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How to Work With Monopoly Building Shortages

When playing the game of Monopoly, it is common for all the houses and hotels that are supplied with the game to be used up during play. That is when you need to improvise to create more opportunities for buildings or to create your own revised rules for the shortages.

Instructions

- 1
  Hold on to your money when there are no houses for sale by the bank. Quite simply the rules state that when this happens, you aren't allowed to buy houses or hotels. And unless you have four houses on a particular piece of property, you can't buy or build hotels on that property.
- 2
  Auction off the houses. When there are shortages in houses by the bank and more than one player wants to buy them, it's time that the bank holds an auction. The rules state that when a house auction has to happen, bidding starts at the lowest price at the least-expensive piece of property looking to buy the house would pay for the house and goes up from there. Houses are auctioned off one at a time.
- 3
  Sell houses back to the bank. If there's a housing shortage and you decide you want to downgrade your properties, keep in mind that you can only sell your houses back to the bank for half the price you paid for them. This can be especially troubling for the cash-poor player who wants to sell the houses to make money but can only profit the one-half price.
- 4
  Trade properties to other players. If you decide you want to trade properties to another player, you may do so. But you first must sell back all the hotels and houses you have on those properties to the bank.

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