Monopoly is famous as the game where you buy and sell properties and put tiny little red hotels on them.
But, the Monopoly hotel rules can be confusing. And as for the best hotel strategy to win, this is something that most people get wrong.
So, read on to learn everything you need to know about the iconic Monopoly hotels.
Hotel Monopoly quick guide:
- Hotels can be added to a property once it has four houses
- You can only add one hotel per property and it replaces all houses
- Hotels cost the same to buy as houses, and the same to sell back to the bank
- It is not always a good idea to get hotels – it may be too expensive
What Is A Hotel In Monopoly?
A hotel in Monopoly is a red plastic building that you place on a property to show that you have built a hotel there. This shows that you have made improvements to the property and you are able to charge a higher rent.
Properties in Monopoly earn more rent when they have been upgraded. You’re only able to upgrade your properties when you have a full set of the same color.
Once you have a full color set, you can build houses on the properties. The more houses there are, the more rent you can charge. The maximum number of houses is four.
Once you have four houses on each property in the set, you can choose to upgrade further by buying a hotel. This maximizes the amount of rent that you can charge for that particular property. If you do this, the four houses must be returned to the bank.
How To Buy Hotels
How Do You Get A Hotel In Monopoly?
To get a hotel in Monopoly, you must first own all the properties in a color group and must have four houses on each of these properties. You can then buy a hotel at the price listed on the Title Deed card. You must return your four houses to the bank.
Monopoly is all about taking money from your opponents by charging them rent when they land on one of your properties. The rent goes up with the more improvements you make to the property.
You can build one, two, three, or four houses on any space with more rent for each. But, the highest rents can only be made when you have a hotel.
How Much Do Hotels Cost?
The hotels in Monopoly cost different amounts depending on which property you are building it on. To build a hotel you must first buy four houses for a set price, say $100 for an Orange space. You can then buy a hotel for a further $100 so you will have spent $500 in total.
Don’t forget that before you can build any hotels you must have four houses on each property in the color set, so your overall build cost will be much higher across the set. Some sets have three properties whilst others have only two properties.
As you go around the board, the cost of building a hotel on a property increases. On the first side of the board, the cost is $50 per building, but this increases to a high of $200 on the home stretch.
The table below shows what the development cost to build a hotel would be on each square on a standard Monopoly board. This doesn’t include the cost of actually buying the property.
| Color | Property Name | House Cost | Total Cost (4 Houses + Hotel) |
| Brown | Mediterranean Avenue | $50 | $250 |
| Brown | Baltic Avenue | $50 | $250 |
| Light Blue | Oriental Avenue | $50 | $250 |
| Light Blue | Vermont Avenue | $50 | $250 |
| Light Blue | Connecticut Avenue | $50 | $250 |
| Pink | St Charles Place | $100 | $500 |
| Pink | States Avenue | $100 | $500 |
| Pink | Virginia Avenue | $100 | $500 |
| Orange | St James Place | $100 | $500 |
| Orange | Tennessee Avenue | $100 | $500 |
| Orange | New York Avenue | $100 | $500 |
| Red | Kentucky Avenue | $150 | $750 |
| Red | Indiana Avenue | $150 | $750 |
| Red | Illinois Avenue | $150 | $750 |
| Yellow | Atlantic Avenue | $150 | $750 |
| Yellow | Ventnor Avenue | $150 | $750 |
| Yellow | Marvin Gardens | $150 | $750 |
| Green | Pacific Avenue | $200 | $1,000 |
| Green | North Carolina Avenue | $200 | $1,000 |
| Green | Pennsylvania Avenue | $200 | $1,000 |
| Dark Blue | Park Place | $200 | $1,000 |
| Dark Blue | Boardwalk | $200 | $1,000 |
Can You Buy A Hotel Straight Away?
You cannot buy a hotel straight away in Monopoly. Before you can buy one you must have a complete set of properties in a color group. The player must then buy four houses for each property in the set. Only then can they buy a hotel.
If you have enough cash, you can buy four houses and convert them to a hotel in a single turn.
For example, when you complete the Brown color set, you can pay $500 to immediately build hotels on both Mediterranean Avenue and Baltic Avenue.
How Many Hotels Can You Have In Monopoly?
There are 12 red hotels in a standard game of Monopoly. If you are doing very well, you could own them all at the same time and be the proud owner of a dozen hotels. You would then be very likely to win the game.
You can only build one hotel on each property, so to build 12 hotels you would need at least four complete color sets.
It is worth noting that each space can only have either houses or hotels on it, but not both. If you want to buy a hotel you must exchange four houses for it plus some extra cash.
