If you’re a bit hard up for cash in Monopoly, you might be wondering if you can sell houses to raise some money.
The short answer is that yes, you are allowed to sell houses in Monopoly. You sell them back to the bank and get back half the money that you paid for the house. The same is true for hotels.
However, selling houses works differently to mortgaging properties and there are also some important rules that you’ll need to follow when it comes to evenly developing your properties, when you’re allowed to sell houses, and more.
For those reasons, I encourage you to read my full guide to the Monopoly selling houses rules.
How Much Do Houses Sell For in Monopoly?
You can sell houses back to the Bank for half of their original purchase price. For example, if you paid $200 to buy a house on Boardwalk, you would be able to sell that house back to the Bank for $100.
Here’s a full list of how much you get for selling houses based on the different properties:
| Property Color | Buy Price | Sell Price |
| Dark blue | $200 | $100 |
| Green | $200 | $100 |
| Red | $150 | $75 |
| Yellow | $150 | $75 |
| Orange | $100 | $50 |
| Pink | $100 | $50 |
| Brown | $50 | $25 |
| Light blue | $50 | $25 |
When Can You Sell Houses In Monopoly?
You’re allowed to sell houses back to the Bank at pretty much any time. You can sell houses during your own turn and you’re also allowed to sell houses in between other players’ turns.
For example, let’s say you roll the dice and you end up landing on another player’s property where you owe rent.
If you didn’t have enough money to pay the rent, you could sell some houses to raise the needed funds.
However, while I’ll talk more about strategy later on, I want to point out that I would always recommend mortgaging other properties before selling houses whenever popular. This is because the rules for mortgages are a little bit more forgiving – more on that later.
Can You Sell Houses Unevenly?
If you’re following the official Monopoly rules, you need to develop your property sets “evenly”.
For example, if you own a set of three properties, you would need to place one house on all three properties before you could start putting two houses on a single property.
So – does the same hold true for selling houses in Monopoly?
Unfortunately, yes. You cannot sell houses unevenly in the game.
For example, let’s say you have a three-set property and you’ve already placed three houses on each property in the set.
Now, let’s say you need to sell three houses to raise money.
In this situation, you would need to sell one house from each property. You are not allowed to sell all three houses from the same property (assuming you didn’t sell any houses from the other property).
You could, however, sell just one house so that two properties had three houses and one property had two houses. But if you were to buy a house again, you would need to place it on the property with two houses first.
How to Sell Houses Back in Monopoly
Now that you know some of the most important Monopoly selling houses rules, let’s go over the actual process for how to sell houses back in the game.
Here’s how to sell houses back in Monopoly:
- Wait for your turn or in between another player’s turn.
- Remove the house from the property and return it to the Bank.
- Collect the relevant amount from the Bank in cash.
Can You Trade Houses or Sell Them to Another Player?
No, you are not allowed to sell or trade houses to another player in the game. You can only sell your houses back to the Bank.
Similarly, you cannot sell or trade a property to another player if it still has houses or hotels. You would first need to sell all of the houses and hotels before you can sell/trade the property to the other player.
Selling Houses vs Mortgaging Properties: Important Strategy Tip
In Monopoly, selling houses and mortgaging properties are both rules that let you generate cash in a hurry.
There are some similarities, namely in that both let you raise half of the money that you originally paid. That is:
- Selling a house gets you half of what you paid for the house in cash.
- Mortgaging a property gets you half of what you paid for the property.
However, there’s a very important difference when it comes to “undoing” your decision to sell. That is, buying a new house to replace the house you sold or unmortgaging your property.
To buy a house again, you would need to pay full price to replace the house that you sold.
However, to unmortgage a property, you only need to pay the mortgage amount (half of the property value) plus 10% interest to the bank.
Let’s look at some examples using Baltic Avenue, one of the brown properties. Baltic Avenue costs $60 to buy and houses cost $50 each:
- If you mortgage Baltic Avenue, you would get $30.
- If you sold a house from Baltic Avenue, you would get $25.
However, let’s say you want to “undo” that decision in the future:
- To unmortgage Baltic Avenue, it would cost you $33 – just 10% more than the cash that you received.
- To buy a new house on Baltic Avenue, it would cost you the full $50 – which is 100% more than the cash that you received.
Beyond this, selling houses in Monopoly also means that you might run into the risk of the Bank running out of houses, in which case you wouldn’t be able to buy a new house until someone else sold a house or went bankrupt.
Monopoly Selling Houses FAQs
To finish things out, let’s recap a few common questions about selling a house in Monopoly.
Can you mortgage a house in Monopoly?
No, you cannot mortgage a house like you can a property. Your only option is to sell the house back to the Bank. If you want to replace that house in the future, you would need to buy it at full price.
How much do you sell houses for in Monopoly?
You can sell houses back to the Bank for half of what you originally paid for the house. This means that the selling price for houses will depend on the property group. In the Classic game of Monopoly, house selling prices range from $100 on properties like Boardwalk to just $25 on properties like Baltic Avenue.
Can you mortgage a property with houses on it?
No, you cannot mortgage a property if it still has houses or hotels on it. You would need to first sell all of the houses and hotels back to the Bank before you can mortgage the property.
Can you sell houses unevenly?
No, you must sell your houses evenly, just like you must buy houses evenly. That is, you cannot sell multiple houses from a single property without selling a similar number of houses from other properties.
Can you trade or sell houses to other players in Monopoly?
No, you cannot sell or trade your houses to another player. You’re only allowed to sell them back to the Bank.
Start Selling Houses the Right Way
Now that you know how to sell houses, you can start playing the game of Monopoly the right way.
In general, I recommend avoiding selling houses whenever possible. It’s usually better to mortgage properties rather than selling houses or hotels (however, remember that you can’t mortgage a property that still has houses on it).
Again, this is because it’s cheaper to unmortgage a property than it is to buy a new house at full price.
Start using the right rules today and enjoy better games of Monopoly!