There should be a way for players to TRADE Housing Plots with one another

I'm not talking about Buying/Selling, although I don't personally have a problem with that idea, either.

Rather, what I'd like to discuss is adding the ability for two players who ALREADY OWN Plots, to trade plots with one another.

For one, I believe it would alleviate a LOT of stress that comes with Housing. Right now, Housing is mostly a case of "take what you can get". But if we were able to Trade our Plots with one another, it opens up this almost secondary market, where you can try to get an even *better* house!

Second -- and much more importantly, IMO -- is it would finally allow players to coordinate where we live. For example, I play FFXIV with my dad, and also my sister and her husband. Even though I live half a world away from them, it would be AMAZING to be in-game neighbors with them! Even as much as I love my current beach-side Small in the Mist, I could totally see Trading with someone so I could be next to my dad's place in the Goblem, or my sister's place in Lavender Beds.

Now, as for the literal MECHANICS of this?

My personal solution would be to give us a "Deed" to our Plot, and allow us to use that to trade with another players. Or maybe it would be an option activated via Placard. In addition to trading houses, I would also allow either side to include gil, since one Plot is usually going to be more desirable than another.

So if I'm "trading-down" so I can get a house near my friends or fam, then maybe both sides are happy. But if I had a Plot I didn't really like, and wanted someone else's plot, I could offer to pay them; they'd still have a house, but have made some gil to compensate for moving to maybe a less desirable location.

Similarly, for those of us truly invested in trying to attain a Large house at some point, this would finally give us SOME avenue of that, beyond pure blind luck. And for players who can't afford to Trade for a Large? Well, you can STILL rely on pure blind luck, but for those of us willing to actively accrue gil, we can at least make an offer to trade Plots with those Large-owners. And who knows; once someone's had a Large for a while, they may be more inclined to trade-down (especially since I'd argue Mediums are probably the most "flexible", in terms of really playing around with different looks; Larges tend to look very "same-y" on top floor.

I sincerely hope the Devs give this some consideration. And if additional stipulations need to be added, such as the gil traded needing to be taxed, just whatever it takes for the option to feel "fair". And like I said, because these Trades would only occur between people who already own Plots, there's no real argument of it affecting the Housing market, other than just making it a WHOLE lot more realistic to get the plots you want.

That might work, but ONLY if they attached some suitably painful time-gate to it so players don't snipe houses simply to sell them immediately as they did in the past.

For example, being able to trade the plot to a player who has been a shared housing member of the plot in question for, say, six months seems reasonable.

Seriously against this unless it is time gated - unable to trade house for at least six months.
Also subject to a major tax in order to compensate for the Dev time needed to code it.

Opening up plots for direct sale is a slippery slope to even more hyper inflation on the prices.

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Originally Posted by Terin

there's no real argument of it affecting the Housing market, other than just making it a WHOLE lot more realistic to get the plots you want.

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As long as someone can move houses from one character to another and we have this insane competition for housing (as long as we don't have infinite housing and things are locked behind having a house) scalpers will exist and run a "black market". Put as much time gating on it as you want, they have dozens of accounts to shuffle houses and move them around for "storage" till the timer wears off. People WILL make accounts and level them until they can make house mules and squatters, creating even more housing shortages.


I can't really stand behind a system to make this any easier for them.

This would only make it easier for the people who buy up houses and resell making millions. The housing system is screwed up. Everyone who wants a house should be able to get one. Those that have more than one on different accounts are just being greedy. If they could stop the gil sellers it would be fine. If they cracked down on the buyers it would help. Just what are people doing with all those millions of gil, I mean there is only so much you can buy with gil. Being able to trade a house to someone would also circumvent the new lottery system. It's a no go for me on trading houses.

Here's the thing; the current implementation makes it COMPLETELY impossible for people to coordinate houses, let alone get plots they actually want. Gil exists, and for people willing to actually USE their tradeskills to interact with the game economy, is there really anything so diabolical about the idea that "I spent a bunch of time selling crafted gear, so I could buy a cool plot next to my dad?".

Now I fully agree, there is a housing shortage. I would like to see more Wards opened up, whenever possible, it's a Win-Win for everybody. But without a means of being able to *trade* Plots, it creates a really unsatisfying barrier where I basically have to hope that people quit the game, just to have a SHOT at buying a Plot I like. By allowing players to trade, there are no fewer Plots on the market, simply that they are able to change ownership.

The fact is, in-game houses are a commodity. They're a thing that players want, and spend gil on. The fact that we *cannot* trade in any capacity is only more frustrating, because it removed ANY sort of agency on the players' part.

Truth be told, I would think people able to buy houses from other players would make the market more accessible to players who DON'T already own a house. Although a lottery system is certainly an improvement, too (I just don't see the need to make them mutually exclusive).

