The economy is pretty much dead on Sargatanas.
Although it has been like this since well before patch 2.1, housing prices and other things from patch 2.1 didn't help much.
Gathering and crafting are simply too easy. I love the crafting system but it's possible to guarantee high quality results and nearly impossible to fail a synth. Find 4 close gathering nodes and they repop infinitely as you make the rounds. You can gather endlessly. The only thing limiting the supply of materials and items is the travel time and cooldowns of gathering and crafting abilities. The demand for any of these, however, is exceedingly low.
tl;dr: The economy on Sargatanas has been garbage for a long time and it was not caused by the cost of housing.
P.S. There were 1 small and 1 medium house up the last time I checked.
