Unimproved Property Loans: Fill & Download for Free

The #1 most overlooked rule, that makes the biggest difference to the game, is this one:BUYING PROPERTY… Whenever you land on an unowned property you may buy that property from the Bank at its printed price. You receive the Title Deed card showing ownership; place it face up in front of you. If you do not wish to buy the property, the Banker sells it at auction to the highest bidder. The buyer pays the Bank the amount of the bid in cash and receives the Title Deed card for that property. Any player, including the one who declined the option to buy it at the printed price, may bid. Bidding may start at any price.Making sure to observe this auction rule makes the game better in almost every possible way:The game is much, much shorter. All the properties are bought up fast, as soon as any of them is landed on by anybody.There’s much less luck. Yes, the person who initially lands on the property still has the first right of refusal, but if they choose not to buy it (or can’t afford to), then everyone gets a shot at it. Furthermore, because of the auction, players are paying what they think the properties are really worth, rather than getting undervalued properties at face value.People run out of money faster, which is really the point of the game.#2 another huge mistake:“FREE PARKING”… A player landing on this place does not receive any money, property or reward of any kind. This is just a “free” resting place.Awarding players any extra free money is a terrible idea! Again, if the game ends when all but one player have gone bankrupt, the last thing you want to do is keep handing money back to the players. It may seem “nice”, but it’s not nice when you’re still playing 16 hours later and everyone hates each other.#3 most overlooked and important (at least in my experience):It is an advantage to hold all the Title Deed cards in a color-group (e.g., Boardwalk and Park Place; or Connecticut, Vermont and Oriental Avenues) because the owner may then charge double rent for unimproved properties in that color-group.Again: Pay more = broke faster = shorter game.And #4, people often neglect the bankruptcy rule details:BANKRUPTCY… You are declared bankrupt if you owe more than you can pay either to another player or to the Bank. If your debt is to another player, you must turn over to that player all that you have of value and retire from the game. In making this settlement, if you own houses or hotels, you must return these to the Bank in exchange for money to the extent of one-half the amount paid for them; this cash is given to the creditor. If you have mortgaged property you also turn this property over to your creditor but the new owner must at once pay the Bank the amount of interest on the loan, which is 10% of the value of the property. The new owner who does this may then, at his/her option, pay the principal or hold the property until some later turn, then lift the mortgage. If he/she holds property in this way until a later turn, he/she must pay the interest again upon lifting the mortgage. Should you owe the Bank, instead of another player, more than you can pay (because of taxes or penalties) even by selling off buildings and mortgaging property, you must turn over all assets to the Bank. In this case, the Bank immediately sells by auction all property so taken, except buildings.Again, if the way to end the game is by one person owning everything and everyone else going broke, it’s ideal to observe all the rules that HELP THAT HAPPEN. It’s less important whether you sell off the houses and hotels and so on, but certainly don’t just hand everything to the bank.Finally, I’ll say that trying to “fix” Monopoly is kind of a fool’s errand in the first place:Monopoly was intended to be educational. Not fun. So it’s no surprise that it’s not the most fun game out there.Monopoly includes a whole lot of game elements that have almost entirely been eliminated in today’s most award winning games:Player Elimination - Because these games often take longer, and unless it’s a two player game like chess where the first eliminated player immediately ends the game, it’s a sure recipe for people sitting around being bored or excluded while 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 people keep sitting around playing. That just sucks.Runaway Leader - The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That’s a key reason why it’s an interesting educational tool but a terrible game. You have to admit that no game of Monopoly *ever* had a surprise winner. You know who’s the rich guy from about 20 minutes in, and then it’s a 3 hour slog to watch that prediction come to fruition. That’s no fun.Convoluted Rules - Even though the Monopoly rules aren’t long, per se, they’re unnecessarily fiddly and annoying. Especially some of the auction and bankruptcy rules, which is probably why a lot of people skip them even though that breaks the game. Broken without them, annoying with them.Luck - My brother and I used to jokingly call Monopoly “whoever lands on Boardwalk wins” because even though it’s an exaggeration, I still assume that the first person to land on and buy Park Place and/or Boardwalk probably wins a disproportionate amount of time. Never mind the way one single dice roll can make the difference between going bankrupt (that one spot with all the stuff on it) or not. That just sucks.Rather than fixing Monopoly, there are so many better, more recent games that have benefited from the 100 years of innovation in the time between now and then (same for a lot of other old “classics” like Game of Life and Battleship and Risk). Even if you want to stay in the realm of economic / real estate games, may I suggest the following, that are infinitely more fun:For Sale - Relatively simple game where players first bid on properties, and then sell them back to buyers. Easy to learn and a lot of fun.Acquire - A modern classic. Has a lot of the Monopoly feel, but without the annoying player elimination and runaway leader problems.Last Will - Kind of a Brewster’s Millions anti-monopoly sort of game where you have to buy property and luxuries in an effort to be the most broke at the end of the year. It’s harder than it sounds.And for board games in general, go visit the Top 100 games list at BoardGameGeek and it will change your life. Don’t waste another day of your life on Monopoly. Its popularity is irrelevant. It’s like trying to make a Pet Rock fun. Just walk away.

