The board game Monopoly, according to this Wikipedia article, originated from a game patented on January 5, 1904 by Elizabeth Magie called “The Landlord’s Game.”

According to the article, Magie wanted the game to be a “practical demonstration of the present system of land grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences.”

The article goes on to say that Magie “based the game on the economic principles of Georgism, a system proposed by Henry George, with the object of demonstrating how rents enrich property owners and impoverish tenants. She knew that some people could find it hard to understand why this happened and what might be done about it, and she thought that if Georgist ideas were put into the concrete form of a game, they might be easier to demonstrate. Magie also hoped that when played by children the game would provoke their natural suspicion of unfairness, and that they might carry this awareness into adulthood.”

Did Magie achieve her goal?

Today about 65% of homes are owned by those living in the home, so I’d say yes, Magie achieved her goal.

That is until 2008 when there was a housing market collapse.

What happened?

In “The 2008 Financial Crisis and Its Aftermath: Addressing the Next Debt Challenge” by Thomas A. Russo and Aaron J. Katzel, the authors write that the financial crisis was caused by “. . . the incurrence of too much leverage on the part of all economic participants, including individuals, financial institutions, other private businesses, and governments.”

Individual leverage often took the form of borrowing against one’s home (i.e., equity lending). Financial institutions were lending frantically at historically low rates.

Who could say no?

A Pluto-in-Sagittarius generation said “yes” to more money, more leverage.

In 2008, Pluto entered Capricorn and the game changed. On December 30, 2008, according to Wikipedia, “the Case-Shiller home price index reported its largest price drop in its history.” On that date, Pluto, Mars, sun, Mercury and Jupiter were all in Capricorn.

The moon, Neptune and Venus were all in Aquarius. Uranus was in Pisces while Saturn was opposing in Virgo.

The bubble burst from a load of Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces energy.

The Astrological Game Pieces

“The Landlord’s Game” was patented on January 5, 1904 with sun in Capricorn (that same year on October 17, a bank was founded in San Francisco called Bank of America).

In 1904, Pluto was in Gemini, Uranus in Sagittarius, Neptune in Cancer and Saturn in Aquarius.

In 2008, as mentioned above, there was lots of Capricorn and Aquarius energy with a pinch of Pisces and Virgo.

Our astrological game pieces need to include Capricorn and Aquarius for sure.

We also have the mutable square – Gemini/Sagittarius and Pisces/Virgo.

And there’s a little bit of Cancer.

The Homeowner’s Game

Now that we have the astrological game pieces, let’s see how we can both learn astrology and devise a board game based on homeownership.

First, what’s the goal of the game?

The goal of the game is to keep your property value level or increasing. The winner has the most expensive (or least decreasing) property value.

This game has two bankers. Pluto-in-Sagittarius is the banker that lends money, as much as you want at any time. Pluto-in-Capricorn is the banker that controls the value of the money that you have.

As Pluto in Sagittarius lends money, Pluto in Capricorn reduces the value of money. The players must balance the two extremes while maintaining their property value.

The players, who are Aquarius, must circle the board. As they get ready to pass Go and collect their salary, they must develop a new technology or lose three turns.

Now let’s bring in the mutable grand square (Sagittarius-Gemini-Pisces-Virgo). Let’s make these four signs the four corners of the board.

Virgo, which rules work, is the Go corner where we collect our salary. As in the game of Monopoly, no one wins the game simply by collecting salary.

The opposite sign Pisces is not jail in this game but the hospital. If you land in the hospital, you lose all your property in an effort to pay your mortgage(s). You can re-enter the game, but these players often feel the game is hopeless and tend to gravitate toward the kitchen between turns.

The Gemini corner is where you buy media. If you don’t buy media, you do not know the value of your house or how much money is worth. The media gets more expensive each time you land on this spot. It’s advantageous to land here once and no more.

And lastly the Sagittarius corner is the riverboat casino. When you land on this spot, you are taking a rest from the game and spend some of that hard-earned money on pleasure.

Neptune in Cancer is part of the game too. It’s the homeowner who stays home, enjoys what it has and doesn’t jump into the ring of borrowing and lending.

The game can be a little boring with the constant Sagittarius-Capricorn monetary tug-of-war and can go on forever (as we’ve all had occur with Monopoly). The Homeowner’s Game is meant to unite families, not bore them, so there is a twist on the board, a wild card of sorts.

If you land on the last spot before Go, a difficult place to land, you get to be one of the bankers!

Once a player becomes a banker, then the game is truly exciting. Bankers can change, when another player lands on the banker square.

Being the banker isn’t a guaranteed win. Players who become banker must strategically manage their side of the lending-money contraction tug-of-war for maximum property value.

The winner of the game has the highest property value, which comes through a combination of luck and skill, as with any game.

The winner of the game gets to keep the entire board. That shouldn’t be a problem as not many people want to play The Homeowner’s Game again once they have lost.