It starts innocently enough: a board, some dice, and a family game night. Four hours later, your parents aren’t speaking, your cousin’s charging you $950 in rent you can’t afford, and you’re back in jail for the third time.
It’s chaos. It’s cutthroat. And in today’s housing market, it feels more realistic than ever.
While most of us know Monopoly as a game of luck and land grabs, few realize it’s based on a real place and political movement. Every property on the board—from humble Baltic Avenue to the high-rolling Boardwalk—was pulled from the actual street grid of Atlantic City, NJ. Even more shocking: The game’s original ethos was meant to teach the dangers of monopolies, not encourage them.
Even though those lessons haven’t lasted the ages, the streets and homes that the game was built around have. Except in 2025, getting one isn’t as simple as passing go and collecting the $200 you need for a down payment.
Atlantic City: Where the board began
The original version of what we now know as Monopoly didn’t feature any real places at all—just anonymous parcels labeled “luxury” or “for rent.” But that changed when the game caught on with a group of Quakers in Atlantic City. They customized their boards with the names of local streets and neighborhoods, grounding the game’s abstract ideas about property and wealth in their hometown.
That version eventually made its way to Charles Darrow, who sold the concept to the Parker Brothers in the 1930s. The company adopted the Quakers’ board, giving the game its now‑famous Atlantic City geography.
A few nearby towns even made cameo appearances—Marvin Gardens, for instance, is actually Marven Gardens in neighboring Margate, a typo that Parker Brothers never corrected.
At the time, Atlantic City was known as America’s Playground, a boomtown that attracted tourists to its beaches, boardwalks, and nightlife. But as Prohibition took hold, the city’s underworld thrived. When tourism waned in the decades that followed, so did the economy.
Today, Atlantic City ranks as the third-most affordable beach town in the U.S.—a far cry from its Monopoly-era heyday—and it is one of the only places where you can buy a home on the shore for under $300,000.
The real prices behind the board
So how much do the very real places behind Monopoly cost? As of September 2025, the median listing price in the city was $229,900, with 361 homes for sale, according to Realtor.com® data. While you won’t find any listings for their Monopoly prices, Atlantic City is the rare coastal market where owning property isn’t out of reach.
Mediterranean Avenue
Mediterranean Avenue sits squarely in Atlantic City’s Westside neighborhood, where the median home value is $172,000. That’s an almost-160,000% appreciation rate compared to the game, where buying land on this street costs $60, and building a home is an additional $50.
Baltic Avenue
In the game, Baltic Avenue offers a classic starter home. Players can buy property here for just $60 and build a house for another $50. In real life, the street runs through three major neighborhoods of the city, with median listing prices ranging from $199,000 to $270,000 between them.
This four-bed, 2.5-bath single-family home falls just under the median range for the street, at only $169,000. The home is represented by Omar Nunez Guerrero, with Keller Williams Realty Atlantic Sho.
Oriental Avenue
Prices start to climb once you hit Oriental Avenue—both in the game and in real life. In Atlantic City’s Uptown neighborhood, where this street sits just steps from the Marina District, the median list price hovers just under $270,000. It’s a good deal for prime real estate, but when compared to the $100 down payment you need in the game, it might feel a little steep.
Connecticut Avenue
In Monopoly, you can snag a piece of land on Connecticut for $120 and build a house for $50. Meanwhile, in real life, the median listing price is much higher at $269,999. Connecticut Avenue offers the kind of neighborhood that appeals to players looking for stability—less Boardwalk glamour, more long-game potential.
This listing represented by Brett Neal, at Shoreside Realty, LLC, is a prime example, offering five bedrooms and two baths for just $235,000.
St. Charles Place
St. Charles Place may sit just over the bridge in Ocean City, NJ, but its real-world price tag is no small sum. With median listings around $1.3 million, that $140 square on the board looks like the deal of the century.
States Avenue
This tiny avenue falls in the Uptown neighborhood, just one block from the beach. In the game, you’ll need to pay $140 for the land and another $100 for a house. In real life, you’ll need to shell out closer to $270,000—which, with easy beach access, is still a deal.