A real estate investor is simply someone investing in real estate expecting a return. Investors are not created equal. Investors may have a wide range of goals, methods for reaching these goals, and have varied levels of experience and skills. Their main task include: Investigates client's financial and credit status to determine eligibility for financing. Appraises client's unimproved property to determine loan value.

Landlords, particularly large corporate real estate investment companies, are holding out for unicorns — mainly to improve property value for their lenders or to a buyer.(image: Louis Vuitton — they want their property to look like this)(image: a TV prop liquor store — they do not want this)They are hoping for a chain store, hopefully a high class one with Triple-A credit signing a 10–20 year lease that will take good care of the facilities, spend lots of money on improvements, attracts desirable customers, and does not bring noise, disruption, smells, crime, insurance risks, or vermin to the building. It’s worth going without rent for a year or two if you can land a CVS drugstore or Starbucks or Louis Vuitton.You know what’s worse than having an empty building? Having a bad tenant. One that stops paying but takes a year to evict. Or one that causes a fire, or flood, or cockroach infestation.Banks are a primary culprit here. Most real estate is purchased on credit. Lenders, when approving loans and setting interest rates, look at the “rent rolls” — how much gross rent the property is collecting per month — to make sure the borrower is able to service the loan, and by extension, how much money they are willing to lend. They apply a “vacancy factor” to account for the possibility that a tenant will leave and the landlord will have to pay a broker to find a new tenant, and have a period without rent. The vacancy factor, and overall loan score, will be a lot better if there is a long-term lease from a national credit-rated tenant. A buyer, when deciding how much money to offer for a building, will in turn think through how much of a loan the building will support.In fact, there is a form of flipping where a buyer offers a low price for a building that is vacant or has mostly month-to-month commercial tenants, clears out the old businesses, rents to a chain at a higher rate, and then quickly resells the building for more money to a real estate investment company.Around 2002 I was looking to invest about $2 million into a commercial property. My realtor gleefully showed me a bunch of freestanding buildings in strip malls throughout California, these are crappy buildings without much to them but offer very good “cash on cash” rent relative to the purchase price. One of the buildings he showed me was 100% occupied by a… wait for it…(image: Blockbuster Video!)Yes, there was about 12 years left on a 20 year lease, with two ten year extension options. Rent was solid, and Blockbuster’s owners, Viacom, had great credit and paid rent consistently on time. It was a turnkey operation, I didn’t need a property manager, I could just collect my money and visit once a year to make sure it was still there. I’d be set for life, or at least until late middle age.By 2002 it was clear that video rentals were not a stable industry, so I politely declined. Viacom divested itself of Blockbuster in 2004 and the company has since shut down all of its stores. If I had bought this building I would have a vacant unimproved building in a small town strip mall, I’d be lucky to find a pawn shop or discount store to pay 40% lower rent. A lease doesn’t do you any good if the tenant is bankrupt.