Rent Due

Rent Due is a first-person landlord sim in which you buy, furnish and rent out properties, meet applicants in person, collect rent at tenants’ doors and handle the problems that come with running a property portfolio. You start with $8,000, a laptop and an uncle who stays on the phone, then work your way from a trailer to a whole neighborhood.

Buy and furnish properties

Browse listings on PlotPoint and walk through each property before buying it. Furnish homes room by room; a well-equipped kitchen can bring in more rent. When regular listings are scarce, you can bid on foreclosures at the auction house, where bidding can get personal.

EstateBank offers up to three loans at a time. Your credit line grows with each deed you own, but installments come out every week. You need rent to outpace those payments as you expand your portfolio.

Set rents and choose tenants

Set each property’s rent with pricing cards. Lower prices draw applicants faster, while an ambitious price can leave a listing vacant and cost you time. Applicants come to your office, where you can run background checks to see their job, income, credit score and record.

Leases last from a week to two months, so renewal day comes around often. You can keep a tenant, raise the rent or let them leave. Your choices matter: tenants remember the deals you make, the calls you miss and the punches you throw.

Manage tenants in person

Rent does not transfer automatically. It piles up at the door until you collect it, and a calendar tracks who owes you and when. You knock and take each cheque in person.

Tenants call about burst pipes, storms and unauthorized guests. Each call has a cost, and letting it ring can affect your relationship with them. You also deliver eviction notices yourself: sign and stamp the notice, then post it on the tenant’s door. You need grounds for an eviction, since tenants can fight back and a court loss makes them untouchable. Trying to force someone out with an extremely high rent can also fail in court. You can punch tenants, but repeatedly attacking the same person can bring legal costs.

Build your landlord business

The game includes rent cycles, missed payments, deposits, move-out damage and lawsuits. You can customize your landlord’s outfit, play through a day-and-night cycle, and use an in-game desktop operating system to manage the business. The phone first connects you with your uncle through your first rental; afterward, tenants call with problems, often at inconvenient times.