Quote Originally Posted by MizArai View Post
The timers are ridiculous. I understand why they put them in, though I feel like they weren't needed. It didn't stop flippers like they wanted, it just cut out who can buy flipped houses. All it seems to have done is created plenty of problems for people trying to buy their first house.
THIS.
If you go to ...certain sites, you'll find that flipping houses is very much still alive and the only thing that has changed is the fact that now you have to either have a home already to relocate OR you have to be willing to buy it as an FC home. It doesn't stop the flippers at all, just makes it a lot more difficult for people who are trying to get their first house in a legit manner.

And honestly, most flippers I see aren't even that bad anymore. I remember when I saw people trying to sell smalls for 100 million. Now it's more like 10 million. Yeah, that's still a huge markup but it's calmed down a lot and I feel like it will drop even further if they actually release that Ishgard housing they seemed to be teasing. I do wonder if SE is hesitant to add more wards because they want to add more housing areas in general.... hm. In any case, if they add another housing area that will add a lot more supply and the prices should drop once again. THAT BEING SAID, I think that allowing only one house per server per service account has really helped cut down on the people who are buying houses only to flip them, which leaves mostly people who are just trying to get their money back on housing they won't use anymore.

I think the timers are more harmful than helpful. If anything, I think they should retain the timer in the sense that you can't drop ownership and immediately a new buyer can swoop in. However, the time in which it becomes available again should be random but clear. For example, I think when you drop the house ownership it can go on a timer of 12 hours, 24 hours or 36 hours. The fact that you can't just instantly transfer into the new house makes it more risky for people buying from flippers. Secondly, the fact that it's random to some degree means that you can't plan - for example, you can't ditch the house at a certain time and say "Okay well I dropped the house at 3am so it will be up in 24 hours. 3am is a dead time so no one will be on." The huge variance in possible times means that if you drop at 3am, it could be available at 9am, 3pm or 3am. ADDITIONALLY, the placard should tell you exactly when it will be available. This means that there is at minimum 12 hours in which someone else can notice that the house is free and check to see when it's up again. This gives other people a chance, without them having to wait ridiculous hours checking every few seconds.


They could possibly add some randomness to it, as in "the house will be available for purchase some time between 3pm - 5pm" with it being possible to be unlocked in increments of 10 minutes.


I think there's a middle ground here somewhere that could make it more fair and friendly to people trying to get a new house while also discouraging flipping.