An idea for obtaining houses.

[Arrius]

The wards on most servers are dead. I've seen one or two players in the years of being in my ward. They were walking to or from the MB and when I waved got no response. An instanced system on the other hand with a thought out common area would be more alive. Think of the market areas of the capital cities as an example or maybe even the entrance location.

Or, you slap a weekly rent on the houses so the players require to maintain, else they run risk losing their place.
With that, you always have them active, and others get their chance of a plot when they get cleared.