A Warning for Buyers

[Sylfaein]

I get what you're saying and I agree, but I guess my line of reasoning was that putting it up in party finder the way OP described is basically advertising to the server that this is happening right now. If someone really wanted to, had the gil to buy and didn't feel like paying to have a plot relinquished, they could just camp the market board until it shows up and potentially grab it before the hopeful buyer can, whether or not that person is connected with the seller. GMs wouldn't be able to do anything about that and neither would the original buyer or seller. That's why I said it sounded iffy to me.

They would have to know exactly where the plot was to be able to do that. It COULD be done, but the sneakthief would have to be able to track down the plot between all 3 cities and all their wards AND get there efore the buyer could take it off the plaque. I'm assuming that the seller didn't put ward and plot number in the ad, of course.

[MistyMew]

Which is exactly why se needs to implement a safe, fair way to sell houses to other players!

Should have been in place the day housing was released, no excuses.

Sorry to hear about your situation op ;;...agree the guy didnt do anything wrong, but I certainly can see where the confusion could come from.

[Rina_Leonhart]

I would periodically check my FC's house district's map to see if a house would pop for sale. Finally got lucky the other day and had enough on me to buy a small in the goblet for 2.2mil. I didn't have to pay another player extra to relinquish the property that way. Though in the end, I am in a pretty awkward place lol. A mansion's yard is overlooking mine xD anyways, patience can help a lot. There were a few people who came over to check it out while I was building it, so you have to be quick.

[Gwyenne]

As crappy as it sounds, it is something I knew from the beginning. The cost was for them to try to make some money back for moving/ losing their house and belongings.

There is no 'transfer' service; yet

That is how I bought my small house. I paid for the FC to relinquish it, then bought it. Its not a scam. It's how just about everyone is doing it. There is no information because SE didn't plan for people to start doing this, hence why there isn't a transfer system yet. This is a process made up by the community.

[Elladie]

I nearly got caught like this as, like the OP, I didn't understand how the transfer process worked. I just assumed that the gil you paid was a transfer in itself. Fortunately the seller asked me if I had the gil to purchase the plot on top of the fee for him to relinquish it (which I didn't). Realising I didn't understand the process sent me here to the forums to do a post search.

I do agree with the OP though. This information could be made MUCH clearer in game. I've talked to the housing NPCs and they really don't make it obvious that there is absolutely no way (currently) to transfer a plot. It's kind of implied, yes, when you ask about relinquishing land but, if you didn't already know how it worked, it's easy to miss the point.

[DkDerek]

I actually got my house for 2.5m....

After I handed over the gil, I realized I had not done the quest to unlock housing -_-

The guy waited for me while I sprinted to get the quest done. He even told a passerby that it was sold. Both of them were kind enough not to rip me off....


Really unfortunate what happened here. I hope SE comes through.

[Mikedizzy]

That sucks...sorry to hear that. I can't wait until there are free plots to buy on my server...has not been any for forever.

[MsCroc]

I'm not looking for sympathy, I'm looking to warn other newcomers to the market away from these scams, where they might rush headlong without this information and get burned the same way.

This wasn't a scam though. The seller was legit and was even offering a rather afforable price. Due to how limited the availability housing is, most servers have no houses available so the market is all player driven. The selling of plot relinquishment is not just common, for most servers it's the only option. It is a completely, fair assumption that due to the rarity of houses, you probably know what you're getting into if you are wanting to buy a house. I do not even fault this other player for not expounding; he should not be expected to.

The only "warning" here should be for players to do research before buying. Is this your first MMO by any chance? Most MMOs usually have at least one player driven market that the developers did not intend. It's not really uncommon. (For example, paying for speed runs or 'runs' in general in GW1)

[Kaiser-Ace]

Our Story


This is a post meant to warn other naive, first-time buyers to avoid my mistakes. This is not a complaining post; I am not looking for sympathy, but to help others.

Foreword

So this evening, through a combination of naivete and what looked like a good opportunity, my Free Company was scammed out of several million gil. While the administration is sorting out the details of whether or not what happened to us counts as a scam, and whether or not we will be reimbursed, I wanted to use our misfortune to extend a warning to potential first-time buyers of housing. While many of you may look at this and see several warning flags (which I can see in retrospect), the fact is that it happened, and I'd like to do my part to prevent it happening to others.

