How to solve housing problem in a very simple way.

1) Add weekly taxes. Not too much one person couldn't afford for. :(
2) Add an exponential increase in the taxes accordingly to the number of plots you own on your ACCOUNT. Make it something like: (numbers here are purely fictional, but you will get the feeling) :rolleyes:
1 plot/week = 100,000 gil
2 plot/week = 1,000,000 gil
3 plot/week = 100,000,000 gil
and so on...
3) People pay taxes on day 7 of the week. They have until day 14 to pay. If not paid until day 14, house is demolished and plot is free.

4) Watch a LOT of plots go free after 2 weeks.

5) People who actively play get happy. :D

6) :confused:

7) Profit. :cool:

Governor Malloy is that you?

I don't think taxing the players is the way to go here since you are basically just punishing the players for being able to use a function that should have been available to everyone like in every other MMO and not just a few. Granted there are greedy players out there who exacerbate the problem (and in every other MMO) but ultimately SE developed a housing scenario where it was never gonna be possible for everyone to have a home even if everyone had the gil to purchase one due to the obscenely limited amount of plots compared to number of players subscribed. Players are already evicted every after 45 days of inactivity there's no reason to punish the players that do play and have a home by forcing them to waste gil every week just to keep their home.

I'm sorry but I feel this is a terrible idea that only serves to seek revenge on those who won the housing lottery. I think SE's time would be better spent just creating alternate instance housing so that all players could have access to some form of a house.

They're not priced accordingly. That's the main issue here. They can't supply enough so they have to adjust pricing. For some reason they chose not to. I don't know what their reason is, but unless they have something up their sleeve, I think they chose very poorly.

Is the goal here to solve the housing problem by angering players to the point that they abandon the game? Because that's probably how this would work out.

No! No taxes!

The problem will only truly be solved when they make sure everyone has access to housing.

How to get rid of the housing problem? After looking at it for the longest time, here is how you solve it: You get rid of it, completely and without remorse.
Give people back the stuff as if the house was demolished and make small but meaningful instanced zones for each player to make their own individual house.

There are many ways to handle the current housing, but that is the one I see clearing up the whole mess.