Houses are lost sooner

[Valenth]

...I try buy one all the time but people are sometimes quite unreasonable with how much they ask for (ranging from 30 to 50mil for a Small house).

Iirc Yoshi-P has stated in an interview surrounding the expansion of wards back then that you can actually report these people if they resell for unreasonable prices. If found guilty as charged GMs will take the house from them apparently (refunding money they'd spend on it) and free up the plot for purchase by someone else. I will try to find a source and update this post accordingly

update: Here's someone who apparently got warned for doing so (via reddit):
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._warnings_for/

There's more threads on it on reddit. I can't find a direct source quickly, but it seems he made the statement on E3's LIVE Letter, which coincides with my memory of the statement.