Question... That I think I already know the answer to....

[Azrael_Ajora]

Question..... That I think that I already know the answer to.... But don't know for sure. If you use the Aetheryte in any major city in order to view the houses in various wards, what is the difference between those that are owned that are lit up in green vs. those that are owned that are lit up in red?

[Meimi_chan]

The ones in red are set as private and you can't enter, while you can visit the ones in green.

Once you enter the housing district, you can see on your map that the locked housed are yellow while the others are blu.
In addiction to that, private houses have a red icon that resemble an "i" (that in reality is a person) next to them.

[Azrael_Ajora]

Oh alright, I was wrong then.... Hmmm......... Is there a way to tell which houses will become relinquished on Christmas day then? I'd imagine that there isn't.... Meh.

[Austherus]

You can check the furniture inside and outside the house, if it's all 2 or 3 patches old stuff there's a big chance it's abandoned and is going to be relinquised.

I understand that someone that doesn't own a house probably doesn't recognize most furniture by memory, but it's the only thing I can think of.

[kesha]

If you're really crazy and have a few hours, you can look people and free companies up on the community site, and inspect their class levels and the gear they logged out in.

I used this for one housing area (all 8 wards) to determine a "high" or "low" probability of abandonment, by this criteria:

Players:
- Does not have a character above 50 (didnt buy HW)
- Has 1 lvl 60 and is still in HQ 'quest' gear (likely did not log in since 3.1)

Free Companies:
- Has less than 10 members
- Has no weekly AND no monthly standings
- Players meed the criteria above

This is by no way a guaranteed system, but about a best guess as I could come up with. By the number of "high" probability houses expiring, the housing area I looked up was set to relinquish about 18% of it's current residents.

(yes, I did this, and I am in fact crazy. *nodnod*)