Delay resales of vacated plots by an unknown amount of time

[Belisaire]

Note: I think SE should meet demand first and foremost. That's the right way to fix this problem. But...

Hate to think it's come to this, but I think this would help. XIV has a big scalper problem when it comes to housing. There's a whole reddit on it. People will find their way around the rules ('it's not against the ToS if I reply to someone who wants to buy'). But everyone knows that people are buying houses with the intent to sell for insane amounts of gil. You can't stop the scalpers from trying to do this, but you could make it utterly not worth it for the buyers.

Idea:

In short--if a house goes back on the market, it's not available for purchase for a variable amount of time. Could be hours. Could be days. Could be a week. A potential buyer won't know. That means to pay a scalper is to pay them to vacate a house carries incredible risk for the buyer--and for that reason, it'll discourage them from buying from the scalpers.

This is an extreme option but ultimately, scalpers are responding to a demand. If you make it utterly not worth anyone's while to purchase from a scalper, then people won't do it.

It's clear that housing is broken and the implementation as it exists to flip houses is not helping the situation. I don't think this is the only fix that is needed, but I think it is part of the bigger problem.

[Ametrine]

I was just thinking that buying off a scalper seems like a terrible option even if I had money since there is also nothing preventing a random player from coming up and snapping up the scalped property out from under me if they click faster. There is no recourse to properly recover the money I paid the scalper since the whole thing is against ToS.

The whole thing is slimy from all sides, but I think this is a great idea to curb scalping. +1

[Llus]

This would be the easiest method to reduce the resale of houses. You could even have a timer shown on the placard showing when it would be available, give 30 days and provide a countdown. Plenty of time for other potential buyers to see it and know exactly when it'll become available.