I think it is far past time that we did away with the inefficient and frankly archaic housing system that exists in this game.
The issues with the system, in case they need to be expounded upon for some reason, are not limited to, but include: The limited availability of housing, rewarding of furnishings from seasonal events that people without houses can't even use, the gating of game features behind housing, the issue of people selling their houses despite counter measures, the annoyance of said counter measures, and the conflict between FC and FC and between FCs and individuals all create a tremendous amount of strife and bitterness surrounding the system that are unnecessary.
Permit me to go ahead and counter some common arguments:
1. The neighborhood system fosters a sense of community.
I understand that some people like the feeling of community. Having been in several different FCs and having played since 1.0, I have never personally seen or experienced any sort of collaboration or interaction within a neighborhood. That is not to say such interactions don't happen, but there is no real way to get non-anecdotal data for this, and I would posit they are pretty rare and would further assert they do not outweigh the negative social impacts of the current system.
2. Instancing housing will draw people out of the world, and they still spend all their time in their home instance.
I don't know if you've been in the open world much in this game, but it's more or less dead anyway, and the systems Square implements actively exacerbate this issue. There remain no compelling reasons to spend time in the world itself.
That being said, why sit AFK at your house, which would ostensibly have no market board or other amenities, and would have no content within it other than your garden, your chocobo, and decorating?
3. Implementing such a system would be too resource intensive.
Many of the resources needed for instanced housing are already in use. In addition to housing within the neighborhoods, there are instanced apartments, and there are FC rooms, workshops, etc. all allocated on a house by house or person by person basis. In short, the resource creep would be likely, but it is not as extensive as SE stans like to claim and has already been done by companies with far fewer resources than a small indie company like Square-Enix.