It seems SE sees apartments as Housing

[Amenara]

That's the problem - they don't actually promote apartments.

What products are most likely to end up successful? Products promoted in marketing campaigns. We're trained from an early age to become demanding consumers for the things we see being advertised first on TV then later in social media and other places (unless our parents block our access to those things).

As long as SE is going to promote owning a house both in their out-of-game advertising and in their in-game questing, players are going to expect to own a house.

If they don't have enough faith in their apartments to feature them in any marketing, players are going to ignore them in favor of what is featured.

It's a shame because apartments are not that bad if you give them a chance. If you have multiple characters on the same world, you can always try to put their apartments into the same building to create the illusion of having a larger house. They're still not going to suit every player (especially those who will actually do intercross gardening) but a little creativity can create a nice living space.

I agree with the sentiment and understand that you aren't calling for everyone to just accept apartments. I think if SE really believes that apartments are the solution for housing it should be more prominent in their advertising, especially since that is the only real way to enter the housing system currently. I love my apartment and am happy about the hours of time I sank into making it what I wanted. My apartment whet my appetite for housing and made me want more out of the very limited system apartments give.

I think it could be a double edged sword if they do actively start promoting apartments in that we could end up with apartments also being filled up to capacity due to more players wanting to participate in the system not knowing they exist and then be in the same spot we are now with the lack of houses. Do I think that would realistically happen? Probably not. I think the other issue is that more people will participate and realize they, like me, want more which will exacerbate the current supply issues.

That being said it could be another avenue to show SE how many people want houses and want a better system than we currently have and cause change in their mindset...Who knows?