Animal Crossing and New Leaf players in particular have, in my opinion, access to one of the most comprehensive knowledge bases in terms of game guides, cheats and item collection in general. However, upon realising I wanted to sell my first town due to dissatisfaction with permanent PWP placement, I immediately went to the internet to find ways to increase my town's value so I could sell it off for much more in order to tackle my dream town's financial demands quickly and efficiently. I found...

Nothing.

It's been years since the Welcome Amiibo update and not one person thought to delve into this and share such valuable information (at least on an English site), save for a very confusing Redditor who had clear misinformation just from a quick read-over. 'Well', I thought, 'I guess I'll have to do the dirty work myself.'

(Being a member of deceased fandoms such as Corpse Party - no pun intended - I'm used to it.)

Hello, and welcome to a guide on how to maximise the value of your town. This is mainly aimed at players who are either new to the game and realise they hate their town's layout, or those who are grinding up bells for whole-town projects in the future. And those who want to flex, of course.

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Contents

Section 1: What increases town value

Section 2: What keeps town value neutral

Section 3: What decreases town value

Section 4: The intricate details of selling your town

Section 5: Summary and conclusion

Key

HHA = Happy Home Academy

TV = Town Value

TPC = Town Pass Card

PWP = Public Works Projects

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1) What increases your town's value?

1.1) Repayment towards house loans

1.2) Happy Home Academy milestones

1.3) Trees and flowers contributing to a Perfect Town status

1.4) Donations towards public works projects

1.5) Museum donations

1.6) Badges

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1.1) Repaying home loans

I think this is the most obvious one that most people know as it's simple enough. Any money you put towards paying off loans goes directly into the TV as an equal ratio. This of course means that you'd get the same TV if you just put the bells into your account, and so it could be argued that this does not necessarily increase town value on its own. However, it does allow you to earn more HHA points and therefore achieve the rewards for point milestones quicker, so it's worth doing in the long term.

(The Redditor I mentioned earlier claimed there is a bonus for paying off the last house loan. I haven't tested this yet as I don't use Google as my main search engine so I didn't see the thread until recently, but I will be adding to this part ASAP once I get the opportunity to measure this.)

1.2) HHA milestones

Whilst testing whether furniture sets in the home added to town value, it became apparent to me that for every Happy Home Academy milestone - that is, when you get enough points to be sent a letter and reward in the mail - 10,000 bells get added to your TV. Of course, there are guides out there to help you gain HHA points quickly, but this one's a slow burner, I'll admit, so it's not a method of increasing town value I'd recommend.

1.3) Perfect Town progress

It's surprising how valuable trees and flowers are in your town. To put it into context, I covered half of my town, of which the entirety of it was bare save for the maximum number of PWPs, with trees, and the town value jumped up immediately by over a million. You can also get several more hundreds of thousands of bells by covering the town in an appropriate amount of flowers. I didn't test how an abundance of trees and flowers would affect TV, but considering the ratio of tree and flower value was definitely improportionate to its worth in town value, the TV is more likely to decrease rather than increase by adding more plants.

1.4) PWP donations

Similar to repaying loans, the total of donations into public works projects is proportionately translated into town value. I also found that you do not have to wait for the project to be built - the money translates immediately, leading me to believe that you also do not need to pay off a loan in its entirety to receive an increase in TV. Technically you can profit off of this one as you can wait for villagers to put in the money themselves, but I haven't heard of one person crazy enough to do that. Additionally, I'd say this one is more valuable as it contributes towards having a perfect town, whereas paying off loans only allows those measly 10,000 bell bonuses you get from HHA milestones.

1.5) Museum donations

Quite simply, every donation to the museum increases the town value by 10,000 bells, making it worth donating almost all possible items (of course, go wild with selling your sharks and rare stags instead of donating them if you wish to maximise profits as efficiently as possible). This is particularly useful for players who are grinding bells through multiple town resets as it provides a large incentive to sell off your town as soon as possible and reap the TV rewards of donating from scratch several times over.

