Landlords, this is the biggest update Rent Due has ever gotten. Two whole systems land at once, the county gets involved, and the sun finally learns how to set. Here is the tour.
HIRE A STAFF
HireME is open on your laptop. Post a job, candidates ride the bus to your office, and you read their application across the desk and stamp it, the same way you screen a tenant.
Three jobs. Rent collectors walk your street on rent day and bring the money back. The leasing agent signs tenants for every listing you own, and even renews leases for the ones with a spotless record. Eviction agents serve the notice so you do not have to.
They are real people with real habits. You will see them get off the bus and work your district, they learn on the job and grow into bigger routes, and not all of them are honest. Who you hire, and who you trust, is up to you.
HOME INSPECTIONS
The county is watching now. Two inspections a week get booked across your rented homes, and the appointments land on your calendar.
Show up on the day, knock on the front door, and hear what the tenant has to say about it, out loud. Then your phone camera comes up, and what you find inside is yours to discover.
Document it, file the county report, and collect. Fines come straight out of the tenant's deposit, three strikes puts CAN EVICT on the paper, and tenants who know you show up keep the place nicer. Skip your appointments at your own risk.
THE SUN ACTUALLY SETS
- Real nights. Sunset, dusk, a properly dark 1am sky, street lights and glowing windows, sunrise.
- Rooftop markers now say their job under the gem. Inspection, Collect Rent, Evict, each in its own color.
- Auction lots and level gated homes are honestly locked. A red padlock on the door, the reason on the sign.
- Bus stops are real. Aim at one and press E to bring up the travel map.
THE EARLY GAME STOPS EATING ITS YOUNG
We watched new players buy two homes, go broke, and sit there. Fixed.
- Trailer prices came down across the park, so your second and third buys land without a week of broke waiting.
- Emergency phone calls now price off the home and your level. A pipe burst at level 1 runs about $50 instead of $575, with full price returning once you can actually afford a plumber.
- The first portfolio goal asks for 2 properties instead of 3, so the ladder keeps moving with you.
TIME AND PACE
- Below level 7 the clock keeps running while you use the laptop and menus, so the early game moves fast. At level 7 the world starts waiting for you, announced as a perk when you hit it. Flip Time Stops In Menus in Settings and your choice wins forever, in either direction.
- Sleep starts at 12 hours for everyone, stretches to 14 at level 5 and 16 at level 9. Fast pace gets the full 16 from the start.
FIXED
- Estate floors are solid. No more clipping through walls or dropping to the first floor.
- Twisted feet on doorstep tenants are healed.
- The laptop no longer gets stuck on your screen after a property visit or an errand brings you home.
- A sneaky rent math bug is gone. The rental application was letting slow payers read as premium offers while quietly shorting your week. Offers now show how often they pay and are judged at that pace, payments cover the days they span, and the COUNTER button works on lowballers. Your leasing agent judges offers the same way.
- Rent comes due at the hour you signed the lease, and the calendar says so.
- A doorstep conversation stops time no matter what your settings say.
- A tenant call answered during an errand finishes before the ride home instead of being cut off.
- The tutorial victory music no longer stacks, the mouse can no longer vanish under a screen that needs clicking, and TAB in the office tells you where Furniture Upgrades lives.
- Falling out of the world puts you back on your feet where you were.
- Auction homes no longer show up with their furniture missing.
- A frozen frame in a player build now reports itself home with enough detail for us to hunt it.
Thank you for the reports, the screenshots, the bug hunting and the ideas. The three strikes rule, the two home collector, and half the fix list came straight from you. Keep it coming, and go collect.