As far as the idea of having a timer... that's honestly not something I've considered, and has some merit. I think requiring the person to OWN a house for six months seems a little excessive, but there's potential for the idea all the same. Maybe owning the house for 1 full month, and you can only "trade" a plot once every 3-6 months? Or heck, maybe even have it as part of some kind of "petition" system, where a GM reviews each request, and can reject if they suspect any funny business?

As long as there's a solid enough gil-sink/tax, it should ensure that OVER TIME, the costs get lower and lower. Even if trading two properties required a minimum amount of cost, and took a percentage for anything traded beyond that, it might be an expensive endeavor, but at least it would make it POSSIBLE.

I feel this; I have a sweet spot on the beach in Mist, and would like to move my second large house also to mist, same zone. Would exchange it for my current beachfront large in Shirogane.

Basically would be nice to get both in the same zone. And maybe get my friends to be neighbors, etc.

Hot Take: There should be some housing wards that are pay2win. We already have the mogstation for a bunch of stuff, why not housing?

I may be wrong but I’d guess it could/would be used for RMT. In that sense I think the system as it is now, is at least partially designed to combat potential abuse that way. But I know very little of the exact reasons and history of the housing market in FF14 :) From the little I do know, houses are valuable because of dearth, and being able to get specific plots would make it even more tempting. I think effectively it could drive prices up in game even further as a result.

I understand your wish, and it’s almost comical in a sense that FF14’s housing market reflects the state in the real world in many places. I think only ample supply, and only then potentially the option to trade, would work. But maybe I’m overlooking very obvious stuff!

I feel like this is something that has well enough intentions in it's thought process, however opens doors to so many potential problems it's probably not worth trying to do because of the headaches it's going to cause later.

If they're never going to add instanced housing, they need to just acknowledge it and put in a proper, safe way to sell/trade houses. These things still happen, it's just risky and likely for someone to end up getting scammed in the process (which a GM then has to handle, and they will.)

As far as trading goes, it still happens, it's just at the inconvenience of people farming placards to get their own houses. It's trivial to use a currently open plot as an intermediate, which just ends up resetting the plot timer.

Pretending these things don't already happen isn't going to stop them from happening. Heck, if SE wants gil sinks, just put in a tax on selling/trading plots via whatever new system. People would still do it because it's a ton safer.

The housing system is inherently flawed and needs a rework more than any bandaid.

Hopefully island sanctuaries are that rework.

The housing system isn't going anywhere. Island sanctuary isn't going to fix anything, imo. I'd be surprised if other players can even visit your farm.

They're not going to simultaneously add more ward style housing in 6-8 months and also add instanced housing. People keep thinking they'll finally add instanced housing (a lot of folks were absolutely convinced that's what Ishgard would be) and it never happens.

Would it help if they made it impossible for houses to gain value? So you could sell them, but only for the fixed amount they cost to begin with? I could imagine that would make it far less interesting for some players to buy up a lot of plots. Or is there such a shortage that it’s irrelevant whatever they do really? I haven’t touched housing so I’m absolutely clueless, but the main reason for that is it looks like a hassle, and a costly one at that haha.

Houses are worth a ton because SE doesn't know how or is unwilling to put in the time to fix the system itself. So it's an extremely limited commodity that sells out very quick when new ones are added.

At the end of the day, people want houses and SE isn't giving a way for people to get them. So players will buy/sell/trade among each other to get one, just in unsupported/unsafe ways.

I don't think it's entirely unwarranted to ask SE to address the issue they've created. Ideally they'd fix the entire system, but failing that they can at least make a safe way for people to trade/sell them.

I agree with this, almost reminds me of the great days of housing when u could buy a house off someone and not have to go through, I can't even think of a name for the hell we have now.

I mean if the players trading own the house they should be able to do what they want with it.

And for the players that don't like the good ol days of housing, are u happy with the magnificent wonderful genius no flaws at all system we have currently, I know I love seeing my friends and innocent people suffer to even take a chance at a house, it don't sadden me at all, I think we need more restrictions, we can make it worse if we try, yay.

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Originally Posted by Arzalis

Houses are worth a ton because SE doesn't know how or is unwilling to put in the time to fix the system itself. So it's an extremely limited commodity that sells out very quick when new ones are added.

At the end of the day, people want houses and SE isn't giving a way for people to get them. So players will buy/sell/trade among each other to get one, just in unsupported/unsafe ways.

I don't think it's entirely unwarranted to ask SE to address the issue they've created. Ideally they'd fix the entire system, but failing that they can at least make a safe way for people to trade/sell them.

