Land Taxes

[-BlueGreen-]

I'm from a small server, so most of the housing problems don't really apply to me, but I still follow discussions around housing issues.

It seems that the #1 complaint about the current implementation (so, not talking about the numerous suggestions to go to instanced individual housing or stuff that's a dramatic change) is the amount of players who hoard houses for the sole purpose of flipping them for a profit.

It's against the rules, but the GMs can't possibly police everything well enough to catch everyone making it profitable enough for the people who do it anyway. I've seen plenty of "lock housing to 1 per account" suggestions, but since FC leaders shouldn't be prevented from having a personal house if they want, there's no stopping determined hoarders from just owning 8 FC houses per account instead of 8 individual houses.

I had a random thought the other day which might be a potential solution. Instead of trying to introduce some hard restrictions on house ownership, why not instead attack the economic incentives of house flipping? My thought was that some kind of "land tax" could be added to housing which would make the act of simply sitting on land cost gil. In order to turn a profit, then, the seller would have to sell the house for more than the purchase price + total tax paid while waiting for a buyer.

It doesn't have to be too extreme, something like every 30 days:
Small house - 100k gil
Medium house - 500k gil
Large house - 1mil gil
Prices would apply the same for both individual and FC owned houses. The jumps in price between the sizes loosely correspond to the differences in the purchase price of each size.

I know the idea of constantly recurring expenses on owning a house would be a huge turn-off for many, but if it served to deter people from engaging in house-flipping, then I'd expect more houses to open up for people who would actually use them and decorate them. Besides, with housing basically being a large gil sink, I'd think this would fit right in.

Besides, it even opens the opportunity to make the auto-demolition a bit more friendly. Instead of a straight 45-day auto-demolition, house owners might get an escrow account with their house in which they can deposit up to 6x the 30-day tax. If the 30 days is up and your escrow doesn't have sufficient funds to cover the tax, then auto-demolition happens right then (of course, you should get e-mails warning of this as the date approaches). This would give people the ability to pay in advance to keep their house through an extended break.

As a player from a small server where our FC had no trouble getting a house once we could afford one and then later getting my own personal house after auto demolition was added (and seeing plenty of small plots regularly available even today), such a tax would be kind of annoying, but I could easily cover 100k/30 days for my personal house.

I would think that house flippers might find such a tax to be a real pain. Not only would they have to constantly shift funds to their alts to pay for the tax, but every 30 days without a buyer could cost them millions of gil.

Basically, for those in one of the large servers where it seems nothing SE can do with the current system can ever open up enough plots that you can have a shot at home ownership, would you be fine with paying a tax if you knew such a tax made it possible for more people to enjoy housing?

[Acilith]

1mil every 30 days for a large house HELLLLLLL NAAAAWWWW. And the prices are so insane from flippers it wouldn't even matter to them. There's better ways to make gil sinks in game.

[-BlueGreen-]

1mil/30 days a bit much? What would you suggest?

I'd think that flippers would be encouraged to radically drop their prices as they would be strongly encouraged to sell the house sooner to avoid as much tax as possible. In the current setup, there's nothing stopping someone from buying up a plot and listing a price of 200 mil gil forever as they wait for inflation to eventually make it to where someone desperate enough for that house would actually have 200 mil to spare. They could wait years to sell that house and the profit would still be insane. Throw in a tax, though, and the longer they sit on it, the more their profit disappears. This would encourage them to lower prices to what people can and are willing to pay. Additionally, with tax making housing less attractive that would lower demand which should further serve to drive down prices.

Another point to 1mil/30 days for large while 100k/30 days for small is this: Everyone and their dog seems to want a large house, but there's only so many. It makes a bit more sense that large FCs would likely take up large houses and due to the membership (or airships), hopefully not have trouble with that 1mil/30 days. If you can't afford the monthly costs of the house (mansion) of your dreams, but you could afford a smaller place, wouldn't it be better to settle for the smaller place vs not having one at all?

