As with most things they do, if the community asks for something that falls in-line with their overall game design plan then they're more willing to go along with it. I'm mostly just talking about the talk of going from neighborhoods to purely instanced housing where anyone can own a large house in a void.
Honestly, the best housing system ever was Wildstar. God... the game may not have been that good, but the housing system was stellar. And I'd honestly LOVE it if they did it with FFXIV, but after so many years of them just expanding on the neighborhood design I have very little hope they'd change things. As other people have pointed out there's so much development time that's been dedicated to it already that it'd be a shame to throw it away. A part of me still thinks they've run the numbers and find that people are less unwilling to unsubscribe if they get a personal house, too. And thus it makes them more money.
