New Wards Alone Aren't Going to Solve the Housing Issue

If you truly think house flipping is the main issue of housing, then there is an easy solution to fix it. All they have to do is implement stricter measures to catch house flippers. It's really not that hard when you consider how often people give up their houses. It's not a common thing, so whenever it DOES happen, all they'd have to do is investigate the previous owner and current owner and analyze to see if anything suspicious happened. For example, did new owner recently trade large amounts of gil to another player instead of just buying the plot? If so, that's a clear sign that house flipping occured, and SE would be able to take whatever action they deem necessary.

But that's if you think house flipping is that serious.

If you think this is too complicated, then fine - just make it so that once you get a house, you CAN'T get rid of it, unless you don't enter it for 30 days (or whatever the timer is). And after the timer, the plot becomes free but unavailable for purchase for 20-24 hours (with the time being random), with people being able to see that the plot will soon be up for sale. Simple and no effort required from the staff.

But again, that's if you think house flipping is the problem. Which it isn't. Even if without these so-called "house barons", there's still a bunch of people looking after plots, regardless of whether they plan to re-sell them or not.

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Originally Posted by Mikki

I'm on Zalera which is really small. A day or two after 4.1 dropped, there were still houses in lavender beds, mist and goblet. Despite this though, I saw some plots near my house in Shirogane just ....sitting there. I checked the owners. Lo and behold, today finally they built a house on the land. Only..........the person who owns it now is different. Which means of course... someone resold it. On ZALERA. A server which still had plots available in other housing wards for 2 days after 4.1 dropped. I'm disappointed and I wonder if I should report it, but I don't want to cause trouble for the people who spent tons of gil to get their house showing that they clearly really wanted it.

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Have you considered that it may have been a player holding the house for someone they know? I'm not dismissing the possibility that a sale might have happened, but as someone who's helped secure a house for a friend myself, I find that it's troubling when people immediately assume that it's house flipping.

I'm a bit torn on the reporting thing solely because I don't know what the protocol is for these sorts of reports. Do the suspected parties' accounts become frozen during the investigation? If so, I think better to procure more substantial evidence of a house sale taking place (chat logs, if you can fish the info out of them) before making the report as to not inconvenience a potentially innocent player. If there's no such account freeze, then I think go ahead and file a report if you sense something's amiss.

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Originally Posted by nranola

Have you considered that it may have been a player holding the house for someone they know? I'm not dismissing the possibility that a sale might have happened, but as someone who's helped secure a house for a friend myself, I find that it's troubling when people immediately assume that it's house flipping.

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Like with all systems, there are legitimate uses (like yours) and abuses (like house flipping) which means when the abuses become so egregious that SE must step in people like you end up getting screwed through no fault of their own, even though they are actually being altruistic (as they should) and not selfish.

Ya know house flipping wouldn't be a thing if people simply wouldn't pay people to relinquish a house... you stop people from selling by not buying... as long as people are willing to pay the stupid prices for houses flippers are charging they will continue to sell them at those prices

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Originally Posted by Okamimaru

Ya know house flipping wouldn't be a thing if people simply wouldn't pay people to relinquish a house... you stop people from selling by not buying... as long as people are willing to pay the stupid prices for houses flippers are charging they will continue to sell them at those prices

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While that's true, if you can reduce the house flipper's capacity from 16 down to 2 (or 3), then you're going to cripple the house flippers ability to keep inventory. Throw in a random timer of unknown duration that happens upon releasing a house, and the risk to the buyer becomes significant, which will force the prices down.

Do both, and the market will collapse.