Why is this not the solution?

[Jojoya]

So...houses never go up for sale?

You've got 200 players who want to buy a house and have enough gil to do so. There's only one house available.

There are 199 players your gil sink is ignoring. That is not a good gil sink.

Something something server shortage.

Wouldn't have been a problem if SE had gone with a fully instanced system in the first place. Doesn't change that it will be effective when the industry shortage is corrected and if SE chooses to fix the housing problem.

If you can sell someone gil, you'll just sell them gil. Way easier than selling an item worth an arbitrary amount of gil that you might take a relative loss on versus just selling them gil.

To sell someone gil, they need to have something they want and will be able to buy with that gil. Here we're talking about a house.

If someone else owns the house, there's no guarantee the player will be able to buy it. They may not be interested in buying the gil if they aren't certain they will get the house.

If you own the house and have a way to guarantee that player will get it (FC transfer, relocation or whatever), there's no need to involve the gil. You just sell the house for the real money.

Go be pedantic somewhere else.

You started it.

Gil disappears or buy stuff at a higher price. Last I checked, something > nothing.

Useless something is a waste of precious inventory space, and thus worse than nothing. Rich people rarely waste money on useless items. That's part of how they got rich.

Just like with what I'm suggesting.

Go back to the first point. The gil doesn't disappear when the player with the gil cannot buy a house because there aren't enough available.

I never said you did. I asked if it was.

Then you have your answer.