Housing for me might as well not exist.

[Nepentha]

Hello everyone.

I am very new to FFXIV, I've had the game for about a month. I recently got the company rank necessary to purchase my first plot of land or apartment. Like the author of this post I also have ESO and I enjoyed housing in ESO a lot, so I was/am looking forward to housing in FFXIV. I was in for a *very* big surprise when I realized what the housing situation is like. I read someone compare it to real life housing crisis, like...for reals??? o.o

My first issue was the cost. Three million for a small plot of land? For a veteran that might be a very small amount of gold/gil, but for a newbie (like me :3 ) that is a looot. I realize that housing is supposed to be a gold sink, a side activity. However the cost is a reason I have started to pick up crafting. The second issue I noticed was the availability. I have no idea why the system is like this, I'm sure there are many reasons why the devs choose to have things like this. But people are actively hunting for an available plot of land, because it is seemingly quite a rare thing. Whaaat? o.O

As a new player I will just say that more plots need to be added, a lot more. And people who are for no reason holding multiple plots just for the hell of it, they need to be dealt with. Holding multiple properties simply so others can't purchase them.....that is just rude behavior towards other players. If one purchases two plots of land and holds it for a friend, I suppose that is fine. But simply holding on to it so others can't buy it.....sigh.

Why do I want my own plot of land? One reason is to get a stable and be able to change the color of my chocobo. It would also be nice to have my own property. I could turn to apartments, but frankly I find the cost for such a small room very overpriced. Just my thoughts on the situation. I hope things are improved, and soon.
Nice to meet you all.

Hello! Welcome to the game, and I'm sorry you have to come into this nightmare of a housing system at this time.

To answer a few of your questions: 3 mill is actually fairly easy to make in game. There's a lot of guides out there, but I do suggest you keep on leveling crafting and gathering jobs. Right now it's pretty easy to do if you go to the Firmament in Ishgard. (And if you aren't quite to Ishgard yet, keep going. The story's great! Plus you can get some HQ gear to sell on the marketboard.)

The reason things are like this is the devs wanted a neighborhood feel. Unfortunately in practice, this hasn't worked very well. Just a little history lesson, previously all plots were available for purchase from the get go, you just walked up to the placard and bought them. But it lead to some unscrupulous people ward scanning to snap up houses that demolished (due to player inactivity) and sell the plot for 10x the placard cost (at least). People were unhappy with this, and asked for a remedy. One particular user thought up the placard idea, and either they were very prescient or it got translated and sent to the devs. Thus the 24 hour random release placard timer was born. People were happy about this, at first. In theory it sounded good, preventing housing flippers from outright buying plots to sell. But, soon enough people realized that in practice, this was an awful idea as now they had to sit and click a placard for hours in hopes they were the lucky one who made the purchase when the housing timer released.

Of course the housing flippers have just adapted to this new set up, and are still continuing to flip houses. Only slightly hampered by the timer, they still win a good number of plots to resell as FC wholesales. So really, everyone is miserable, if you want a house at all you either placard click and pray or you buy an FC house from a flipper for 10 to 70x the placard cost.

With Endwalker there will be the release of an entire new housing location, Ishgard. And they've stated they plan to introduce a lotto and are playing around with the idea of FC only wards and personal housing only wards, plus a bunch of other stuff. We don't know enough yet about what they are planning with this. Some are happy about the lotto, some are predicting disaster.

This is the state of housing as it is right now.

[Jojoya]

snip

Welcome to the game!

On the subject of prices for housing, you'll find that they really aren't that expensive (at least for small houses and apartments). Currency scaling in this game is a bit different from what you'll find in many other MMORPGs. Gil rewards are abundant if you actively play the game and they add up faster than you'd think (i've got an alt that's already over 5 million gil just from doing MSQ, some side quests and selling off quest rewards the character isn't going to use - no repeatable content, crafting or other dedicated gil making involved).

Apartments are a great start even if your ultimate goal is to own a house. The perks that come with the purchase of an apartment:

Not subject to demolition (you must enter your house at lease once every 45 days or it gets demolished and you lose the plot)

Free access to chocobo stable outside your apartment building (no need to purchase one like you need to for a house)

Free access to Delivery Moogle in the apartment building lobby (no need to purchase a mailbox like you need to for a house)

Automatic teleport access to the apartment building entrance (no need to purchase a Miniature Aetheryte like you need to for a house)

Apartments are well worth the 500k gil while you're waiting for a house to become available though I do hope you're able to get a house in the future.

