Games / Property Ladder
🏘️ Property Ladder
Build a property empire one month at a time. Read the market, borrow wisely, renovate to add value, and time your sales — and learn how leverage, mortgages, and the lumpy costs of buying and selling actually behave.
Property Ladder
You start with $65,000and a dream. Buy, let, renovate and sell across ten years of booms and busts. Borrow to grow faster — just don't run out of cash when the boiler goes. How big a portfolio can you build?
It'll go above the office door.
The finance behind the fun
Property Ladder is a simulation, but every decision maps onto a real financial concept. It runs on the same exact-arithmetic engine that powers our calculators, so the numbers behave the way they would in the real world.
- Leverage: a deposit plus a mortgage lets you control far more property than your cash alone — amplifying both gains and losses. See our buy-to-let calculator.
- Mortgage amortisation: each repayment is part interest, part principal, and the split shifts over time. Explore it with our mortgage calculator.
- Transaction costs: purchase tax, legal fees and selling fees are lumpy and unrecoverable — they are why flipping quickly rarely pays. See the stamp duty calculator.
- Cash flow vs. equity: a property can be worth a fortune yet still leave you short of the cash to cover a void or a repair. Liquidity, not paper wealth, keeps you solvent.
- Interest-rate risk: a variable rate tracks the base rate, so a rising market can quietly turn a profitable let into a loss-making one.
Frequently asked questions
How do you win Property Ladder?
There is no fixed finish line beyond the ten-year horizon — the goal is to grow your net worth as high as you can. Each month you collect rent, pay your mortgages, react to repairs and voids, and decide when to buy, renovate or sell. You can also cash out early to lock in your score. Run out of cash, though, and the bank repossesses everything.
Should I buy with a mortgage or cash?
That is the central lesson. A mortgage is leverage: a 25% deposit lets you control four times as much property, so a rising market grows your equity far faster. But the monthly repayment is fixed whether or not the property is let, and a falling market shrinks your equity just as fast. Borrowing speeds you up when times are good and sinks you faster when they are bad.
What is the difference between a fixed and variable rate?
A fixed rate locks your interest rate for the life of the loan, so your repayment never changes. A variable rate starts cheaper but tracks the central base rate — if rates rise, your monthly payment rises with them, squeezing your cash flow. The game's base rate moves on its own cycle, so a variable deal that looks cheap today can become expensive later.
Why did a single repair bankrupt me when I had loads of equity?
Because equity locked up in bricks is not cash you can spend. If a boiler fails or a tenant leaves while your cash buffer is empty, you can still miss a mortgage payment and be repossessed — even on a portfolio worth a fortune on paper. Keeping a cash cushion for voids and repairs is the difference between surviving a downturn and losing everything.
Is my progress saved?
Yes. The game saves to your browser automatically, so you can close the tab and pick up where you left off on the same device. Starting a new game clears the old save.