System to Automatically Relinquish Personal Housing?

[Niwashi]

I would be in favor of implementing a weekly/monthly maintenance fee, of, lets say, around 100k/small, 500k/medium, and 1 mil/large, per week in order to keep your house after purchasing.

I wouldn't object to a maintenance fee (provided you can pay up 6 months to a year in advance), but those numbers are a couple orders of magnitude beyond being reasonable. I certainly don't make anywhere near 100k in a week. It's pushing it as to whether I'd make that much in a month, though there have occasionally been months when I have. But when I do, there's generally other things I want to spend it on, too. A maintenance fee isn't for squeezing every gil out of people that they can get. It's for ensuring that people are still interested in having the house.

Knock a couple zeros off those numbers, let people pay the fee in advance (at least 6 months ahead) and set up an escrow for housing items and a re-purchase voucher, so people can get a house back again, then it would be reasonable to foreclose on houses for not keeping up with the fees. It would get back houses, both from people who quit the game (as the other proposed inactivity rules would), and also from those who have lost interest in the housing feature even if they still play regularly.

[tocsin]

knock a couple zeros off those numbers, snip.

Remember, gardening alone is one of the most profitable ventures in the game, restricted only to those with a house. If you properly manage your house, your garden should net you at least 750k a week per deluxe plot, if not a lot more. My FC does about 10 mil a month off our 3 deluxe plots. If What these numbers do, is guarantee that people arent going to buy a house, and then not properly utilize it so that other people can gain the products therein.

[Fenral]

What these numbers do, is guarantee that people arent going to buy a house, and then not properly utilize it so that other people can gain the products therein.

"Properly" is extremely subjective. Just because you think housing should be used one way, doesn't mean everyone does. Obviously the people who just ignore their houses entirely now don't really need them, but someone who buys a large house just to decorate a bunch at no real profit is allowed to, if they stay active.