I disagree with disabling relocation as a fix to try and offset demand (especially for Shirogane). Shirogane’s housing market is going to probably be the most competitive, absolutely, but disabling relocation is not really going to stifle its competitive market because Shirogane is the “hot new housing district”. Naturally, a lot of people are going to want to flock there, regardless of if relocation is a thing or not. (That said, not “everyone” wants to move there; I didn’t even look at Shirogane for this release.)

If a player chose to move to Shirogane from another district for this release, however, they were on equal footing as the FCs looking to purchase a new plot: it all just boiled down to who got to the placard faster (which is how housing in this game works in general, usually). That being said, there will always be a “most popular” housing area (before Shirogane, it tended to be The Mist), so you can’t throw all your eggs in one basket if you are looking to own a house. Does it suck you won’t get one in your favorite district or your dream plot? Sure. But you should always have back-ups—I had 4 different houses lined up for this release, and most people I knew that managed to get a house during 3.3’s release and 4.1 Shirogane’s release had back-ups as well in the event they didn’t get their favorite.

Disabling relocation to the “hottest housing district” (or even in general) is not really an answer to this problem (plus, if you at least secure yourself a house, you’ll be one able to take advantage of relocation whenever more districts/more wards are added in the future). Housing is an extremely limited supply with an extremely high demand; until a significant number of plots are added to satisfy the majority of this game’s playerbase, people will continue to complain and demand for more housing to be added.



Your math for the relocation is also off. It only subtracts 30% of the lowest possible plot price from the plot you relocate to.

So, if you relocated from a small Grade 5 plot (3,000,000 gil) to a Grade 1 medium (20,000,000 gil), you only save 30% of the lowest price for that small plot, which is negligible (in this situation):
—The lowest price for a Grade 5 Small is 1,488,000 gil
—30% of that is only 446,400 gil
—So the purchase price of that Grade 1 Medium is 19,553,600 gil.

If you relocate from a Grade 3 Medium (18,000,000 gil) to a Grade 3 Large (45,000,000 gil):
—The lowest price for a Graede 3 Medium is 8,928,000 gil
—30% of that is only 2,678,400 gil
—So the purchase price of the Grade 3 Large is 42,321,600 gil

It’s not a flat 75% price reduction on the plot you move to. People that relocate technically spend more gil on housing than people who look to purchase for the first time, depending on the situation. In the scenario where a Grade 5 Small moved to a Grade 1 Medium, that individual would spend 22,903,600 gil, as opposed to a new purchaser, who would only spend 21,000,000 mil (this is including the cost of a building permit, which is 1,000,000 gil for medium houses); in the scenario where a Grade 3 Medium moved to a Grade 3 Large, they would have spent a total of 61,321,600, where as a fresh buyer would spend 48,000,000 gil (the building permit for a large is 3,000,000).

The only way people are going to significantly save are if they relocate and downgrade, which would not really be a negative of the relocation feature, or if the more expensive plots were able to devalue to their lowest possible purchase price. And, let’s be honest: it’s not a likely situation nowadays that a Grade 1 Large/50,000,000 gil plot is going to be able to devalue to 24,800,000 gil.