House flipping is 100% confirmed against ToS, send vegetable naysayers to this thread

[MomomiMomi]

You might actually say that the exorbitant prices people pay right now are the real 'true' value of these houses as a result.

This is absolutely true, which is why I want the initial price to go up drastically. That way houses would be sold at their actual value.

However, I disagree that being able to sell houses would not change anything. While people would still sell things outside of the system, that is against the rules, and they risk action being taken against their account. Some people would not be willing to risk that and would instead sell using the in-game feature.

[Myon88]

The default price set for the plots definitely doesn't match their real world value at current levels of supply. That said, I'm more in favour of something like levying a monthly estate tax on the owners of plots - something like 5-10% of the plot's purchase price every month (could probably afford to be higher). Failure to pay means you relinquish the plot back to the server after a certain deadline.

1. It will allow the initial price to stay relatively low which means even casual players who aren't gillionaires can work toward saving up for a plot. You'll pay much more eventually if you hold onto it for months, but it will be spread out over a long time and manageable for most people.

2. More importantly it will ensure people are actually invested in their homes. If you squat on it for months only logging in once every 45 days, or you have 8 houses on alts that you just keep as a 'trophy', you might want to reevaluate just how much that privilege is worth to you. It'll incentivize people to sell homes to people that are actually intending to make good use of it.

3. If the tax is significant enough, it won't be an easy task to maintain something like a mansion by yourself. This will be a soft-incentive for the larger plots (and all plots in general) to be owned by FCs since it's much easier to just pool money from multiple people.

[Nyghtmarerobu]

1. It will allow the initial price to stay relatively low which means even casual players who aren't gillionaires can work toward saving up for a plot. You'll pay much more eventually if you hold onto it for months, but it will be spread out over a long time and manageable for most people.

No thanks. I agree things need to change, but allowing a tax would make me sell my house. I bought my house to make money with gardening and to have fun decorating. If I have to pay more than I'm making in gardening, then it wouldn't be worth my investment and I'd sell it. At this point, housing is just plain screwed, and no matter what or how they try to fix it, its just gonna get worse...

[MicahZerrshia]

The default price set for the plots definitely doesn't match their real world value at current levels of supply. That said, I'm more in favour of something like levying a monthly estate tax on the owners of plots - something like 5-10% of the plot's purchase price every month (could probably afford to be higher). Failure to pay means you relinquish the plot back to the server after a certain deadline.

So as it stands now you want me to pay 20m for a plot then another 2m each month to retain that plot? Or since you stated gillionaires should be punished for having gil, you want to pay...let's say, 100k and then 10k a month for a house? Same problems would occur since it doesn't address the underlying issues, mainly a lack of plots.

Even if prices stayed the same and a tax was added you do know that would have a trickle effect? Crafters would charge more for items retain their properties, more players would be locked out of housing cause they just cannot afford a tax on top of the purchase price and rmt would have a hay day with people buying gil to retain those plots.

Think it through.

SE just needs to figure housing out. This game has one of the worst housing systems out there.

[Myon88]

If you sell your house in that case, it might be seen as a net benefit to your server's society - which is the point. One person's vanity project and investment vehicle, versus being used as a busy FC home frequented by dozens of people. The extra burden you take on shouldering that tax yourself is payment for the opportunity cost of the house being used by a single, privileged occupant.

But I'm just playing devil's advocate. That's why SE will never do it, it'll be PR suicide. The same reason tax hikes are so unpopular in the real world, people really hate the 'T' word.

[Dimitrii]

There's literally hundreds of Free companies across the servers that have houses and don't do anything with the house save for sending the ship out to ventures for some gil. Just because a FC owns a house doesn't automatically mean it's bustling with activity.

[Avera]

There's literally hundreds of Free companies across the servers that have houses and don't do anything with the house save for sending the ship out to ventures for some gil. Just because a FC owns a house doesn't automatically mean it's bustling with activity.

To add to this...there is an FC on my server that owns like...6 houses in one ward (Which I doubt they use) :T and I heard from a friend that FCs on their server were selling houses they would buy up.

[saberchic]

*snipping tax stupidity*

No way. Adding a tax is a punishment to people who buy a house. They already had to save up enough money to buy the land; then they have to spend lots of gil decorating.... Taxing houses is not a good idea at all. SE just needs to make housing available to all. Period.

[Myon88]

It's a great idea, just not a palatable one. People just tend to be irrational when it comes to the concept of taxation.

Now that I think about it more, land is actually the one asset in this game that doesn't depreciate at all, which is partly why it's so lucrative. With gear for example, you get taxed via repairs (even though the actual amount is inconsequential), and it depreciates with every new patch forcing you to gear up again and purchase new materia. Housing on the other hand is fixed in quantity so it's value never decreases, it has no upkeep so you pretty much just need to buy it once and you 'win' forever.

I do not see unlimited housing becoming a reality in the conceivable future. With how much server capacity seems to be an issue, I think it's naive to expect otherwise.

[MayleeMorningstar]

It's a great idea, just not a palatable one. People just tend to be irrational when it comes to the concept of taxation.

You can't compare real-life taxation to in-game tax. In RL, taxes are needed to keep our society moving. Everything from government jobs and administration, schools, welfare, roads and what have you. In-game taxes go nowhere, it's just a gil sink. Adding that to housing is punishment, pure and simple. Those taxes would punish the poor and would be pocket change to the rich, making houses even more of a status symbol than they are now.