[Flashock]

One of the things I think a lot of newer people fail to see,
Housing is NOT instanced like it is in other games.

You actually can see and interact with your neighbors.
People can see and visit your house when your offline even.

While this system comes with drawbacks like availability and price tags.
It’s infinitely better than having an instanced house that only you can see.

Now, would more housing districts help?
Possibly, but I for one, would definitely rather have full and alive neighborhoods compared to empty districts after the popularity dies down.

[Besame]

One of the things I think a lot of newer people fail to see,
Housing is NOT instanced like it is in other games.

You actually can see and interact with your neighbors.
People can see and visit your house when your offline even.

While this system comes with drawbacks like availability and price tags.
It’s infinitely better than having an instanced house that only you can see.

Now, would more housing districts help?
Possibly, but I for one, would definitely rather have full and alive neighborhoods compared to empty districts after the popularity dies down.

All of the housing I had in other games were able to be set up so friends, public or no one could visit them with the owner online or not as per choice. The neighborhood means nothing if the housing is set up by knowledgeable designers.

[FFWinner]

Agree with op, every new player who comes to this game complains how stupid the housing system is. Blind XIV apologist will defend it's primitive tech as it builds a community when in reality no one ever walks around neighborhoods.

Instance 100%. It will help the economy, it will help the community, it will help the health of the many, it will allow for more fun. Housing right now hits wayyyy too close to IRL for me and that's just fucking depressing.

[True-to-Caesar]

Agree with op, every new player who comes to this game complains how stupid the housing system is. Blind XIV apologist will defend it's primitive tech as it builds a community when in reality no one ever walks around neighborhoods.

Instance 100%. It will help the economy, it will help the community, it will help the health of the many, it will allow for more fun. Housing right now hits wayyyy too close to IRL for me and that's just fucking depressing.

New player here. After witnessing the placard camping, I finally gave in and bought an apartment. Knowing there would be no way for me to get a house with the current system and upcoming lottery.

I still had 2M when I bought the apartment, spent like 1.5M buying and collecting furnitures, and hours upon hours trying to perfect my small spot, the size of it doesn’t make it easy and honestly is frustrating.

But the housing is really great in this game, it’s just too bad it’s behind massive headaches or shady RMT/deals to obtain a house.

[Sotaris]

New player here. After witnessing the placard camping, I finally gave in and bought an apartment. Knowing there would be no way for me to get a house with the current system and upcoming lottery.

I still had 2M when I bought the apartment, spent like 1.5M buying and collecting furnitures, and hours upon hours trying to perfect my small spot, the size of it doesn’t make it easy and honestly is frustrating.

But the housing is really great in this game, it’s just too bad it’s behind massive headaches or shady RMT/deals to obtain a house.

Did you gave up before trying? Trick is not camping a placard. You go there and if it's not available you try again couple hours later if it hasn't been relocated into.
Tbh it's not as bad people make it out to be but I understand it's frustrating. We all been there.

[True-to-Caesar]

Did you gave up before trying? Trick is not camping a placard. You go there and if it's not available you try again couple hours later if it hasn't been relocated into.
Tbh it's not as bad people make it out to be but I understand it's frustrating. We all been there.

Honestly I haven’t tried, there was like 10 or so people. Didn’t have enough cash too : prices were about 3.1-3.5 M and I had only 2.7 M.
My server has a high population so it’s also a factor.

Knowing my luck and some could use clickbots, I just told myself to buy an apartment since it’s pretty much the only thing I’ll be able to own. Spent a lot of gil for furnitures to play with, some won’t be used but with luck if I own a house in the future it’ll be a good investment.

Still managed to make a cozy place but it’s difficult with the lack of space.

[VastraX]

Hello! Welcome to the game, and I'm sorry you have to come into this nightmare of a housing system at this time.

To answer a few of your questions: 3 mill is actually fairly easy to make in game. There's a lot of guides out there, but I do suggest you keep on leveling crafting and gathering jobs. Right now it's pretty easy to do if you go to the Firmament in Ishgard. (And if you aren't quite to Ishgard yet, keep going. The story's great! Plus you can get some HQ gear to sell on the marketboard.)

