But what if they don't want housing to be casual? What if they don't want to be other games? What if they're seeing for the second time where that got them? 1.5 million players? They're easily losing 300k+ of that over Wolves' Den no matter how they design it.

Why not give people a life's mission? No such thing exists in the game at this point, even farming myth and Coil will reach its usefulness by around March for the majority of multi-job players.

The right time to own a house is the right time to own a house. If people feel compelled to turn the game into a job to get a house, I don't think that's a problem with the housing system.