I'm very much in agreement on the low cost to entry and then an upkeep cost of some kind.

In most well designed systems both here in FFXIV and other MMOs everyone can get basic access to features and then it takes some degree of effort to get access to the more advanced stuff within said feature. Housing should be no different. Everyone should be able to get access to a small house with relative ease; the expensive stuff should be reserved for the medium and large houses.

Locking 90% of the playerbase out of a feature entirely is simply bad design.