They should keep the housing as is for FC only.
Each character should be afforded an instanced area that is considered your homestead.
like mog garden (ffxi) with your own personal house located in it.
cost gil maybe, i dont know.
However if they did this they could make this content client side, as part of the launcher.
That way you not only have a house that you can invite people to, upgrade, decorate ect.
But if it was client side you could do something while the game is updating, and could just upload data to the server when a connection was possible.
just a dreamer ....
