Point being that some of the benefits that the house-hunters cited, for wanting a house over apartment, could end up being not as what they imagined. (Myself included to some extent)

Gardening probably is easier and make more sense for a good-sized active FC. Neighborhoods are more likely to thrive if it contains a lot of active FCs due to simply higher number of people going in and out.

As a system designed for FCs, it all makes sense. But for individual house owners, once the excitement and the freshness wear off, what used to be super-important suddenly don’t seem so desirable anymore. That’s probably why gardening patches aren’t that common. (That or people hide it behind trees/partitions because what’s being planted doesn’t go with the rest of the yard, and, that scarecrow….)

But until you actually experienced it, you don’t know if it will turn out to be a dud for you. And once you’d spend the time and all that effort (and the click-placard savage), it’d feel like a waste to let it go, even if you don’t care about the millions of gils you’d spent. Not to mention all of the furnitures and time you’d spent putting all that in place. If you let go of the house then you’d need to find some place to store all that as some might have costed too much or are event items.

Ideally I’d like SE to create instance house that include house exterior and yard. (e.g. floating islands so they don’t have to worry about showing neighbors.)

But if they are citing “memory” issue for not implementing different sizes for apartments, a desirable instance housing system, that can be expected to be used by more players than the current apartment dwellers, is probably not likely. (Imagine having to wait in a queue to enter your instanced house because too many players are in theirs)

And any instance housing without exterior would probably get the same reception as current apartments.

I’d think one thing that might be possible for them to improve apartments might be to allow sharing. Even if not for friends, at least for the eternal bond partners. But who knows. Maybe that’s actually harder to do than increasing size of the apartments.