Some of Hokko Life’s systems can be a little confusing, even if you are a veteran of the life-sim/farming genre. There are quite a few things locked behind Mayor Merits, but the game doesn’t provide descriptions that they are locked behind Mayor Merits. Others come from playing the game, but that, too, can be a bit obtuse. 

This Hokko Life guide will tell you how to build houses, move and demolish houses, and decorate house exteriors. 

How to Build Houses

When you first start Hokko Life, you’ll find yourself in the town’s inn. The innkeeper, Oma, will put you in a room for the night and share a few tidbits of information to help get you started.

Make sure to visit Oma daily throughout your time in Hokko Life, especially in the early going. They’ll eventually tell you that NPCs visit the inn around noon each day; these are potential residents you can invite to live in the village, as well as shopkeeps that will open businesses in town. 

For the most part, it doesn’t matter who you invite to live in your village (though Fiore will set up in the Workshop alongside Sally, letting you paint designs on clothes and other items). The point is: just invite someone to move in. 

Besides asking someone to drop their life elsewhere and move into Hokko Life’s idyllic townscape with few to no questions asked, be on the lookout for Rosa the Realtor — a pig in a suit. Invite Rosa to set up their realty office in town, then go about your day as normal. Take time to scout a spot for your new house and clear the lot if necessary; you can’t build on rocks, trees, bushes, flowers, or grass.

Visit town the next day, and you’ll find the realty office to the right of Moss’ Shop. Go inside, and speak to Rosa, who’s sitting at a desk in the back, and choose “New House” to see your options. You’ll be able to choose between four house designs: 

Blueprint 1: One-story rectangular design with central door and plank roof. x16 Wooden Plank, 400 gold.  

Blueprint 2: One-story L-shaped design with plank roof. x3 Stone Slab, x10 Wooden Plank, x5 Brick, 620 gold.

Blueprint 3: One-story circular design with a shingle roof.   x20 Stone Slab, x15 Red Wood Plank, 880 gold.  

Blueprint 4: One-story rectangular design with off-set door and half-shingle, half-plank roof. x20 Stone Slab, x15 Red Wood Plank, x5 Brick, 1,120 gold.   

Just as with most residents, it doesn’t matter which house you choose to build outside of aesthetics and the number of resources it costs to build. That’s completely up to you. 

Once you choose a house to build, tell Rosa to follow you. The screen will fade, and you’ll show up in the village. Walk to the general area in which you want to place the house (Rosa will follow you slowly), and speak to Rosa. Choose “Around here,” and you’ll be able to place the house. 

Rosa will then tell you to come back in a few days (~3 or so), and the house should be finished. 

How to Move Residents Into a House

To move a new resident into a house, approach the white placard sign on the right corner, and interact with it. Look at the bottom of the screen for the “Move Someone In” button prompt (e.g. Triangle on PlayStation) in the bottom right corner.

Press that, and a menu with potential residents will appear at the top of the screen. Select whomever you want to move into the house, and voila: they’re now part of your village. Be sure to go inside their house and help them unpack their moving boxes.

How to Evict Residents

You can also evict tenants from any house (including your own; more below) by interacting with the white placard sign and pressing the “Evict” button prompt found at the bottom right of the screen. 

How to Change Houses for Yourself

Sometimes you just want to expand your house for more space or a change of scenery. If you already live in a house and want to move into a new one (i.e. one of the four house designs at Rosa’s Realty): 

Choose the new house design at Rosa’s.   Place the new house in the village.   Wait for it to be built.   Move all of your belongings into your backpack/over to the new house.   Interact with the white placard sign at your current house.   Evict yourself from your current house.   Go to the new house, interact with the placard, choose “Move Someone In,” and choose your avatar from the list of available residents.  

How to Decorate Houses

Whether you want to change up the look of a house or are just going after the House Flipper trophy and/or achievement, you can redecorate the interiors and exteriors of any house in the village (even the ones already placed when you start Hokko Life) as many times as you’d like. 

Redecorating interiors is available from the beginning of the game. Visit Moss’ Shop, and go into the northwest corner of the store. There you’ll find different wall designs and flooring types (rotating in and out randomly) that you can buy to redecorate houses. You only need to buy one of each for dwelling you plan to remodel (e.g. x1 wall design covers all four walls). 

Enter the house you want to redecorate.   Open you backpack.   Select the wall or flooring option.   The wall or flooring option is applied automatically.  

You can also create custom wall and floor patterns at the Easel in Sally’s Workshop if you invite Fior to move into the village. You’ll need to craft paint with glue and flower petals (after purchasing the paint recipes from Sally), then interact with the Easel.

Select the wall or floor options on the left side of the menu, and create your own masterpiece. Save your design, and it will be added to your backpack automatically (pending you have room), and you’ll place the new design as you would anything your buy from Moss’ Shop. 

Redecorating exteriors takes a little more work. First, you’ll need to complete the Exterior House Decoration Mayor Merit challenge in the housing subtab (house icon to the right of the hammer icon) in the MM tab of your player menu. This requires you to:

Make 10 interior house changes.   Move 3 new residents (total) into the village.

Once you’ve done that, go up to any house in the village, and interact with the white placard sign as you would to move someone in or evict them. You’ll see a new customization menu appear in the upper right corner, with options for Walls and Roof. Select either, and choose a new wall or roof design from your backpack. 

You can buy new wall and roof designs from Rosa’s Realty, though the the selection is very limited and takes a long time to update. Like interior designs, you’ll need to buy one wall and one roof style for each house you plan to change. 

Note: Any designs and patterns you’ve added to a residence, inside or outside, are automatically returned to you backpack when you place a new design or pattern. These can be stored anywhere you like or sold to Moss. 

How to Move and Demolish Houses

To move or demolish a house completely, you. must first complete two Mayor Merit Challenges found in the Housing subtab of the Mayor Merits menu:

Exterior House Decoration: As listed above.   House Moving and Demolishing: Complete x8 Villager Requests. Move 5 new residents (total) into the village.  

Once you’ve done that, go to any house, and interact with the white placard sign as you would for the previous steps of moving someone in or evicting them. The prompts for both actions can be found at the bottom center of the screen (e.g. R1 for moving a house and L1 for demolishing a home on PlayStation). 

Note that unlike moving storage containers around, demolishing a dwelling also destroys all of the furniture and contents inside, so be sure to move them somewhere else before completing the action. 

And that’s essentially everything you need to know about houses in Hokko Life. Unfortunately, you can’t add onto them as you can in other life-sim/farm games like Stardew Valley or Disney Dreamlight Valley, but there are a lot of cool things you can do with their designs, and being able to move them around or demolish them is a neat feature. For more on Hokko Life, head over to our guides hub.