Lets hear how housing could have gone under your control.

I'll start:
It'd be instanced. If you have an Apartment, it replaces your server space allocated for an Inn room.


Three tiers of housing, upgraded via quests.
1st tier of housing is a bit bigger than the personal room.
2nd tier adds a side room. Can grant room auras that buff the player.
3rd tier adds a balcony with grass (outdoor furnishings here)
4th tier adds the back room with extra personal storage in the form of a trunk. Trunk can be moved about in housing mode, but not removed.

1st tier Housing contains: A summoning bell to call the barber or retainers.
The storage chest found in the inn.
The toy box is a place-able item you can put on the floor, tables etc. Same goes for the journal. You can turn them off/on from the housing menu if you don't want them.


Auras: The side room can grant an aura bonus depending on what is put there, based on the elements of the furnishings. Different furnishings have different elemental worth.

Benefits can various passives (stack with FC buffs?).

All housing themed as part of an apartment complex. In Gridania you're living in a building built into an old hollowed out tree, which has smaller plants and trees growing on it. Your balcony opens up with a view of a lake. (the one in New Gridania?)

In the Limsa, your apartment is carved into one of the big rock pillar things that makes up the city. You naturally have a view of the ocean, shipping yard and sea cliffs. You can watch ships sail by in the distance.

In Ul'Dah you're up in one of those large buildings you can see from outside Ul'Dah, overlooking the city out toward the desert.