Notes for Buyers

If you're in the market for a house, there are a few take-aways from our story that I'd like to share.
Ask lots of questions. I learned details afterwards from others who came to the plot to warn people that would have made the sale seem extremely shady from the start. If I'd asked questions, I might have been able to avoid it.
Make the seller state clearly what you will get for your gil. In my case, there is a small chance that my Free Company will not be reimbursed, because the terms of the sale were not explicitly stated (the seller initiated a race of sorts, saying that the winner would "get it"). However, with a clearly stated trade agreement, the GMs will have no choice but to rule in your favor.
3,000,000 (3M) gil is too good to be true. Pricing for houses is not well-documented anywhere. While it is easy to surmise that larger houses go for several million gil, there is no clear notice in game of what "several" is. The house we tried to purchase went up for sale near 20,000,000 gil once the title was relinquished, which made the 3,000,000 pricetag absurd. There are also evidently a lot of fees surrounding housing and transfers and the like that are also not well-documented, and in my case, 3M gil was just enough to cover those.
Look up the process beforehand if you don't know it. The seller in my case feigned ignorance of how to transfer ownership, and attempted to make the relinquishment look like an accident at first. I'm not even sure if there IS a process for getting a house into someone else's hands without going through the market, but these are things I could have found out if I'd looked.
Stick to the market. If you are a first time buyer and you don't know the ins and outs of the system, avoid private sales. It is too easy for someone who knows the way things work to trick someone who doesn't. If you don't have experience with it, use the default channels.
Please look forward to it. There are strong, partly-confirmed rumors that the housing system will be revisited prior to 3.1, which likely means in the next month or so. If you're waiting to buy a house, that will likely be the time to buy.

TL,DR: Don't let your excitement and eagerness and desire cloud your judgment. It will come around to bite you in the behind.


I saw a party in Party Finder advertising sale of a house for the first player to trade the owner 3M gil. Since my small FC has been in the market for a house for a long time, and since we've been stockpiling gil for an eventual purchase, I highlighted this to the officers and other members, and they told me to jump on it.

So I joined the party, and after retrieving the gil from the FC Chest, ported and sprinted to the designated plot. The seller greeted me, and I eagerly traded him our gil. Once he'd received all of it, the seller pulled the party from PF and said that he needed to see how to do it.

The title was relinquished, and the plot went up for sale on the market.

I asked the seller what was going on, and they said that was how it worked. I asked what our 3M was for, and they said it was for the fee to relinquish the land. Then they left the party while I stood, gawking at the plot that could have been ours, up for sale for more than we could afford.

This situation falls into a morally grey area as there doesn't seem to be a malicious act on the land seller's part. He knew there was no proper way to sell one to one and had no way of knowing you were ignorant of that well known common knowledge. But at the same time, he did what he was payed to do. 3 million to relinquish the land likely didn't even pay his investment back if he was selling anything but a small plot so the three million was a pittance compared to the property's value. If you were ignorant of the fact that not only is land not exchangeable between players but also what property prices actually are for free plots, then I'm afraid the GMs will find no fault in the seller due to the fault being in your own ignorance of common knowledge information. For future reference, Smalls=1.5-5 million, Mediums=15-80 million, and Larges =100-500 million depending on the server. If it was anything over a small my "Fish Sencor" would have been going off immediately but alas I'm also aware of the pricing as you unfortunately weren't.

P.S. I also took the liberty of combining your first and second posts Jpec as they could have been one post using edit. Also for the fact some people may have their UIs set up like mine where newest posts are 1st and the OP is last.

The only "warning" here should be for players to do research before buying. Is this your first MMO by any chance? Most MMOs usually have at least one player driven market that the developers did not intend. It's not really uncommon. (For example, paying for speed runs or 'runs' in general in GW1)

I'll admit I've sold my Tank and Healer services before and even payed for a few but the idea of someone willingly running off with cash is obscene and immoral. I always offer full and partial refunds to (by my definition) botched runs if a run didn't run as smooth as planed and I typically don't pay until after the run of which I pat the agreed price, no more, no less.

[Kyu-Momo]

Holy sheez... whoa... okay...

So, when someone says that they are "selling their house plot" what they REALLY mean is "they are only relinquishing the land plot so if you don't have enough money to re-buy the plot then you are SOL"

Yeah, thanks for this topic TC. I'm so sorry to hear that that happened to you.
But really, THANK YOU for this.

Yikes! I had no idea!
After all the crap I put up with in WoW (trolling, griefing etc) I don't have much faith in people anymore... So, I think I'll just play it safe and wait, however long it takes, for Square to either add more plots or implement the method they discussed in the interviews...

It will be a LONG wait. Probably years, but maybe by then I'll have a lot of money saved up and can actually afford one.

I want to change choco color and have a garden. I can wait for as long as it takes. :3