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Actually IMO the biggest issue their housing system ran into was never adjusting the prices of buying a plot in relation to the inflation of the economy. Getting the gil for a small plot when one is available is just about trivial now with medium and large just requiring a small amount of effort if you're not sitting on a gil horde already due to the game's lack of gil sinks taking it out of circulation. Housing shortage wasn't really a thing back in 2.0 when they started allowing players to buy private homes.

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

Actually IMO the biggest issue their housing system ran into was never adjusting the prices of buying a plot in relation to the inflation of the economy. Getting the gil for a small plot when one is available is just about trivial now with medium and large just requiring a small amount of effort if you're not sitting on a gil horde already due to the game's lack of gil sinks taking it out of circulation. Housing shortage wasn't really a thing back in 2.0 when they started allowing players to buy private homes.

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Depends on the server, but it's always been a thing on the bigger ones. It's just that people on smaller servers tended to not care until it affected them too. The problem is limited availability. The devs can't add new ones fast enough to keep up with a growing game, so the shortage was always an inevitability. It's just been exacerbated by the sudden spike in players.

Making it cost more won't change much at this point.

As said, there's clearly no perfect system. But allowing two owners to trade Plots -- and putting a hefty tax on whatever gil is traded for that to happen -- just seems like an improvement for all parties involves, particularly in having it double as a gil-sink. Over time, it would probably do quite a lot to even the playing field. Even if Player A paid Player B like 150mil, you throw a 20% tax on there for trading plots, that's 30mil you just removed from the economy, meaning newbies are in a slightly better position overall. A couple hundred transactions like that later, and suddenly the market would probably be FAR more approachable for newcomers to get into!

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Originally Posted by Terin

Rather, what I'd like to discuss is adding the ability for two players who ALREADY OWN Plots, to trade plots with one another.

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House flippers would have a field day with this. No longer would they have to waste time fighting to get a new house. They would simply sell the trade to the player who wants to relocate.

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Originally Posted by Terin

As said, there's clearly no perfect system. But allowing two owners to trade Plots -- and putting a hefty tax on whatever gil is traded for that to happen -- just seems like an improvement for all parties involves, particularly in having it double as a gil-sink. Over time, it would probably do quite a lot to even the playing field. Even if Player A paid Player B like 150mil, you throw a 20% tax on there for trading plots, that's 30mil you just removed from the economy, meaning newbies are in a slightly better position overall. A couple hundred transactions like that later, and suddenly the market would probably be FAR more approachable for newcomers to get into!

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Oh wait, it looks like you want to be a house flipper to profit yourself. No wonder you're suggesting it.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

House flippers would have a field day with this. No longer would they have to waste time fighting to get a new house. They would simply sell the trade to the player who wants to relocate.


Oh wait, it looks like you want to be a house flipper to profit yourself. No wonder you're suggesting it.

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Not a "house-flipper", save for the sense that I would happily pay to move from a plot I have, to a plot I want. Like I said, my personal "end-game" goal would be to have a plot I like, in the same Ward as my fam and friends. I already have a pretty nice plot, but I'm really hoping whenever Ishgard opens up, to be able to get a cool plot there, instead. There's absolutely no way I would profit from the system, as I'm the one who's asking for a way to BE ABLE to spend gil to trade for a plot I want.

Now in theory, yes, house-flippers may still exist. But only so long as they have a desirable plot. If no one wants to trade plots with them, then that plot is effectively useless.

You could couple this idea with removing the priority-access that relocations gets; if you want to relocate to an empty plot, you should have to use the same Lottery system as everyone else will, however that winds up working out.

I recommend adding a tax there, because for players to want to trade plots, it would obviously involve trading gil as well. As well it SHOULD. But with that hefty 20% tax, that gil just disappears from the economy, meaning that over time, this would level out, at least more so than they currently are.

There will always be players looking for ways to get gil. I got a lot of gil but just dedicating some time to crafting items and selling them. With this system in place, even if you wind up getting a plot you aren't super crazy about, it would give you a means of saying "Alright, I'm gonna spend some time on my tradeskills, get some gil, and then working on getting a plot I REALLY want!"

And like I said, by no means am I suggesting this in lieu of adding more Wards to the game. I would love to see more people able to get houses! All I'm saying is, give us a means to trade our way up, from a Plot we aren't crazy about, to one we can be super happy with!

More importantly I want them to add a feature to convert personal housing into FC.

This obviously wouldn't even be ABLE to make it in time for Ishgard housing, but I genuinely hope this is something the Devs will consider.

Like I said, it would give players a lot more agency in the house they actually wind up with, same of the Ward. I would LOVE to be able to be "neighbors" with my IRL friends and family members, but that is basically impossible as it currently stands.

