Why is this not the solution?

[Almagnus1]

There's no need for such per account restrictions when instanced housing, like apartments, is used. Instanced housing is load on entry so it's only consuming server resources when a player enters it. It stops consuming server resources once the player leaves and the instance no longer needs to be loaded.

But that's kinda the problem... as much as we want apartments to be instanced housing, they are not instanced housing.

I can only play one character on my account at a time so the game would only need to be loading one instance for my account at a time. That's totally different from the ward plots that are always loaded regardless of whether a player is present.

All you need to do is look at the other MMORPGs using instanced housing to see how well it works. Do you really think a game like ESO would allow every player character to own every single available housing property in that game (there are over 20 last I checked) if instanced housing was a problem?

And as much as we may want instanced housing in FFXIV, until Yoshi-P (or whomever is making the decisions) change their mind, the concept is basically irrelevant to FFXIV despite how much it would help the situation.

[Jojoya]

But that's kinda the problem... as much as we want apartments to be instanced housing, they are not instanced housing.

Except they are instanced housing. The problem is SE tied them to some sort of static numbering system that they said they can easily increase but have chosen not to do.