You can upgrade straight to hotels you don’t need to get houses before upgrading to hotels it’s just that no one has the capital to do that.
The original rules had a second phase to the game that replayed the game with the capitalism taken out using socialism instead, it was created by a school teacher as a way to showcase the dangers of capitalism. When Mattel bought stole the game from the original creator, they removed the second phase keeping only the capitalism phase.
No, you can’t. The rules state that you need to upgrade all of your properties in a given color at the same rate. For instance, if one of your green properties has two houses while the rest have three, you have to upgrade the lowest one before you upgrade the rest. Additionally, the rules specifically state that you must have four houses before upgrading to a hotel. Your post is a great example of one of the bad house rules I originally mentioned.
boughtstole the game from the original creator, they removed the second phase keeping only the capitalism phase.Agreed, the game relies on owning the full color. And the houses itself have to be upgraded symmetrically.