Currently there are only 4 private wards per server per district. Of those districts, only Empyrium is actually open for bidding.

Right now on my server, there are only a few houses actually available. Bid on one this morning as soon as it 10:59 rolled up. Just checked and now there are over 20 other bidders. On that one house alone. There are not even private 20 houses available.

So what happens what 99% of those bidders lose out? Just eat shit and go back to your lousy apartments? The devs wont come out and say it but as it stands housing is exclusive content for a very tiny minority of the playerbase, a content they advertise as being for everyone however. Clearly this isn't working and even this bidding system still just means a small minority will actually get a house at all.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of the spaces in the 20 free company wards are empty. Why? Why have they made it this way? Why do FCs need so much space when the ratio of FC to private buyers is so heavily skewed towards private? What were they thinking?

Either open up far more spaces to private buyers, add instanced housing like you should've all along, or stop advertising housing as a feature because it functionally is not for the vast majority of the playerbase.