Hard limit on flipping house plots

[Tohe-Spidhire]

Based upon what people have been saying in these forums, this game lacks a mechanism for selling your house, such that house flipping has long been a black market activity, causing Medium and Large houses to be flipped for at least twice the going rate.

The game needs an in-game mechanism for a seller to recoup their purchase price. So instead of selling a Medium for $18m gil + markup, they can specify just the markup (say as a percentage). This would allow SE to collect statistics on how often houses change hands, and apply taxes (i.e., gil sink on these exchanges), which SE simply does not have with the current system. Not to mention the benefit that buyers can avoid the sketchy black market types, whom could just as easily take the money and run.

For rl real estate, I guess that it's typical that the agent doing negotation agree to 10% of the property value? This sounds like what SE has in mind when they say that houses shouldn't be flipped for an excessive amount.

For when selling an in-game house, perhaps 10% is a reasonable cap. But whatever the cap is, that will have a normalizing effect on what the black market can charge, since a reasonably-minded person will balk at the current 100%+ black market markups.

Mind you, there's benefit to being able to just sell your house in preparation for suspending your account for a few months, without losing the purchase price. It is evident that the current system is designed to lock home owners into their SE subscriptions, but this is transparent exploitation by SE, on a par with the black market.

[Harmonea]

I want you to really think about this for a moment.

If I hypothetically have a medium house, and I want 50m gil for it, I would already arrange that sale externally.

If SE adds a system like the one you describe, and I still want 50m gil for my house but SE puts a cap of 20m on the transfer, all I'm going to do is STILL arrange a buyer externally and have him give me 30m on the side and 20m through the in-game system. If the in-game system is heavily taxed, I may transfer the house for 1m through the system and 49m around it.

Respectfully, this solution solves nothing for this who know what supply and demand really makes their plots worth.

You could follow this up with a suggestion that the GMs take a personal look at trades that happen between a buyer and seller, sure, but that's not going to happen. This is suggested like a magic bandaid for all things housing related, but it's never something that's on the table.

[Jojoya]

Housing is intended in part as a gil sink. Owners do not need to recoup the purchase price if they are no longer going to be using it. They need to weigh the risk before they buy instead.

It's not like it's hard to make gil. If someone buys a house then later loses it when they stop playing, they can always earn the gil to buy another when they return to the game if they don't already have enough. There are plenty of gil sources and nothing major to spend it on other than buying a house.

Any official resell mechanism will increase house flipping. As Harmonea pointed out, there wouldn't be anything to prevent players from continuing to transfer additional profits through other means.

The only thing locking you to the game is you. You're the one letting ownership of virtual property bought with virtual currency in a game control your life choices. If you don't want to be playing then don't. If you lose a house you bought, so what? You can always buy another when you decide to you want to play again.

[Tohe-Spidhire]

If SE adds a system like the one you describe, and I still want 50m gil for my house but SE puts a cap of 20m on the transfer, all I'm going to do is STILL arrange a buyer externally and have him give me 30m on the side and 20m through the in-game system. If the in-game system is heavily taxed, I may transfer the house for 1m through the system and 49m around it.

Yep, that is fairly obvious. However, you need to think in terms that the black market largely exists because there HASN'T been an in-game system. By it's very existence, an in-game system would be the preferred choice due to its greater convenience over a sketchy black market. And with a cap in place, this signals to buyers when they're being ripped off by paying more on the black market.

In other words, the 100% markups only exists because SE didn't provide an in-game selling mechanism. With such a system in place, the ease of black market sales would become less convenient, and your boast of quickly obtaining 30m "on the side" is nonsense. You're going to be competing against honest players that are selling their plots for legitimate reasons.

Don't forget that, by virtue of an in-game mechanism being REQUIRED for doing the exchange, this puts a magnifying glass upon people involved in the black market (i.e., house flippers), where it becomes quite apparent what some people are doing, and it just takes one ban-hammer to resolve the matter.

[Tohe-Spidhire]

Housing is intended in part as a gil sink. Owners do not need to recoup the purchase price if they are no longer going to be using it. They need to weigh the risk before they buy instead.

It's not like it's hard to make gil. If someone buys a house then later loses it when they stop playing, they can always earn the gil to buy another when they return to the game if they don't already have enough. There are plenty of gil sources and nothing major to spend it on other than buying a house.

Any official resell mechanism will increase house flipping. As Harmonea pointed out, there wouldn't be anything to prevent players from continuing to transfer additional profits through other means.

The only thing locking you to the game is you. You're the one letting ownership of virtual property bought with virtual currency in a game control your life choices. If you don't want to be playing then don't. If you lose a house you bought, so what? You can always buy another when you decide to you want to play again.

