For now, I highly recommend everyone who is playing on a NA world and wants a house to wait until June 6th. Since auto-demolition was suspended between end of October and the release of 4.57 on April 23rd, there will be many houses getting demolished on that date that had been owned by players who quit playing since the end of October and never returned to the game.

You will still need to wait on the purchase cooldown timer to expire but with luck most worlds will have more than enough becoming available that those who are looking should be able to get some house (though not necessarily the one they want).

I do agree that SE needs to do something to address the lack of houses to meet player demand but I think it's highly unlikely they'll have anything to announce until after Shadowbringers has launched. Shirogane was added in 4.1 so I suspect any expansion of the housing system won't happen until 5.1. In the meantime, apartments are available on every world and they are a smaller form of housing to enjoy until you're able to buy a house if you don't already have one.