How to solve a lot of housing problems

[EvanderAdvent]

All the devs need to do is make it so a player can only own a single plot of land. This will solve SO many problems in Housing, mainly slumlords.

[YatoShishi]

I thought only one character can own one house? or do you mean the ones who have more chars?

[Nicobo]

Tho OP means each account can only own a single plot of land ^^;

[saberchic]

Unfortunately, that will not solve the problem at all. There are simply way more players than available plots--even with the addition of these new wards coming.

[Niwashi]

That would help, but would also require changes to allow alts to share the one personal plot you can get. (And you'd still get some people using dummy FCs to achieve the same thing.)

What would probably help a lot more would be if SE made it impossible to get anyone to pay for relinquishing a plot. The reason people will now pay for someone to relinquish a plot is because they can coordinate it and be there ready to buy the plot as soon as it's released. All SE has to do is add in a delay, so that the plot isn't released immediately but at some point within the next few days after that.

Two possibilities:
1) The plot is released at a fixed point, say three days later or maybe a week later, or whatever, and during that time, the ward selection window (where it now shows either the owner or price) would show the date and time at which it will go back up for sale. Anyone wanting a house just needs to check that list every few days and they'll know of every plot that's opening up and when. There's no advantage in being the person who convinced the previous owner to abandon it.
2) The plot is released at an unknown random time that might occur at any point within the next week. The person who convinced the previous owner to abandon it doesn't know when to try buying it. It's just as likely to get bought out by someone else who happened along at the right time and spotted its availability first. (And that's especially likely on the more crowded servers with a lot of demand for that housing.)

In either case, paying someone to abandon a plot would only mean that somebody would have a chance to buy that plot, not that you would be that somebody. The usefulness would plummet, and so would people's willingness to pay those outrageous sums that sometimes get exchanged. Without "buyers", there would be no incentive for people to hoard plots they're not using.

[AnimaAnimus]

Look this thread for the 10,493,437,936 time

[StouterTaru]

What would probably help a lot more would be if SE made it impossible to get anyone to pay for relinquishing a plot. The reason people will now pay for someone to relinquish a plot is because they can coordinate it and be there ready to buy the plot as soon as it's released.

Your idea, just like the OP's, wouldn't "solve a lot of the housing problems;" it would only reduce one of the symptoms of the housing problems.

The reason people pay for someone else to give up a plot is because Demand >>>>>> Supply.