Yep. People were all excited because they were 100% sure that the wards were empty because people had abandoned their houses but the reality is that people simply don't spend a lot of time there because there is nothing interesting to do in these places. Personally, I kinda wish they hadn't done player housing at all and see it as a waste of dev time and resources. Would be better if all the time spent on housing stuff would be spent on open world content.