1.6) Badges

It took me longer than I'd like to admit to work this one out since I was so busy trying to work out the whole furniture and HHA points fiasco but badges are actually pretty decent in terms of town value:

Bronze badges: 50,000 bells each

Silver badges: 100,000 bells each

Gold badges: 200,000 bells each

This is the second one on the list that provides a strong inventive to restart several times as you can earn significant town value over and over again - if you don't sell your catalogue you can continue to reap the rewards from that badge set. As well as this, it provides a better incentive than the HHA points to add the other three characters to your town - getting every single badge for all four players adds up to a grand total of 33,600,000 bells in town value!

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2) What does not affect town value?

2.1) Furniture in the household

2.2) Items in storage inventories

2.3) Furniture in museum-loaned rooms

2.4) Items in player inventories

2.5) MEOW coupons

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2.1) Furniture in the household

...Is worth nothing. Nada. You'd think considering the game tracks everything in your house via the HHA that having valuable furniture or sets would count for something in town value, but it doesn't. Therefore, it's definitely not worth buying expensive furniture (I'll say it explicitly, don't buy Gracie's stuff, especially under the Bell Boom ordinance), and anything you do keep should be sold before you sell your town. I genuinely made millions from what was in my house, including the inventories (granted a third of it was full of fossils).

2.2) Items in storage inventories

Moving on swiftly, nothing in your storage counts towards your town value. This seems to be pretty well-known, but this wouldn't be a guide if it was missing crucial information like that, would it? Keep in mind that this includes both your regular storage and the secret storeroom, so you should sell absolutely everything you keep in those areas. Additionally, remember to sell your music tracks as they are worth on average over 950 bells each with the Boom Bell ordinance.

2.3) Furniture in museum-loaned rooms

This seems to be a given now that furniture in the household has already been identified as having no effect in town value, but it should still be made clear. Therefore, there's really no reason whatsoever to rent out the museum storerooms as you're losing a couple of thousand bells for nothing in return. If anything it might be useful as an auction room if you're not playing through your town alone for its whole duration.

2.4) Items in player inventories

Again, this is probably one of the only things that people do know of as it is already stated by multiple resources that attempt to state what counts towards town value, but ultimately fail to. Nevertheless; nothing on your character's person counts towards your TV, including bells and the clothes they wear. It is therefore sensible to strip and sell your clothes and tools before the selling just to maximise your TV, and transfer every single bell into your account.

2.5) MEOW coupons

Valuable as they are, MEOW coupons on the player's person do not increase town value. Therefore, before selling the town all MEOW coupons should be transferred into bells to increase profits. If you want to be finicky about it you can even create all four characters solely for the purpose of giving in the 10 MEOW coupons they start with, though take note that you only unlock this ability once your house has been built and you have the ability to repay your first loan. There's really no point in using MEOW coupons for furniture trade unless said furniture is more valuable in bells that what you can transfer for the coupons - for example, Pavé's furniture set.

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3) What decreases your town's value?

3.1) Destroying Public Works Projects

3.2) Destroying trees and flowers contributing to a Perfect Town status

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3.1) Destroying PWPs

Learned the hard way that this is by far one of the most efficient ways of burning your town value, outcompeted only by activities such as putting your bells in the garbage can, which you may as well be doing. Not only do you lose money from the fee that goes into destroying public works projects, but every single bell in donations that previously contributed to town value - 99.9% of which is certainly your own hard-earned money - is yeeted straight out of your TV, and that can be hundreds of thousands of bells worth of progress. If you are building up a town purely for selling there is absolutely no reason to destroy PWPs; in fact, it would be much more efficient to put down the cheapest villager-requested ones just to achieve a perfect town. DO NOT DESTROY PUBLIC WORKS PROJECTS.

3.2) Destroying trees and flowers contributing to a Perfect Town status

At this point you can work this out purely from what was included in section one, but as the difference can be so significant I feel like I should explicitly list this anyway. Unless you are aiming for the gold gardener badge, there's really no reason to cut down trees or run through flowers as you'll only have to replant them again (and you don't even need to destroy the flowers for that). Making your town void of greenery will set back your town value by several million bells, and so you should avoid such behaviour at all costs.

(It can also be assumed that demolishing character's homes once they've paid towards loans will also decrease the town's value, but I haven't tested it yet, so I won't say so for sure.)

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4) What happens when I sell my town?

