Why the housing system makes people quit and possibly not come back

[Catwho]

It forces people to stay subscribed so thats a problem by itself especially with the lack of content in the game, that's why adaptable wards that auto create based on demand (for smalls at the very least) are a good idea. At least people can stay subscribed if they want to, but are also able to get a small at the very least when/if they come back

The problem is with the existing wards that were clogged up with clearly abandoned houses that nobody could purchase because the FCs were long since gone. Before auto demolition was added, we had a dozen of these houses on every ward.

I don't disagree that for the future, an instance housing solution is a much better way forward. Note that apartments never go away - if they added additional medium and large sized apartments and added the missing features that people want from houses (exterior yard spaces, the ability to plant things, etc) or just added the instanced ward with dummy houses and/or charged an extra fee to unlock extra houses in that same ward on the same account.... they'd make money and solve the problem too.

But auto demolition was added on our request for a reason. They just implemented it in the greediest way possible.