Why isn't housing priced higher? (why is housing random luck)

[SendohJin]

unfair would be giving such an advantage to people who RMT.

i was surprised that they lowered the prices but they definitely should not be increased.

[Azurymber]

My point is having a part of the game locked out to the -MAJORITY- of players is pointless.

With the current system, people buy a house, then resell it to someone for triple+ what they paid
That person paying 4x the value of the house is often getting their gil from RMT (e.g. no crafting/gathering leveled, but suddenly have 200mil)

The current system promotes random-luck and RMT activity. That seems kinda inefficient.

I'm in favour of a system where anyone who puts the effort in, can get housing.
As opposed to a few "lucky people" getting housing, or having an RMT-based housing black market.

[LaylaTsarra]

I'm in favour of a system where anyone who puts the effort in, can get housing.
As opposed to a few "lucky people" getting housing, or having an RMT-based housing black market.

Spending the money on mogstation isn't the solution. There are apartments coming. One has to see what those are and if they are at least something the community would like. Asking people to pay real money will also lock people out and will simply give those with money the opportunity to buy things others can't afford. That isn't fair either.

[AnaviAnael]

Spending the money on mogstation isn't the solution. There are apartments coming.

At the rate SE goes, apartments will be here in 2019. xD

[CuteWhisper]

My point is having a part of the game locked out to the -MAJORITY- of players is pointless.

With the current system, people buy a house, then resell it to someone for triple+ what they paid
That person paying 4x the value of the house is often getting their gil from RMT (e.g. no crafting/gathering leveled, but suddenly have 200mil)

The current system promotes random-luck and RMT activity. That seems kinda inefficient.

I'm in favour of a system where anyone who puts the effort in, can get housing.
As opposed to a few "lucky people" getting housing, or having an RMT-based housing black market.

Now that's something I can agree on. They need to fix this issue but not putting wards on mog station, that's ridiculous. Maybe they could do it like Wildstar for personal housing and keep wards for free company houses.

[Alistaire]

unfair would be giving such an advantage to people who RMT.

i was surprised that they lowered the prices but they definitely should not be increased.

Completely missed the point, being that it's unfair to anyone not able to be on when the servers come up since they'll all be scooped up fast like each other time there's been new houses.

The system itself isn't intrinsically unfair; it's unfair because of the practicality that means your window of opportunity of buying is very limited because of the supply.

[SendohJin]

if RMT is an issue why not just make 1 or 2 wards where you buy houses through the mogstation.

it's currently not an issue but more people would feel like they have to RMT to get houses if you raise the plots to $200M.

Completely missed the point, being that it's unfair to anyone not able to be on when the servers come up since they'll all be scooped up fast like each other time there's been new houses.

no, i didn't. who has 200M in the game and can't afford to wake up 1 day at 4 AM or take a day off work/school. if you have that little control of your life that's just too bad but i can't imagine those people would be able to afford 150-200M gil for the plots.

[birdy_reene]

unfair would be giving such an advantage to people who RMT.

i was surprised that they lowered the prices but they definitely should not be increased.

depends on the server, on Zalera, the housing cost went up with 3.3

[giantslayer]

A market achieves equilibrium at a price point where supply equals demand.
If the price point is artificially kept lower than the equilibrium point, the result is a shortage.
If the price point is artificially kept higher than the equilibrium point, the result is a surplus.

Supply is the same for all servers.
Demand is different for each server, thus resulting in a different equilibrium point for each server. Past pricing models seemed to make an effort to account for this, either to reduce demand or to reduce the supply of Gil on certain servers (housing takes Gil out of circulation).

As to why they do it differently now, I don't know. The only way to make everyone happy is to have a limitless supply of housing, which they've said they can't do.

Some things they could do...
1. Give more housing to servers with more population.
2. As a compromise of sorts between the two camps in this argument, they could have wards at multiple price points. For example, the first set of wards could be 3 mil for a small house. Second tier is 5 mil. Third tier is 10 mil. The cheaper ones of course sell out faster and give people with less Gil a chance to get in. Expensive wards would not sell out overnight so housing wouldn't only be available during the Walmart Black Friday bum rush.

The economist in me would advocate a system wherein market forces can determine equilibrium, such as an auction system or one where initial prices were stupid high and came down over time until buyers are found (not unlike the current system, but with higher starting points and lower ending points).

[MomomiMomi]

The economist in me would advocate a system wherein market forces can determine equilibrium, such as an auction system or one where initial prices were stupid high and came down over time until buyers are found (not unlike the current system, but with higher starting points and lower ending points).

Exactly what I've been hoping they would do.