Though iMobsters takes from other games in the mafia text based iPhone RPG genre quite a bit, there is one aspect that ends up being unique when compared to others. All games rely on property for its users to end up with a large consistent surplus of money. Usually this requires them to purchase a lot of some sort and then to build a large building on that lot as a separate purpose.
For every fully-realized property there is essentially two property purchases made. iMobsters turns this on its head by allowing each piece of property to be one single purchase instead of the land and then the structure. This makes iMobsters have a different pattern required for being immediately successful in the real estate field.
Right when you start iMobsters, you are going to have to perform some Missions just to get some start up money. You are going to want to do this until you reach two thousand dollars, which will occur once you complete several Petty Thefts or Mugging. You can try to go for higher missions right in the beginning, but this means you are going to have to purchase a weapon and put off real estate shopping.
Once you reach your two thousand mark, you should immediately go buy a News Stand. This only gives you a fifty dollar per hour return, but its low price means that you can start the cycle early. Continue this cycle until you have three or four, but since the price raises two hundred dollars with each purchase you are not going to want to buy any more.
At this point, you are going to want to stop performing missions for a while to halt leveling up and wait for your News Stands to accrue money. In this situation, patience will pay off and you can then buy a Shack. From here, you want to do the same thing that you did with the News Stand, and once you get four or five move on to buying Convenience Stores. If you follow this process then you can switch your money dependence from missions and fights to real estate before hitting level for or five.