monopoly

steve loves monopoly. steve always wins monopoly. steve dominates the board in monopoly.

i suck at monopoly. i am consistent....at losing monopoly. i have no strategy when playing monopoly.

years ago steve and i would chill out on his back lawn on a blanket and play monopoly. he only had the german version so i never knew if the bad luck i had with community cards and chance cards were actually because i just had bad luck or because he would misinterpret the german...on purpose. i did however likes how some of the properties were "strausse" (streets in german) because i actually knew that word and therefore felt a little smart. :P

last year i bought the english version of monopoly hoping that this would change my losing streak. it did not. in fact it got worse. i now not only lose but i lose by a TON!!! i decided on a strategy about 2 months ago. i was going to go for railroads and not really care too much about anything else. well i got all 4 railroads and i raked in the cash! every time he landed on ANY railroad he had to fork over $200. it was lovely. no buying houses or hotels, it was clean and simple and cheap for me. well he clued in fast. since then he now goes for railroads too. tonight he got all 4 of them and i, of course, kept landing on rainbow, pennsylvania, B&O or short line. he also landed on free parking 6 TIMES!!!!!!! he was rolling in the dough and i was barely able to accumulate money each round to pay for the next time i would land on his railroads. then he began to build his empire. houses were going up all over the place. i managed to buy 6 houses, 2 hours per orange property that i owned (my only complete set). i got back in the game for a while but then i landed on his $400-500 house filled properties 5 times in a row and had to mortgage all my properties.

is there a strategy that i am just not getting? how can i be THIS bad at monopoly? i need help. suggestions are welcomed!!!!!