The reason things are like this is the devs wanted a neighborhood feel. Unfortunately in practice, this hasn't worked very well. Just a little history lesson, previously all plots were available for purchase from the get go, you just walked up to the placard and bought them. But it lead to some unscrupulous people ward scanning to snap up houses that demolished (due to player inactivity) and sell the plot for 10x the placard cost (at least). People were unhappy with this, and asked for a remedy. One particular user thought up the placard idea, and either they were very prescient or it got translated and sent to the devs. Thus the 24 hour random release placard timer was born. People were happy about this, at first. In theory it sounded good, preventing housing flippers from outright buying plots to sell. But, soon enough people realized that in practice, this was an awful idea as now they had to sit and click a placard for hours in hopes they were the lucky one who made the purchase when the housing timer released.

Of course the housing flippers have just adapted to this new set up, and are still continuing to flip houses. Only slightly hampered by the timer, they still win a good number of plots to resell as FC wholesales. So really, everyone is miserable, if you want a house at all you either placard click and pray or you buy an FC house from a flipper for 10 to 70x the placard cost.

With Endwalker there will be the release of an entire new housing location, Ishgard. And they've stated they plan to introduce a lotto and are playing around with the idea of FC only wards and personal housing only wards, plus a bunch of other stuff. We don't know enough yet about what they are planning with this. Some are happy about the lotto, some are predicting disaster.

This is the state of housing as it is right now.

Welcome to the game!

On the subject of prices for housing, you'll find that they really aren't that expensive (at least for small houses and apartments). Currency scaling in this game is a bit different from what you'll find in many other MMORPGs. Gil rewards are abundant if you actively play the game and they add up faster than you'd think (i've got an alt that's already over 5 million gil just from doing MSQ, some side quests and selling off quest rewards the character isn't going to use - no repeatable content, crafting or other dedicated gil making involved).

Apartments are a great start even if your ultimate goal is to own a house. The perks that come with the purchase of an apartment:

Not subject to demolition (you must enter your house at lease once every 45 days or it gets demolished and you lose the plot)

Free access to chocobo stable outside your apartment building (no need to purchase one like you need to for a house)

Free access to Delivery Moogle in the apartment building lobby (no need to purchase a mailbox like you need to for a house)

Automatic teleport access to the apartment building entrance (no need to purchase a Miniature Aetheryte like you need to for a house)

Apartments are well worth the 500k gil while you're waiting for a house to become available though I do hope you're able to get a house in the future.

Thanks for the welcome and the info.

So things weren't always this bad. Well I hope the new housing location in Ishgard makes things a bit better. The lotto, will that be a good or bad solution?

I have unlocked Ishgard but I have yet to unlock the Firmament. I'm just lvling my Dark Knight at the moment and crafting. Once I hit lvl 50 on my DK I will check it out.

Jojoya you have almost convinced me to buy an apartment, almost. xD I won't buy one right now, that would be all my gil poof gone. But perhaps when I got some more. I didn't know about all those features, I only checked out someone else's apartment and I thought it was small. I assume there is no way to increase the size?

[Nepentha]

Thanks for the welcome and the info.

So things weren't always this bad. Well I hope the new housing location in Ishgard makes things a bit better. The lotto, will that be a good or bad solution?

I have unlocked Ishgard but I have yet to unlock the Firmament. I'm just lvling my Dark Knight at the moment and crafting. Once I hit lvl 50 on my DK I will check it out.

Jojoya you have almost convinced me to buy an apartment, almost. xD I won't buy one right now, that would be all my gil poof gone. But perhaps when I got some more. I didn't know about all those features, I only checked out someone else's apartment and I thought it was small. I assume there is no way to increase the size?

Unfortunately as of right now Apartments remain a one size fits all thing. That size being a small space. I am hoping the devs will change this to allow us to either upgrade the size, or buy them larger from the get-go. It'd alleviate a lot of the demand. People really just want a decent sized space to decorate.

As for the lotto, it's a mixed bag of reactions right now. Ultimately it's probably better to reserve judgement until we know more about it. They've also mentioned dividing the wards in Ishgard, and looking into relocation. Kinda appears to be them throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. We'll see!

The DRK storyline is just awesome, hope you're enjoying it. May as well take your time, the game is more about enjoying the journey than racing to the end.