Quote Originally Posted by Drakengarde View Post
That still boggles my mind how balmung ran out of apartments like that.
Alts. Every character can get an apartment (if they're available) since it's not a per account restriction and there are only 21,600 apartments per world. As of the last Lucky Bancho census (end of June) Balmung had more than 33,000 active characters over level 60.

Also wouldn't surprise me if some enterprising souls made some alts to buy up apartments to "resell". The apartments in the other districts had been sold out for several months before Empyreum opened so it was fairly obvious the same would happen again. Since apartments are first come, first serve with no timer it's pretty easy to resell them. Find a buyer, have them pay you to relinquish the apartment then they can immediately purchase the now vacant apartment. Even as a prohibited activity, it's extremely unlikely to be reported or caught since it's just an apartment and the apartment shortage is limited to Balmung (at least for now).