Virginia Avenue
This main artery runs through Atlantic City’s Uptown, Downtown, and Westside neighborhoods, where median home prices range from about $172,000 to $270,000. On the Monopoly board, it’ll only set you back $160.
St. James Place
Property on this tiny street in the Downtown neighborhood costs just $180 in the game, while in real life you’ll need to pay closer to $182,000.
Tennessee Avenue
Tennessee Avenue runs straight through Atlantic City’s Westside and Downtown neighborhoods, where median listing prices range from $172,000 to $182,000 respectively. In the game, you can snag land on this main thoroughfare for $180 and build a house for $100.
This real-life Tennessee listing, represented by Gerard Barker, at Weichert Realtors, boasts proximity to the Orange Loop Project—a nod to the game’s coveted Orange cards. Homes here have easy access to restaurants, bars, live music, public art, and more.
New York Avenue
Another major artery for the city, New York Avenue starts in the Westside neighborhood and ends in the Orange Loop project. In the game, you’ll need to pay $200 for property here, while in real life, you’ll need to shell out between $172,000 and $182,000.
Kentucky Avenue
Just one block over form New York Avenue in real life with the same median home prices, you’ll need to pay another $20 to snag a property here.
Indiana Avenue
Monroe Park, home to this listing represented by Penny Robinson, at BHHS Fox & Roach Margate, sits just under the $200,000 mark, with a median price of $199,000. Tucked inland, it’s often overlooked—but for buyers looking for affordability without heavy competition, it’s a hidden gem worth landing on.
Illinois Avenue
While Illinois Avenue endures in the game, it’s been renamed Dr. MLK Boulevard in real life. Homes nearby cost between $172,000 and $182,000, while in the game they cost just $240 for the land and another $150 for the house.
Atlantic Avenue
Lower Chelsea has the inventory—and the price tag—to match its high-end reputation. With 125 homes for sale and a median listing price of $450,500, it’s one of Atlantic City’s most expensive and active areas. For buyers seeking condos near the beach or second-home investments, this is prime Park Place territory.
This gorgeous home—currently on the market for $1.6 million and represented by Gary Wade, at EXP Realty, LLC—offers a glimpse at the best Atlantic Avenue has to offer.
Ventnor Avenue
Ventnor Avenue falls in nearby Margate City, where the median listing price is $1.4 million. In the game, you can grab a home here for just a $240 down payment and $150 construction costs.
Marvin Gardens
The famously misspelled Marvin Gardens costs just $280 in the game. In real life, real estate in Marven Gardens comes in closer to the $1.4 million mark.
Pacific Avenue
This main road that runs parallel to the boardwalk offers some prime real estate. For a house in the Chelsea neighborhood, you’ll need to spend close to $320,000 today. While in the game, you’ll only have to shell out $300.
North Carolina Avenue
North Carolina Avenue sits on Atlantic City’s Westside, where the median home price hovers around $172,000. On the Monopoly board, you can own it for just $300.
Pennsylvania Avenue
Just one block over from North Carolina Avenue, homes along Pennsylvania Avenue list for around $172,000. On the Monopoly board, that same spot costs $320.
Park Place
This small downtown street has a median home price of about $182,500 in real life. On the Monopoly board, it’ll cost you $350 to buy in.
Boardwalk
It costs $400 to buy-in on the famously pricey Boardwalk in Monopoly. Part of the appeal is being able to charge the maximum amount for rent and hotel fees (as much as $2,000) to any player who has the misfortune to land on your prime real estate.
In real life, the same logic applies. You’ll pay a premium for a piece of this Atlantic City icon and proximity to nightlife, restaurants, and, of course, the boardwalk.
Homes along the Boardwalk in the Lower Chelsea neighborhood list for a median price of $450,000. But for some luxury listings, like this 7,500-square-foot penthouse at the Ocean Club, you’ll pay far more.
This two-story residence features sweeping ocean views, five bedrooms, a chef’s kitchen, marble flooring, and access to amenities like a fitness center, pool, and concierge—all steps from the shore. Represented by Stephanie Luongo, at SERHANT, this listing is currently on the market for $2,199,999.
Monopoly’s hidden message
In 1904, a writer and inventor named Elizabeth Magie created what she called “The Landlord’s Game,” which she described as “practical demonstration of the present system of land-grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences.”
