Quote Originally Posted by Alleluia View Post
I can't speak to New World, but Lotro can add more neighborhoods now b/c it has had so much shrinkage of playerbase over the years. They used ot have more neighborhoods, then they had less cus less players, and thus they now have room to add more as needed, cus there aren't at peak capacity atm. I remember, back when it was at its peak player numbers (I played since launch in 2008), that housing was an issue exactly like it is now in FF14. They hit neighborhood capacity and you had to wait till someone went into escrow due to not logging in to pay their property fees before their plot went on the market again. And, oh yeah, there were/are property fees. And no apartments. At least there weren't as of 2014 or so, which is the last time I really played.
Back in the day, housing in LOTRO did NOT go back on the market when people failed to pay the fees. The houses just stayed locked with an ever-increasing amount of back-fees that needed to be payed to open them up again.

Eventually (in 2013) that changed and houses did go back on the market after the fees had been unpaid for long enough, at which point a lot of houses belonging to people who had stopped playing became available again.