The last player who isn’t bankrupt wins.
They match the game’s current settings. The game’s own How to play page always shows the latest.
Does Rent Party use the classic rules?
Yes — buying, auctions, rent, building, mortgages, Jail and bankruptcy follow the classic property-trading rules, with optional house rules you switch on before a game.
Nobody has to be the banker this time.
Some names are our own. Rent Party names lists every one.
How do you set up a game?
Pick how you’re playing: online with friends, around one phone or tablet, or against CPU characters. Then switch on any house rules you want before the first roll.
A game seats 2 to 6 players. Each of you starts with 1,500 bucks and picks a token. Someone always has a favorite.
How does a turn work?
Every turn starts with the tumble of two dice: you move your token clockwise by the total, and the space where it stops decides what happens next.
Each time you pass Start or land on it, the bank pays you a salary of 200 bucks.
Doubles mean you go again. Finish this move first, including the choice to buy or auction. Roll doubles a third time in the same turn and you go to Jail instead. Nobody stays that lucky.
What happens when you land on an unowned street?
You can buy it at the price printed on its deed, or turn it down and it goes straight to auction. Same for stations and utilities.
Turning it down isn’t the end of it. You can still bid, and you might get it for less than the printed price. Or you might watch Priya do exactly that.
How do auctions work when nobody buys a street?
If the player who lands on an unowned street doesn’t buy it, it goes to auction straight away, everyone — that player included — can bid, and the highest bid wins.
You can’t bid more bucks than you’re holding. Pass when the price gets silly. If nobody bids at all, the street stays with the bank, so the next person to land on it gets the same choice to buy it or send it to auction.
In a game over days, auctions are always sealed bids. One bid each, highest wins. Live and local games can switch sealed bids on as a house rule.
Nothing makes a street look better than somebody else bidding on it.
How does rent work?
Land on a street, station or utility someone else owns and you pay them rent.
| You land on | You pay |
|---|---|
| A street | The rent on its deed. Once the owner has the full color set, it doubles on every street in the set with no buildings, even if others in the set have houses. Houses and hotels raise it to the amounts the deed lists. |
| A station | 25 bucks if the owner has 1 station · 50 for 2 · 100 for 3 · 200 for all 4 |
| A utility | 4 times your dice roll if the owner has 1 utility · 10 times if they have both |
| A mortgaged deed | Nothing |
If an 8 lands you on a utility whose owner has both, you pay 80 bucks. Owner in Jail? Rent’s still due.
Maya just landed on one of your stations, and you own all 4. That’s 200 bucks, Maya.
How does Jail work?
You go to Jail by landing on Go to jail, by drawing a card that sends you there, or by rolling doubles 3 times in one turn.
Three ways out: pay 50 bucks, use a Jail pass, or roll doubles. Roll your way out and you move by that roll, with no extra roll after it. After 3 tries without doubles, you pay the 50 bucks and move.
Jail stops your token. It doesn’t stop your deeds: you still collect rent, build and trade while you’re there.
Land on Jail with an ordinary roll and you’re just passing by.
What are Lucky Break and Neighborhood Mail?
They’re the two card decks, with 16 cards each. Land on one of their spaces and you draw a card, which can move you around the board, pay you, charge you, or bill you for repairs on every house and hotel you own.
Draw a Jail pass and you can keep it until you need it, or trade it.
Some cards are a gift. A repairs card isn’t, if you’ve been building.
What happens on Town Square and the tax spaces?
Town Square is the rest corner: nothing happens there unless the piggy bank house rule is on. City tax costs 200 bucks, and Party tax costs 100.
How do you build houses and hotels?
Own every street in a color set, then build evenly across it, one house at a time; a hotel replaces 4 houses.
You buy each house from the bank at the price printed on its street’s deed. No street can get its second house until every other street in the set has its first, and the same goes for each house after that. Your neighborhood grows houses first. Then hotels.
Stations and utilities never take buildings.
The bank has 32 houses and 12 hotels in all. When they run out, nobody can build. Holding 4 houses on every street of a set keeps them out of everyone else’s hands, too.
Selling works the same way in reverse: buildings go back to the bank at half price, evenly across the set.
How does trading work?
You can trade streets, stations, utilities, bucks and Jail passes with any player, at any time, unless the turn-only trading house rule is on. Make an offer. They can take it or turn it down.
While you owe a payment, you can only trade to raise the money for it.
You can’t trade a street while any street in its color set has buildings. Sell them back to the bank first. Mortgaged deeds can change hands too, and the mortgage section explains the 10% the receiver pays.
The best deals start with one street that someone needs to finish a color set, and with everyone else at the table knowing exactly how badly.
How do mortgages work?
Mortgage a deed and the bank pays you half its printed price. The deed stays yours, but it charges no rent until you pay it back. It’s just taking a nap.
Paying it back costs the mortgage plus 10%: every 100 bucks you borrowed costs 110. You can only mortgage a street when no street in its color set has buildings. Sell those first.
If a mortgaged deed changes hands, whoever receives it pays the 10% straight away.
What happens when you can’t pay rent?
You raise the money first — sell buildings back to the bank at half price or mortgage deeds — and you only go bankrupt if that still isn’t enough. The same goes for anything else you owe.
Trading counts too. A friend might give you bucks for a deed. Count your houses before you count yourself out.
Owe another player and still can’t cover it? They get everything you have left. If it’s the bank you owe, your deeds go to auction. Either way, your game ends there and everyone else plays on.
How do you win?
Be the last player who isn’t bankrupt. Until then, the leader is fair game.
Quick mode is different: everyone starts with 2 random deeds, and after 20 rounds the highest net worth wins. Net worth is your bucks, plus your unmortgaged deeds at their printed price, plus your buildings at what they cost, with mortgaged deeds counted at half.
How long does a game take?
As long as your table wants. Quick mode ends after a set number of rounds and the richest player wins, and a full game can stretch over several evenings with pauses in between.
Nobody has to stay up till 1 a.m. to see who wins anymore. Pausing a game shows how.
Rather learn by playing? Practice against a CPU character.