Read more: How Many Hotels Can You Have In Monopoly?
How Many Hotels Are There In A Monopoly Game?
A Monopoly game contains 12 hotels. These are usually made of red plastic and are shaped like a building with a small chimney. They are larger than the 32 green plastic houses that are contained in the game but the shape is similar.
What Happens When You Run Out of Hotels?
When all of the hotels have been bought and placed on the Monopoly board, you have run out of hotels. It is no longer possible to buy a hotel for one of your properties and you must wait until one is returned to the bank.
This can happen when a player goes bankrupt and is forced to return their houses and hotels to the bank. A player can also choose to sell their hotels back to the bank for half of the original purchase price – they might need to do that if they are low on cash and have a bill to pay.
It is actually more common to run out of houses than hotels, even though there are more of them. Expert players know that a good strategy is to leave four houses on a property rather than putting a hotel on. This prevents other players from buying houses, stopping them from being able to charge increased rents.
How To Sell Hotels
Can You Sell Back Your Hotels In Monopoly?
In Monopoly, you can sell your hotels back to the bank at any time. If you do this, you get back half of the total price that you paid for each one. It’s also possible to convert hotels back into houses and get a cash payment for the hotel part.
Since a hotel is equivalent to five houses, it is possible for you to devest one house at a time, taking half the value for each out.
For example, if you owned a hotel on a Green space like Pacific Avenue (but did not need too much money), you could convert your hotel into four houses and take $100 in cash.
If you needed more, you would then convert another hotel to four houses, and so on.
If you have several hotels in a color group, the rules state that:
“All hotels on one color-group may be sold at once, or they may be sold one house at a time (one hotel equals five houses), evenly, in reverse of the manner in which they were erected.”
Some people think that this means that you can’t just choose which hotel to sell and you must go in reverse order from how they were built, across the whole set.
However, it’s not practical to remember the order in which you built your hotels. And what if you bought them all at the same time?
What this rule actually means is that you must demolish evenly, just as you built evenly. So you cannot have three houses on one property and leave a hotel on another property in that color set.
How Much Does A Hotel Sell For In Monopoly?
Hotels in Monopoly sell for different prices depending on which property they have been built on. However, they will always attract a value that is half of the cost that they were built for. The hotels are more expensive for the properties further around the board.
The table below shows how much you can sell hotels for on each square. You can either sell the entire hotel or you can partially sell it by converting it back into houses. A hotel is made up of five houses so each represents a fifth of its value.
| Colour | Property Name | Sale value for each house | Total sale price |
| Brown | Mediterranean Avenue | $25 | $125 |
| Brown | Baltic Avenue | $25 | $125 |
| Light Blue | Oriental Avenue | $25 | $125 |
| Light Blue | Vermont Avenue | $25 | $125 |
| Light Blue | Connecticut Avenue | $25 | $125 |
| Pink | St Charles Place | $50 | $250 |
| Pink | States Avenue | $50 | $250 |
| Pink | Virginia Avenue | $50 | $250 |
| Orange | St James Place | $50 | $250 |
| Orange | Tennessee Avenue | $50 | $250 |
| Orange | New York Avenue | $50 | $250 |
| Red | Kentucky Avenue | $75 | $375 |
| Red | Indiana Avenue | $75 | $375 |
| Red | Illinois Avenue | $75 | $375 |
| Yellow | Atlantic Avenue | $75 | $375 |
| Yellow | Ventnor Avenue | $75 | $375 |
| Yellow | Marvin Gardens | $75 | $375 |
| Green | Pacific Avenue | $100 | $500 |
| Green | North Carolina Avenue | $100 | $500 |
| Green | Pennsylvania Avenue | $100 | $500 |
| Blue | Park Place | $100 | $500 |
| Blue | Boardwalk | $100 | $500 |
What Happens If You Need to Sell A Hotel But There Aren’t Enough Houses?
If you need to sell a hotel in Monopoly, but there aren’t enough houses, you must sell the whole hotel for half of its original value. The houses act kind of like change when you sell a hotel, so if there aren’t enough you have to sell the entire hotel.
To Conclude
I hope that you have enjoyed reading all about the Monopoly hotel rules. They can seem confusing at first, but after a game or two, I am sure that you won’t even have to check the rules anymore.
Hopefully you now know how to buy a hotel, how many hotels are in Monopoly, and whether it’s worth aiming to get them or if you’re better sticking with a few houses.
It’s worth making sure you’re up to speed on the rules for buying houses in Monopoly too, since Monopoly houses and hotels go hand-in-hand.