Please don't hand wave the ease of earning gil, when we all know that it involves a time investment (not to mention the subscription required). I suppose that a house flipper would consider gil "easy" to earn.

Housing is NOT working as a gil sink when gil is simply exchanging hands outside the game, without a tax in place. Utter rubbish. The system exists because SE (probably) intentionally created the current system with artificial scarcity in mind, as described. When the upcoming new housing comes out, it will just be more of the same; a subscriber-sink.

Let's be clear that YOU might be willing to simply walk away from the game, and MYSELF can walk away from the game, both despite the artificial housing scarcity, but the system has the appearance of being a cheap ploy to keep subscribers tied to the game, rather than "lose" their virtual stuff (and the time used to accumulate and arrange that stuff).

[Harmonea]

I suppose that a house flipper would consider gil "easy" to earn.

You will literally never convince anyone of your point of view by taking a well-known forum member and insisting you're only being disagreed with because said forum member must have a habit of unsavory behavior. This is how you find yourself on ignore lists and your suggestions categorically discarded simply because of their source. Consider editing these insinuations out of your post if you actually want to discuss your suggestion and get your thread in front of the devs' eyes.

[Jojoya]

Yep, that is fairly obvious. However, you need to think in terms that the black market largely exists because there HASN'T been an in-game system.

The "black market" exists because the supply doesn't meet the demand. An in-game system isn't going to change anything when players would still be able to dictate what price they're going to sell at regardless of any regulated system.

[Jojoya]

Yep, that is fairly obvious. However, you need to think in terms that the black market largely exists because there HASN'T been an in-game system.

The "black market" exists because the supply doesn't meet the demand. An in-game system isn't going to change anything when players would still be able to dictate what price they're going to sell at regardless of any regulated system.

The scarcity doesn't even exist outside of the NA data centers. There are a few EU worlds with available housing. Almost every JP world has an abundance of housing to choose from. If SE was truly trying to try players to the game through house ownership, wouldn't that scarcity exists on all worlds instead of just worlds in a certain region?

Please don't hand wave the ease of earning gil, when we all know that it involves a time investment (not to mention the subscription required). I suppose that a house flipper would consider gil "easy" to earn.

It's easy for anyone to earn gil by simply playing the game. The trick is to make uses of the gil sources available and then spend it wisely, which a lot of players don't do.

No, I don't flip houses. I'm very much against it. I'm one of the ones who's been vocal about the need for an improved instanced housing system so every player who want a house can have one and not worry about a lack of houses or having to lose it to demolition.

But we don't have it so players need to learn to work within the limitations of the system that is in place. If you don't want to feel tied to a game by a house that will be lost if you stop playing for more than 6 weeks, don't buy the house. It's a simple and smart decision.

It is ultimately on you for deciding to tie yourself financially to a game for the sake of virtual property bought by virtual currency.

[Tohe-Spidhire]

You will literally never convince anyone of your point of view by taking a well-known forum member and insisting you're only being disagreed with because said forum member must have a habit of unsavory behavior. This is how you find yourself on ignore lists and your suggestions categorically discarded simply because of their source. Consider editing these insinuations out of your post if you actually want to discuss your suggestion and get your thread in front of the devs' eyes.

Um, I didn't say they were a house flipper. If that's what you read from what I said, then you need to think about your biases.

Unfortunately, I'm not seeing constructive feedback, just some reactionary nonsense that is the eqiuvalent of, "Noooo, we can't possibly improve the system because of...mumble, mumble..."

[Tohe-Spidhire]

The "black market" exists because the supply doesn't meet the demand. An in-game system isn't going to change anything when players would still be able to dictate what price they're going to sell at regardless of any regulated system.

The scarcity doesn't even exist outside of the NA data centers. There are a few EU worlds with available housing. Almost every JP world has an abundance of housing to choose from. If SE was truly trying to try players to the game through house ownership, wouldn't that scarcity exists on all worlds instead of just worlds in a certain region?

As I've already described, an in-game system would make it easy to identify house flippers.

That's an interesting observation about JP housing. However, is that hearsay, or are there stats? As for why, it could be something like a smaller proportion of JP to EU and NA players, or a cultural JP difference. Or maybe SE is concerned about self-image in JP and is afraid of being perceived of exploiting JP players?

I come from lotro, where they developed a system where they could spawn extra wards to accommodate the player base. So that's a 2004 MMO that, in 2012, modified their housing system in that manner. Frankly, I am quite skeptical of SE devs not having a similar solution, which leads me (as said) to conclude that SE Sales pushed for it.