Take whatever provisions are necessary to make it unappealing for bots or scalpers, but just having that option would be such an awesome, awesome feature.

Gee, we just got rid of relos. And now people effectively want them back - with all the selling and hoarding that goes on it's going to be exploited in 2 shakes of an Ovim's tail.

Here is just one scenario: A housing primal uses their three lalafel bots to get a great house, holds it empty for 6 months, swaps with your Goblet 52 for 400,000,000g and then just abandons your Goblet 52 they got in return. Ot even sells the rank 6 one owner FC that now owns the Goblet 52 to someone without a house... for another 150,000,000.

There are likely a million more scenarios for any set of arbitrary rules the English Forums makes up in this thread.

In 6 months time, should this make it in, then people will be back to screaming "Stop the relos"

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Originally Posted by Shibi

Gee, we just got rid of relos. And now people effectively want them back - with all the selling and hoarding that goes on it's going to be exploited in 2 shakes of an Ovim's tail.

Here is just one scenario: A housing primal uses their three lalafel bots to get a great house, holds it empty for 6 months, swaps with your Goblet 52 for 400,000,000g and then just abandons your Goblet 52 they got in return. Ot even sells the rank 6 one owner FC that now owns the Goblet 52 to someone without a house... for another 150,000,000.

There are likely a million more scenarios for any set of arbitrary rules the English Forums makes up in this thread.

In 6 months time, should this make it in, then people will be back to screaming "Stop the relos"

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There are no fewer houses on the market, so what's the problem? If someone gets a house, this merely gives them the means to at least TRY to trade their plot for someone else's. Again, the Devs could slap fees on top of this process (to gradually erode away some of the MASSIVE gil some players have) and/or take a cut of the transaction.

Otherwise, you're basically telling players "if you got a house, you're not allowed to move". Because let's face it, even with the "lottery" system, players will still have minimal agency; you're going to be scrambling for ANY house.

By opening up the possibility or Trading, it gives agency back to players. Yes, players with more gil will have more leverage in getting the specific plots they want; boo-hoo. Houses are an incredibly desirable thing in the game; if I want to burn my gil getting an awesome plot, that's my choice.

And for the "house-flippers", that effectively only works once. Maybe they enter the lottery and get a great location in Ishgard; cool, they entered just like everyone else. They trade plots with someone, and wind up with one of the lesser plots in Goblet. Nobody wants to trade with them, so they abandon the plot; so it goes back on the market. Maybe they want to enter another raffle, but that was never going to stop anyways.

Strongly against then idea of house trading, ever. Not even once. To big of a risk for RMT to take hold of it.

The Housing RMTers would come back in force. Honestly, though a bit irritating, the recent changes to make relocating just like buying with the random timer until the lottery is added was a good thing. The reason for this being is that Housing RMT was still working just fine by selling houses. Nor were they doing this for Gil, anyone who thinks these people were in it for the gil are kidding themselves. Many housing plots were selling for hundreds of dollars for relocation, and that is actually down from what it was before they made all the changes to home owning. Before that we're talking well over $1000.00 was being charged for larges on busy servers. This would only allow those people to keep on doing, so unfortunately I can't support this idea. It is one of those, people can't be trusted so no one can have nice things.

It's not exactly what you are asking, but I'd like to give up my personal house.. I can't do it right away because I'd lose gil. I have to go through all of the timers.

Let those of us that want to give up our house get a refund of part of it right away.

Use a secret question or something for security.

I just want a way to give my house to another character on my same account. I never play my guys that owns the house and all I want is to pass ownership of it to my “alt”. It kinda blows my mind that I can’t do this.

Wait, isn't this the same guy who suggested FC house should begone because he doesn't want to see these trade?

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Originally Posted by Cadmar

I just want a way to give my house to another character on my same account. I never play my guys that owns the house and all I want is to pass ownership of it to my “alt”. It kinda blows my mind that I can’t do this.

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They really need to give us access to our house between our alts. It shouldn't matter which character I'm playing on - they should all have access to my house with all rights and privileges.

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Originally Posted by Arillyn

They really need to give us access to our house between our alts. It shouldn't matter which character I'm playing on - they should all have access to my house with all rights and privileges.

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It's totally ridiculous you can't use your OWN house when playing with your alts but can share them with friends. And some wonder why some own houses on their alts.

There was a way to buy/sell and people complained and now we have the lottery

Absolutly not, RMT already screwed allready enough with the bad housing system in this game and you can be sure if that was possible things would be even worsen than they are now. There would be players who camp free spots all day and sell them for Real money on websites because its so hard to get one. I can see easly paying people over 50€ for a small plot on full servers so no. At least think a bit about the current situation before you post something like that.