Middle-ground solution to housing

[DioK]

Like many, I was looking forward to buying (and relocating) a house in Shirogane. I didn't get one, however, it was a result of my own error (I forgot to pull the money out from my retainer the night before, so I missed being able to buy by seconds; upsetting, but life moves on). Reading a bit through the forums, I have seen several suggestions of creating more wards, instancing the housing, or, more drastically, revoking the housing from those who have already purchased multiple houses. Each of these suggestions have significant issues that present them as potentially a bad idea that won't necessarily fix the basic housing issue and may worsen other issues.

My basic suggestion is to allow current home-owners (even ones with multiple) to keep their current homes. However, purchase of any new home would require relocation of an existing home, along with assets, to the newly purchased lot. Further, in the case of those with multiple private homes associated with their account on a given server (through alt-characters), they must choose one of the private houses owned by their account to be relocated to the new plot and, at the same time, relinquish ownership of all other existing plots. Otherwise, they are not allowed to purchase the new plot if they are not willing to agree to this at the moment of purchasing the new plot.

I think this would help open the housing market significantly to new home-owners (should new wards and districts become available in the future from SE), provide an option to existing home-owners (whether to move to the new area or keep existing assets), and migrate the game population to a new, more fair system of 1 private house and 1 FC house per account per server shared amongst all characters for that account on that server.

Now I can think that many currently owning multiple home would think this is unfair to them as it is shutting them out of the market unless they are willing to agree to a significant reduction in assets. However, my opinion is that those same people are currently shutting out a very large population players from enjoying home-ownership. So, how is what they are doing fair? Just because it's not against the rules doesn't mean that it isn't unfair. The above system offers a choice while providing a greater opportunity to a larger part of the game population than currently exists.

So, what do you all think of this idea?

ADDENDUM: Just thought of something to add. Those with multiple homes, should they choose to relinquish their other houses and relocate the one house, they will be refunded the purchase price of the houses they relinquished (so, they get their gil back).

[Dragonrage53]

I agree with the one personal house , one FC house per account per server. However, I would change the instanced house idea with a deluxe apartment. The apartment system is already there so its less fuss modifying that when compared to making a whole new housing mode. Each Deluxe apartment could cost 1 million gil after the initial purchase to upgrade an existing apartment. Each apartment could be 1/3 to 1/2 times larger containing an outside balcony with enough room to support one 8 slot garden plot or a small number of outside decorations. Also Possibly adding one additional service NPC and planting pot as well a higher limit on placed item restrictions would be a welcome addition. Same rules as now with the apartments non demolition policy with adding the option to effectively share the apartment between other characters on the account including the Chocobo stables outside. But, no matter how you look at it there needs to be a common man/woman housing that's instanced and somewhere between an apartment and a small plot standard house.

[DioK]

...But, no matter how you look at it there needs to be a common man/woman housing that's instanced and somewhere between an apartment and a small plot standard house.

If I'm understanding the idea of "instancing" the housing, the issue I see is limited server resources. Increasing server resources to allow everyone aninstance of housing would increase real-world maintenance costs for the game. This cost increase would be passed on to players as increased subscription fees. Not sure if many would agree to that for the sake of housing.

The problem, as I see it, is that the current system is not really allowing equal opportunity due to a few, very rich players being able to hoard plots. Eliminate the hoarding and the problem should be more resolvable.

[Rymm]

(Wow, SE, give me a character counter, at least, if you're going to be so limiting about the size of a post.)

You can circumvent the character limit by going back and editing in more to your original post.

[DioK]

You can circumvent the character limit by going back and editing in more to your original post.

Thanks for letting me know. Makes for a much better post.

[DioK]

I just had another idea to sweeten the deal for people currently owning multiple private houses on a server: they receive a 10% appreciation on the value of the houses they are relinquishing. This means that they will be recovering 110% of the price they paid for the houses they relinquish. Yes, this is making the rich richer, but it may also encourage them to release houses into the market for others to buy.

Even further, an option could be added that allows those with multiple houses to simply release them and keep just the one house. They would still receive the 10% value appreciation (and, of course, be immediately migrated to the new system of 1 private house and 1 FC house per account per server) for the houses released.

I think the solution I'm presenting will, altogether, 1) incentivize injecting new houses onto the market from the current stock, 2) provide a smooth migration to a more fair system of 1 private house and 1 FC house per account per server, and 3) provide more equitable opportunities for future housing purchases should SE release more housing. I think it also avoids the need to consider instanced housing (which, really, the wards are already doing that), which obviates the ability of SE to make claims about server resources; you don't need any more server resources than what already exists.