Housing Woe: Flipper owning 20+ plots, FC owners running away with houses

[PurpleFluffy]

We are a 30 people FC and we had some great time together at our FC house.
Until, one day, the leader “informed” us that he was selling the house, with a ready buyer and a set time for the transaction the following day.
We were told, “You guys should be thankful. I could have just sold everything, dissolved the FC, and then just disappear. I did you a favor.”
We swallowed our sorrows and began house hunting.
Our hope was shattered when we saw an open medium, and it was taken right in front of us within seconds of opening.
We found out that, the individual buyer who bought that house owns 24+ plots with dummy 1-person rank 6 FCs and alter. characters, and is grabbing everything and anything that becomes available.
He is flipping them online and is selling small plots for $20mil each, unwilling to take anything less.
24+ plots, that’s almost half of a ward.
When 3.3 comes out, I can see this individual buying everything, while the majority of us don’t have access to housing.

[PurpleFluffy]

I was okay with people selling one house for reasons like they are transferring server.
However, if the system allows for 24+ plots to be owned by a single player, especially when the supply is so limited, something is terribly wrong.
My suggestions are the following:
1) 1 Service account, 1 World, 1 Personal House + 1 FC House. So one subscription will not be able to own more than 2 houses.Without this rule, no matter how many new wards SE creates, few people will own-it-all, and there will never be enough.
2) Do not allow dummy-1-person-FC to own houses. Set restrictions on the number of active players that a FC must have before allowed to buy a plot (like 10 for a small, 20 for a med, 30 for large).If active players fall under that number, the leader should not be allowed to relinquish land for sale.The system should take the house back in 30 days automatically and sell it at the random time if the FC doesn’t have enough active members.

[enthauptet]

There's an FC on famfrit which is the same though they just have 13 FC houses not 24 like yours.

[PurpleFluffy]

3)If SE doesn’t want to enforce the above rules, make it costly for flippers to own houses. Like a luxury tax. For ex, 1st house of the service account is tax-free, 2nd one will cost 2 million per week. 3rd one 3 million per week. Some players treat house as their end-game. Their end-game goal is to catch-them-all! With this rule, they can still be collectors and behave like they are playing FFXIVHouse-Pokemon; they just need to pay, because they are doing it at the expense of other players.
I don’t know what’s technically feasible.
I just want it to be as fair as possible. Why would you allow few players to deny the majority the access to some vital in-game functions?
I don’t play Raids, not because few players are blocking the door telling me that I cannot go in unless I pay him 20 million+gils on top of what game charges.
It is exactly what’s happening with housing and is getting unhealthy.
These are just some raw ideas.
Thanks for reading.

[MomomiMomi]

He must have a lot of accounts.

Anyway, don't really agree with your suggestions. The first has a problem because alts can be all be in different FCs. If nobody else is in that FC for long enough, leadership will be passing to you. It would be a little silly if this was prevented from happening because you already own an FC with a house.

The second just inconveniences people if members end up leaving, and someone with an FC holding a house probably isn't planning to relinquish it, but instead sell the FC.

Also, you can edit your posts to bypass the 1000 character limit.

[Gemma]

That sucks OP, I really hope you & your FC find a way to get your house back.
As far as how to make the housing situation better I would rather SE find a way to fix housing without further restrictions on the players.

I am one of the many people out there who actually play alts, like truly play alts. While currently I only own one house on an alt that I use regularly, I'd still like to have the option of owning another house on a different alt if I want. So while yes it sucks that these House Flippers exist, it's not fair to the people who legitimately play multiple characters to limit their options.

Personally I think the fix would have been making smaller wards. The idea of a large neighborhood was cool but it really should have been small instances, like a few houses in each. That way we could also have more space indoor & outdoors for furnishings because the game isn't having to load a bunch of other houses in the distance. Memory issues need to be addressed with housing otherwise we'll just keep putting band-aids on a broken leg.

Btw: you can edit you post to get around the 1000 character limit ^_^

[MaikoRaines]

Your FC leader is a right bastard - this whole "did you a favor" nonsense. He did himself a favor... and to boot, you have another clown on your server that's a retail mogul. I really hope you guys find something.

[Bahd_Monkey]

For the OP,
I don't know how long ago this happened, but you should report your FC leader and the buyer to a GM. According to the NA GMs, selling plots or FCs is against the TOS.

Here is a thread by someone else who went through the same thing

If to much time has passed for a GM to help you out, hopefully others will see this thread, and if their FC leader sells their FC, they will know to report them right away.

[Dyvid]

For the OP,
I don't know how long ago this happened, but you should report your FC leader and the buyer to a GM. According to the NA GMs, selling plots or FCs is against the TOS.

Here is a thread by someone else who went through the same thing

If to much time has passed for a GM to help you out, hopefully others will see this thread, and if their FC leader sells their FC, they will know to report them right away.

This, you need to report them both.

[bardaboo]

That's horrible. he could have transferred the fc to you for a price and then just left the fc