[Acilith]

The only one who makes gil in my fc is me, honestly. We're all RPers. I would be the one paying it every month and I already pay a sub to play this game.

..And you severely underestimate how fast houses sell, even from flippers. :X Small houses on balmung sell for 50mil anyways, what's 100k/month ? It just seems like this is more punishing to everyone else, than to house flippers.

[Sylfaein]

Going after flies with a bazooka, here. This would actually hurt legitimate owners more than it would hurt the flippers.

Just because someone has a house, doesn't mean they have all that cash to spare. To spend months saving up for a house, only to lose it purely because you can't meet the monthly cost would be horrible.

[HyoMinPark]

Just because someone has a house, doesn't mean they have all that cash to spare. To spend months saving up for a house, only to lose it purely because you can't meet the monthly cost would be horrible.

This. I'm working my butt off to get a mansion in Shirogane. Unlike some of my friends, I don't make several mil a day; I'm lucky if I make 500k a day just from gathering in-demand mats, crafting easy-to-make/cheap leveling gear, and competing with the undercutters. Usually I only manage to make 250k or less, and during the weekends when the undercutting is even more rampant, I barely make 100k. To fight house flippers, players should be more proactive in reporting them. Implementing a tax system wouldn't really stop them anyways; I doubt they hold onto plots of land for a month or longer. Housing is so in-demand in this game, I doubt they'd be holding plots for longer than a week unless they're asking for an incredibly unreasonable amount.

I already pay plenty of taxes in real life; I'd much rather that not filter over into a game I play for fun.


I'm sure there are plenty of unused houses on every server. I know of quite a few large plots on my server that the owners (based on their Lodestones) only log in to keep their house, but don't really play the game. (There's a mansion owner in The Beds that is still wearing gear from 3 patches ago, yet their house is still standing, and another solo FC mansion featuring a level 1 conjurer that is completely unfurnished inside and out, yet it has been there for months now.) There are also plenty of players that own multiple plots with their alts. One individual brags in his estate info about having 5 different houses between him, his FC, his alts and their FCs. I don't have issues with solo/small FCs owning homes, but really?? 3 solo FCs, 2 personal houses, all on different alts? How do you even have the time to maintain those estates, much less use them that much?

Make housing shareable among alts on the same server. As an alt-o-holic myself, I would absolutely love that. Maybe that would at least solve the problem of these people that have 5 alts, each owning their own estate. As for unused houses...there just has to be other methods with regards to fixing that in this game without resorting to hefty land taxes.

[KiraCifer]

they ever add in land taxes to keep a house you already paid out your butt for the day I know I would quit this game and wouldn't be back till the took it back out and then demand my house back that I would of lost all because of them

[Sylfaein]

~Snip~

I'm with ya, and good luck getting your house! I don't have a steady gil flow either, so it took months and some lucky drops in Aquapolis to save up enough for my mansion, and weeks of stalking the wards for a reclaimed plot. I would be irate if I were to suddenly be expected to pay a tax on it.

We DO need to be able to share houses with alts. Granted, it wouldn't stop greedy people from snagging all the houses they can get their slimy mitts on, but it would help for those who are just seeking the utility of a house for their multiple characters.

[Dzian]

I'd settle for a land tax (or some equivalent land lease thing) if it meant scrapping the current reclaim system.

Least that way if I wanted to unsub for a patch or 2 I could just pay 3-6 months tax (or equivelant) up front and be safe from demolition

Would be much better than what we have now imo

[Ayerinn]

I'd settle for a land tax (or some equivalent land lease thing) if it meant scrapping the current reclaim system.

Least that way if I wanted to unsub for a patch or 2 I could just pay 3-6 months tax (or equivelant) up front and be safe from demolition

Would be much better than what we have now imo

exactly - the only way I would be ok with a land tax is a) being able to pay at least 6mo+ in advance and b) removal of the auto demo system replaced with a failure to pay taxes warning/removal. I took a break from the game for a bit over a year and just came back recently for the expansion - paying in game silver for my homes over having to resub for $$$ every ~75 days would be fine with me.