New Wards Alone Aren't Going to Solve the Housing Issue

[Griffey]

Is not the issue of house flipping one within the community?

I suppose if we had sooooo many houses as to make them less in demand people would be less inclined to buy land just to sell it back on for profit. But at the end of the day, especially on Cerberus, the amount of names in red when going through the wards list (or people who have bought land but not built a house) is far greater than those in green.

How would we solve this? Maybe limit housing to one per account as opposed to per character?

[Amomomo]

Is not the issue of house flipping one within the community?

Unfortunately players have limited protection outside of the game, as most of the house trading are done outside of the game in websites such as the FFXIV Housing Sub-reddit page. Unless you have detailed screenshots of the entire transaction IN GAME, in addition that the asking price was outrageous, GMs generally don't really lift a finger.

Maybe limit housing to one per account as opposed to per character?

I greatly support this idea. Woes to housing monopolizers who owns multiple houses! There are many other solutions if you browse through the existing housing threads, including having instanced personal housing and/or placing character achievement requirements to prevent level 1 shell alts from acquiring houses. However some solutions can be a bit fanciful...

[Almagnus1]

How would we solve this? Maybe limit housing to one per account as opposed to per character?

I kinda outlined several additional fixes in the OP =3

That's why they need to restrict personal houses to one per server.

That's why appartments need access to yard space (so we have true instanced housing).

That's why there needs to be a random, invisibile, timer that lasts between 1 to 24 hours when house is released so the risk involved with getting your house from a house flipper is so great, that many will not want to do just that.

That's also why the alt shell FCs intended solely to take up housing slots need to be dealt with.

[Mikki]

How would we solve this? Maybe limit housing to one per account as opposed to per character?

One per server would be best I feel. Although personally I think one per account with an FC house too is plenty but I do know some people who actively play on two different servers with different friends and would argue that they'd like to have housing on both. *shrugs*

I'm on Zalera which is really small. A day or two after 4.1 dropped, there were still houses in lavender beds, mist and goblet. Despite this though, I saw some plots near my house in Shirogane just ....sitting there. I checked the owners. Lo and behold, today finally they built a house on the land. Only..........the person who owns it now is different. Which means of course... someone resold it. On ZALERA. A server which still had plots available in other housing wards for 2 days after 4.1 dropped. I'm disappointed and I wonder if I should report it, but I don't want to cause trouble for the people who spent tons of gil to get their house showing that they clearly really wanted it.

[nranola]

I'm on Zalera which is really small. A day or two after 4.1 dropped, there were still houses in lavender beds, mist and goblet. Despite this though, I saw some plots near my house in Shirogane just ....sitting there. I checked the owners. Lo and behold, today finally they built a house on the land. Only..........the person who owns it now is different. Which means of course... someone resold it. On ZALERA. A server which still had plots available in other housing wards for 2 days after 4.1 dropped. I'm disappointed and I wonder if I should report it, but I don't want to cause trouble for the people who spent tons of gil to get their house showing that they clearly really wanted it.

Have you considered that it may have been a player holding the house for someone they know? I'm not dismissing the possibility that a sale might have happened, but as someone who's helped secure a house for a friend myself, I find that it's troubling when people immediately assume that it's house flipping.

I'm a bit torn on the reporting thing solely because I don't know what the protocol is for these sorts of reports. Do the suspected parties' accounts become frozen during the investigation? If so, I think better to procure more substantial evidence of a house sale taking place (chat logs, if you can fish the info out of them) before making the report as to not inconvenience a potentially innocent player. If there's no such account freeze, then I think go ahead and file a report if you sense something's amiss.

[Almagnus1]

Have you considered that it may have been a player holding the house for someone they know? I'm not dismissing the possibility that a sale might have happened, but as someone who's helped secure a house for a friend myself, I find that it's troubling when people immediately assume that it's house flipping.

Like with all systems, there are legitimate uses (like yours) and abuses (like house flipping) which means when the abuses become so egregious that SE must step in people like you end up getting screwed through no fault of their own, even though they are actually being altruistic (as they should) and not selfish.