House Trader

Choose one damaged apartment or building. Repair it cheap, basic, modern, or luxurious. Patch walls.

Plot

The city did not end. It just broke. Old apartment blocks stand with burned windows. Luxury buildings are stripped to concrete. Families sleep in rooms with plastic over the glass. Workers take any job that pays. Firms overcharge because everyone needs repairs. Banks smile until payment is late. Neighbors watch from behind curtains. Tenants lie, beg, pay, disappear, survive, or surprise you. You start with 100,000. Enough to buy something ruined. Not enough to make mistakes forever. Choose one damaged apartment or building. Repair it cheap, basic, modern, or luxurious. Patch walls. Replace locks. Install beds, TVs, kitchens, bathrooms, heating, safety detectors, cameras in common areas, alarms, better doors, better floors, or nothing more than what keeps rain out. Then rent it. Every day, new people come looking for a place to live. A tired worker with cash in hand. A sex worker who wants privacy and a safer lock. A single mother asking for low rent until she finds work. A quiet man who pays well but gives no details. A couple pretending they are not falling apart. A student, a refugee, a nurse, a criminal, a mechanic, a pensioner, a liar, a survivor. Each one has money problems, habits, secrets, desires, boundaries, pride, fear, and a breaking point. Pick tenants. Set rent. Demand deposits. Make contracts. Ignore complaints or fix them. Build trust or use fear. Upgrade rooms or squeeze profit. Time-skip through repairs, stop time to plan, or use cheats if you want sandbox control. But the city keeps moving. Jobs vanish. Material prices rise. Firms delay. Locks break. Tenants lose keys. Neighbors gossip. Police respond to evidence. Contractors cheat or become allies. Apartments get damaged. People leave for better places. Some become loyal. Some become dangerous. Slowly, one room can become one building. One building can become a street. A street can become an empire. No free money. No perfect tenants. No instant repairs. No moral shield. No magical punishment. Only contracts, walls, rent, secrets, cameras, reputation, risk, and people trying to survive inside broken rooms. Every tenant has a private life. Every repair costs money. Every shortcut leaves a mark. Welcome to **Rent & Ruin**.

Opening scene

Rain turns the street dust into black paste. It runs along the curb in thin streams, carrying cigarette ends, plaster dust, and flakes of old paint toward a blocked drain. Across the road, an apartment block stands with half its windows boarded and the other half staring empty into the grey morning. Someone has hung laundry from a broken balcony. Two floors below it, a scorch mark climbs the wall where a kitchen fire once reached for the roof. The city still moves. A tram crawls past with one cracked window taped in an X. Workers in dirty jackets wait under the stop shelter, shoulders hunched, lunch bags pressed to their chests. A woman drags a small suitcase with one bad wheel. A man argues with a contractor beside a van full of stolen-looking radiators. Somewhere nearby, a drill starts, stops, starts again, then dies with a curse. Your phone vibrates. **Account Balance: 100,000** Enough to start. Not enough to be careless. The real estate office is on the ground floor of a building that used to be a café. The sign is new. The glass is not. A crack runs through the front window, hidden badly behind a poster: **CRISIS SALE — DAMAGED UNITS / FAST TRANSFER / CASH BUYERS WELCOME** Inside, the air smells of wet coats, cheap coffee, printer heat, and old smoke trapped in walls. A broker sits behind a desk too large for the room. His suit is clean, but the cuffs are worn. A gold watch flashes when he reaches for a folder. “ You are the trader with cash, yes? ” He does not wait long before opening the folder. “ Good. Cash still speaks louder than banks. Banks ask questions. Buildings do not. ” He spreads five printed listings across the desk. Each paper has photos clipped to it. Dark rooms. Broken tiles. Mold. Burn marks. Empty windows. One place still has a child’s sticker on a cracked wardrobe door. The broker taps the first page. “ All legal enough to sell. All damaged. All cheap for a reason. You choose how much risk you like. ” Outside, a truck rolls by loaded with broken doors. One man on the sidewalk watches it too closely. The broker notices, lowers his voice, and keeps speaking. “ City is rebuilding. Slowly. People need rooms now, not next year. Fix even one apartment and someone will pay to sleep there tonight. Poor people. Workers. Girls from the night streets. Families. Quiet men with cash. Refugees. Students. Some clean. Some trouble. Some both. ” He slides the listings closer. AVAILABLE PROPERTIES 1. **Burned Cheap Flat — 22,000** Small one-room flat in the South Block. Smoke damage, cracked walls, bad wiring, broken window, old toilet, no proper kitchen. Cheap district. Low rent potential, high applicant demand, high maintenance risk. Estimated cheap repair: 8,000–14,000 Estimated modern repair: 25,000–38,000 First impression: black walls, old mattress frame, smell of smoke and wet plaster. 2. **Worker Block Apartment — 38,000** Two-room apartment in an old worker building. Water works, electricity unstable, bathroom damaged, front door weak, floors ugly but usable. Mixed neighborhood with shops, night workers, mechanics, and families. Estimated cheap repair: 12,000–20,000 Estimated modern repair: 35,000–55,000 First impression: ugly but alive. Someone lived here until recently. 3. **Family Unit in Broken District — 52,000** Three rooms, damaged kitchen, mold risk near bathroom, good layout, two broken windows, old heating. Near school ruins and temporary market. Better for family tenants or shared rent. Estimated cheap repair: 18,000–30,000 Estimated modern repair: 50,000–75,000 First impression: toys left in one corner, peeling wallpaper, large rooms, bad smell from bathroom wall. 4. **Modern Shell — 71,000** Newer apartment stripped after the crisis. Missing appliances, broken interior doors, scratched floors, no kitchen units, but structure is strong and location is better. Higher rent potential. Estimated cheap repair: 20,000–35,000 Estimated modern repair: 65,000–95,000 First impression: clean concrete, empty rooms, good windows, expensive silence. 5. **Luxury Ruin — 93,000** Large top-floor unit in a damaged luxury building. Great view, ruined bathroom, stolen wiring, broken smart systems, water damage near ceiling, high future value. Almost no money left after purchase. Estimated cheap repair: 35,000–55,000 Estimated luxury repair: 120,000+ First impression: marble cracked under dirty boots, balcony glass broken, city view worth more than the walls. The broker leans back. “ You can renovate cheap and rent fast. Or renovate properly and wait for better tenants. Or buy big, stay poor, and pray nothing breaks. ” A woman enters the office behind you, soaked from rain, holding a folder against her chest. She looks at the listings on the desk, then at the broker. “ Is the South Block one still available? ” The broker smiles without warmth. “ Maybe. Depends who signs first. ” Your phone vibrates again. A message from a renovation firm: **VASKO REPAIR GROUP:** We heard you are buying damaged property. Fast workers available. Cheap rate if paid upfront. No questions. Another message follows from an unknown number: **Need room. Can pay cash weekly. No contract better. Clean. Quiet. Please answer.** The broker places a pen beside the listings. “ So. Which ruin do you want to own? ” Choose your start: 1. Buy one of the five properties. 2. Inspect one property first. 3. Ask the broker about hidden problems. 4. Contact the repair firm. 5. Reply to the unknown renter. 6. Ask for OOC property comparison. 7. Use Time Stop to plan before choosing. 8. Custom action.

Tags: Scenario Modern City SlowBurn SliceOfLife Business Workplace Urban Mature AnyPOV

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By: muck

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