Lord of the Rings Online.

Housing instances in four different varieties, based on location/race. Each instance has 30 houses - 4x FC, 10x Deluxe, 16x Standard. Once housing sells out of any given type of the three houses, a new empty instance automatically spawns. Your house is accessible by all characters on your account on that server. There is a chest that works as shared inventory/storage between your characters. Customise garden, interior, furniture and background music.

Downsides were that furnishings couldn't be freely placed (though that wasn't so bad) and that you paid rent instead of purchasing (though that worked well because if you stopped logging in it freed your house up for other players).

This is how it was in 2008 anyhow. Would have hoped a AAA subscription MMO would have been able to take the best of that design and move forward, but hry.