You should learn one truth: The first truth you must learn to be wise is "I know nothing". Only once you understand what you do (and do not) know, only then will you gain wisdom.
You know, I tend to find myself on the opposing side of your takes regarding housing more often than not, but...this is fair. More than fair. I've already judged it and my opinion probably won't change unless they actually do the unexpected and address the supply issue. Past experience has taught me that they probably won't. Will they this time? Like you said, we don't know. I suppose taking the wait and see approach is best regardless of how anyone feels about a lottery system. I am, however, extremely confident in my personal take on the situation.
Right, so here we are back at the beginning of this vicious cycle. lol Past experience has dictated that they won't do anything, but we don't know if they will do anything or not this time because it's a brand new system we know almost nothing about. However, they have done nothing to alleviate the actual problem so far, so...back to the start and it begins again. All signs point toward complacency, but we don't know enough yet. My head hurts.
I know I don't. lol
I speak from a personal perspective I have a fc and personal yet still search for empty plots. Partly for fun and for some friends. Here on Lamia I have seen at best in one week maybe 15 total plots open. Now thinking about how many FC's wants homes how many players want personals...then throwing the idea of letting a lotto decide. Pure cringe, This hole thing is like trying to squeeze a square peg in a round hole..
Look at the Cacpot its a lottery and their are players who have played it daily since release and never won the jack pot. Ask yourselves do you want that kind of absurd rng choosing who gets a house?? I don't..
Yeah that's not very well thought through counter argument, agreed. If they go with a lotto system, I would hope there would be something in place to recognize a ticket holder has already purchased multiple homes in the past and disqualify them. (Though this would have to flag an account rather than just a character. Flippers would just delete and recreate characters.) But only for FC housing, which is the primary method of reselling houses atm since placard timers make it so you can't demo to let someone else purchase the plot.
Housing hoarders do this as well. I know of one person who has bought up 25+ FC houses on 4 different Crystal DC so far. Mostly in the last month and a half and likely will go for more. And SE just turns a blind eye to this sort of thing.
Also they didn't mention relocating at all. Which is the *second* way resellers are continuing operations. They buy up mediums, larges and small properties that are desirable, then sell relocations into those plots (and relocate into an open plot, taking it from people who are already there clicking).
So honestly, I'm waiting to see how they plan to do this before I decide how to feel about it.
Throwing some numbers out there, just make all house owners pay upkeep costs of like 50k gil/week for each small personal house, 100k gil/week for a medium personal house, 200k gil/week for a large personal house, or 1M gil/week for a small FC house, 2M gil/week for medium FC house, or 3M gil/week for a large FC house. If they can figure out how to pay those costs for all the houses they own, the can keep them. If they can't, that's their problem.