4.1: What you lose when selling your town

4.2: What you keep when selling your town

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4.1) What is lost upon selling your town

I'm including this section because it's still not absolutely clear what you keep and what you don't when you sell off your town. I read through several answers and Nook's extra dialogue and I was still surprised by the end result. Obviously, most of what you have is completely gone when you sell your town, including the layout itself, the shops you've unlocked, the villagers you had, MEOW coupons and PWPs. You also lose absolutely everything on your TPC - you'll be given a blank one with a new registration date (mine's a week into the future, oops) and all your badges will be wiped, as well as all the 'jokes' unlocked from Dr. Shrunk. Additionally, if you choose to sell your catalogue, everything in that will also be gone and you will not be able to order items you previously had possession of unless you find or buy them in-store once more.

What is kept upon selling your town

There are few things that you will keep when selling your town. If you choose to sell your catalogue, the only thing you'll really have to your name is the money transferred over from your previous town. However, if you choose not to sell your catalogue to Tom Nook, this will be available after the first upgrade from Nookling Junction into T&T Mart, and so you will be able to order everything you had possession of excluding custom and exclusive items, including Gracie's set. However, what will also transfer over is your final list of Public Works Projects, I found out by surprise. This will also include permanent PWPs that are requested at a random time by the villagers, such as the police stations and the campsite, and the garbage can will also be available. Finally, you can still use the dream address assigned to your old town once you create a new one. Therefore, if you feel your town is complete and you don't want to buy a new cartridge or hack your DS to make another town theme, there's no need to worry.

(I haven't made a new dream address yet as I don't want to display my town until I've made sufficient progress, but I'm like, 98% sure it will be different to the old one, considering I could visit it myself. It should also be noted that in order to sell your town, you need to have played for about 50 in-game days for 50 hours and a tier-four tree, acquired by having a perfect town.)

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5) Summary and conclusion

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The most efficient ways to maximise your town value are through earning badges, donating to the museum and achieving a perfect town status, as well as maintaining the majority of resources needed for that. Money you put into repaying loans and PWPs also counts, but are equally counted in your account. Anything in your storage and inventories as well as furniture in your household and museum rooms do not count towards town value, so sell it all - including music tracks! Destroying greenery and PWPs will significantly reduce town value.

The most efficient way to build up money is obviously to sell all valuable things on the Bell Boom ordinance, and to avoid buying expensive things with this ordinance. You should also be trading in MEOW coupons instead of purchasing items worth less in bells than the coupons themselves. Four players can be used to maximise both MEOW coupon and badge gains. You can also constantly be cycling through villagers until you get high-tier ones to trade them on here for bells.

When you sell your town, everything will be lost, including your TPC information along with the registration date and the 'jokes' learned from Dr. Shrunk. However, you will retain your PWP list with the permanent villager-requested projects included as well as the ability to visit the town you sold through its dream address.

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Thanks for reading! Whilst you're here, I may as well mention that I'm currently working on my dream town. I have a semi-rigid list of dreamies that I want and so if you found this blog useful, perhaps you could help me obtain the following if you have them in your town and do not particularly want to keep them.

Highly desirable:

- Kabuki

- Chester

- Kiki

- Mitzi

Moderately desirable:

- Bruce

- Poncho

- Poppy

- Marshall (fat chance eh)

- Tasha

- Zell

I'll take them but not for bells:

- Sally

- Bill

- Drake

- Stitches

- Elvis

- Sparro

- Chow

- Jacques

- Robin

Of course, this means that I'm going to be moving villagers in and out nonstop, especially since I don't plan on keeping the majority of that last group whatsoever. Therefore, it may interest you to follow me and check my page frequently as I'll be offering out any villagers I don't want - mostly for free but if you have something you'd like to trade that I'd find useful I'd be open to it (obviously I'll sell some of the tier 1s purely because I need the bells to progress). Just some incentives and mutual benefits, y'know? Thanks in advance, and I hope you found value in this guide!

{ The cover for this blog was made by myself, and the background image is a documentation of my struggle. Please like this blog to pity the extra formatting I had to do post-publishing. This app becomes increasingly inept the longer it lives. }

#curatorreview