Her vision was based on the ideas of 19th‑century economist Henry George, who argued that governments should tax land, not labor or income. His “single‑tax theory” was meant to stop boom‑and‑bust cycles and make housing fairer.
It’s a movement that lives on today, with its most mainstream incarnation calling for the land value tax (LVT), which would tax the value of land without regard to any buildings or improvements on it—a small but significant distinction which proponents argue could help usher in an era of housing abundance.
Back in the early 1900s, Magie’s original game flourished in leftwing intellectual circles for a few decades, before it was bought by Parker Brothers, who transformed it into what we know today as Monopoly.
While much of Magie’s original structure endures, the Parker Brothers turned her lesson on inequality into a celebration of it. Instead of illustrating the harm of hoarding land, players are rewarded for doing exactly that: buying up property, driving up rents, and bankrupting their neighbors.
And nearly a century later, the game remains as relevant as ever.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all that people are talking about these ideas again, because the material conditions that originally sparked the [Georgist] movement have returned,” says Lars Doucet, president of the Center for Land Economics, an organization that advocates for property tax reform that emphasizes the importance of land in urban cities.
“The rise of not just Georgism but also the YIMBY and Strong Towns movement are indicative of this as well—it’s no surprise housing affordability is the No. 1 issue among young voters. And this renewed interest has already led to momentum in the land value tax movement, with six states having considered legislation in the past year and many more looking into it,” he adds.
As debates over land taxes, zoning reform, and housing scarcity take center stage again, the game’s original message is resurfacing in the real world, just when we may need it most.
What Monopoly got right—and what it didn’t
The game gets a few things exactly right: Scarcity drives prices up. Once the properties are gone, the only path forward is to pay someone else. That dynamic plays out every day in cities where housing supply is frozen by zoning laws, slow permitting, or a sheer lack of buildable land.
It’s also why it feels like older homeowners who bought before rates spiked are holding all the cards.
“To use the Monopoly metaphor, early on in the game when nobody owns any property yet, there’s this free-for-all where everyone tries to grab whatever they can,” explains Doucet. “During that phase, everyone is pretty much on equal footing. It’s only once all the property gets bought up that the knives really come out—we all know how miserable the late game can be for the have-nots.”
In real life, that early-game phase was mirrored by what Doucet calls a “second frontier expansion”—the post-WWII suburban boom, powered by cheap land and mass automobile access.
“That ‘second frontier’ was much like the early game of Monopoly. It’s what our parents and grandparents enjoyed. But all frontiers eventually close, because everything is now already priced in,” he explains. “For young people, the current housing market is like joining halfway through the game when all the cards are already in the other players’ hands.”
Realtor.com Economic Analyst Hannah Jones sees that same dynamic playing out in today’s frozen housing market.
“The ‘board filling up’ feeling may also ring true to first-time homebuyers who are struggling to get their foot in the door amid high home prices and mortgage rates,” she says. “Investors now own significant shares of entry-level homes, extracting returns and limiting opportunities for first-time buyers. … [It] feels like a late-stage Monopoly board where no one can move.”
Even the strategy behind which properties to buy still holds up. In the game, orange properties—St. James, New York, and Tennessee—aren’t the flashiest, but players land on them the most. In today’s market, that logic maps onto mid-tier cities where demand is durable, price points are relatively attainable, and cash flow still pencils out.
“For today’s homebuyers, the ‘orange property mindset’ might mean looking for markets or neighborhoods that are neither speculative nor stagnant,” Jones explains. “These opportunities are fewer and further between today, but the recent popularity of more affordable Midwest housing markets suggests that some buyers are still finding ‘sweet spot’ properties.”
But for everything Monopoly gets right, it leaves a lot out.
There’s no 7% mortgage rate in the game, there’s no “great lock-in” effect. And no one’s getting priced out before they even pass “Go.”
Monopoly also treats shelter as a strategy and not a necessity. Hoard it, hike up the rent, wait for someone else to lose. The game doesn’t reward people for living in homes; it rewards them for keeping others out.
And in today’s housing market, that message might hit a little too close to home.
