This category includes houses and hotels. They work the same way, but hotels typically have greater needs, and deliver a bigger rent per hour. Houses and hotels are each divided in several subcategories, that you can select and browse in the building menu.
The main purpose of residential buildings is to generate rent per hour, and add population, to properties where they are placed.
Applying upgrade tokens to residential cards costs money and it increases the stats: rent per hour, wealth, population, as well as the quantity required to fully satisfy their needs.
Residential buildings can freely be moved around, or even removed, depending on what you want to achieve, it's entirely your choice.