I messed up my property order on my first playthrough. Bought the Warehouse before I had the cash flow to staff it. Wasted a lot of in-game days staring at empty shelves. Here's the order I settled on after restarting.

The buy order that makes sense:

Apartment (free) -> Bungalow ($6K at Hustler) -> Barn ($25K at Dealer) -> Docks Warehouse ($50K at Hoodlum V) -> Hyland Manor ($250K at Kingpin)

Skip nothing in between. Don't try to jump from Bungalow to Warehouse. Don't buy the Manor early. Every property unlocks a specific production capacity, and buying the wrong one at the wrong time just stalls your cash flow.

Full comparison:

Bungalow -- the $6K jump that changes everything:

I bought the Bungalow as soon as I hit $6K. It went from making pocket change to pulling in $7K-$9K profit per day within a few hours. The jump from apartment to Bungalow is bigger than any other upgrade in the game.

Don't buy this before $6K though. A few posts on Reddit ask "should I save for the Bungalow or buy more seeds" -- seeds. More seeds first. The Bungalow is useless if you can't afford ingredients to fill it.

I stayed in the Bungalow until I had $25K saved AND my daily profit was consistently above $10K. That took about 2-3 in-game days of OG Kush production.

The Barn -- best value in the game, but don't buy it broke:

The Barn at $25K is the single best property investment. Two floors, 10 employees, 2 loading bays. I automated Meth 4-mix there and profits jumped to $12K-$18K/day.

But here's the mistake I made the first time: I bought the Barn with $25K exactly, leaving myself with under $1K for equipment and ingredients. Big mistake. Equipment costs another $5K minimum, plus you need a few thousand for ingredients. Aim for $35K cash before buying the Barn. Multiple threads on Reddit and Steam say the same thing.

Docks Warehouse -- only if you need 8+ Mixing Stations:

The Warehouse is $50K and unlocks at Hoodlum V rank. I moved here when I wanted to run Cocaine 8-mix. The Barn couldn't fit 8 Mixing Stations without getting cramped.

The Warehouse has 12 employee slots but the layout is a single long floor. Loading bay is at one end, so Handler routes are longer. I ended up running 4 Handlers instead of the 2 I used in the Barn. Reddit posts confirm the same inefficiency.

The Warehouse is also only accessible 6PM-6AM. The door locks during the day. Minor annoyance, but worth knowing.

Hyland Manor -- not worth it for most players:

$250K is a lot of money. I haven't even bought it myself yet -- most players I've talked to on Reddit and Discord say the same thing: the Manor is a flex purchase. The Warehouse handles everything until Kingpin rank, and by that point you've already beaten the game.

The Manor needs Finishing the Job quest completed before it shows up at Ray's Realty. 16 employees, 3 loading bays. Can fit the full Cocaine 9-mix line. But at $250K + $50K equipment + $1,200/day wages, you need to produce 500+ Cocaine 9-mix units just to break even on the purchase. If you're already at that scale, you know what you're doing.

One thing I hear from other players:

The biggest mistake people make is buying the Barn before they're ready. Someone on the Schedule I subreddit put it well: "If buying the property leaves you with under $5K, wait one more day." I'd add: if you can't afford to staff it at full capacity within the first day, you bought too early.

For what to actually put inside these properties, see the Workshop Automation and Bungalow Setup guides.