Quote Originally Posted by polyphonica View Post
This question was actually addressed in a recent interview, and they basically said the issue is that instances aren't saved, and since people will generally want to be able to do all the things a normal house can do anyway (both now and into the future, like airship building, etc.), it's better to just let everyone have full/real houses rather than creating a less-featured one. Of course, on busy servers, they'll need to add a ton of capacity to do that.

In terms of the "cheaper" issue... I think they simply don't have a vision for housing being something that's for everyone, but rather they want people to see it as an investment they work towards in end-game (and a bit of a gold sink). The reverse auction would help with pricing if there were enough supply (which there now is on some worlds, but not others).
Then how does an NPC Town that is out of render range of every single player in the game get "saved"?