Should I buy an apartment?

[LitheSuxman]

I'm a bit overwhelmed by the whole housing system. From what I've gathered, it seems housing is mostly for decoration, gil sink purposes.
I lean towards being a practical person, I just want certain convenience and customization namely, the chocobo stable and easy access to striking dummies (which is available to house with outdoor yards only), summoning bell and market board.

So, am I missing some functions of an apartment? I don't know if it worths the 500,000 if all I get to do is dye my chocobo and save some teleportation time...

[Arazehl]

It's all up to your individual preference. Apartments do have the stables and usually are near market board and summoning bell. Also there are dummies all over Eorzea's zones
I find having your own private place has other advantages, like peace and quiet while you craft. You can put your own mender, summoning bell, crystal bell inside your private space just for your use alone. Place an orchestrion in your space and you can listen to the music you like best in the game. So there are many advantages to owning private rooms, apartments and/or house.

[Jojoya]

I'm a bit overwhelmed by the whole housing system. From what I've gathered, it seems housing is mostly for decoration, gil sink purposes.
I lean towards being a practical person, I just want certain convenience and customization namely, the chocobo stable and easy access to striking dummies (which is available to house with outdoor yards only), summoning bell and market board.

So, am I missing some functions of an apartment? I don't know if it worths the 500,000 if all I get to do is dye my chocobo and save some teleportation time...

You can do a limited form of gardening in an apartment using flowerpots. You can grow any seed in a flowerpot though you cannot crossbreed to get new seeds. Something simple like growing crafting shards could net you about 300k gil a month if you harvest and replant daily. You can also grow the Krakka Roots for chocobo training and chocobo foods to dye your chocobo instead of buying those things off the MB (not to mention you can sell any leftovers on the MB) and Voidrake/Althyk Lavender that can be traded at the Curious Crop exchange for crafting materials to use or sell for profit.

There's also a Delivery Moogle in the lobby of every apartment building so you don't need to wander through a city to get to a mailbox if you need one. Just teleport to your apartment building then go into the lobby.

Otherwise you've pretty much got the function side down. Apartments are not subject to demolition like houses are (unless SE changes that in the future) so it will always be there for you.

If you're just starting out, 500k may seem like a lot but it's a fairly small amount compared to what you'll earn in the long run plus the flowerpots will give you an opportunity to make back what you spent on the apartment plus more.

[ItMe]

I'm a bit overwhelmed by the whole housing system. From what I've gathered, it seems housing is mostly for decoration, gil sink purposes.

That's a pretty fair assessment.
Other than gardening plots the major thing it offers is Submarines.
There's a surprisingly short list of things you can actually DO with housing, which... may be for the best considering how limited access is.

[Theodric]

I'd consider having access to some form of housing to be 'practical' since a lot of content has furniture on offer as part of the reward for completing it.

Your mileage will vary in regards to how important that is, but for the furniture you do like at least you'll have somewhere to put it rather than having it sit around in your retainer's inventory or deleted for space.

You can consider it to be future proofing, too. You might not have a house now, though you may end up wanting to push for one in the future. An apartment, then, serves as a good place to store furniture that can later be transferred to a house.

[Knot_D]

You can just get Apartment only to store furnitures from quests or events.

[Naoki34]

I'm a bit overwhelmed by the whole housing system. From what I've gathered, it seems housing is mostly for decoration, gil sink purposes.
I lean towards being a practical person, I just want certain convenience and customization namely, the chocobo stable and easy access to striking dummies (which is available to house with outdoor yards only), summoning bell and market board.

So, am I missing some functions of an apartment? I don't know if it worths the 500,000 if all I get to do is dye my chocobo and save some teleportation time...

A well-decorated room with partitions can be perfectly cosy.

500k is not much.

[Sauteed]

Like Knot_D it's a good place to store event items until you get something larger but, even with that said, Naoki34 is correct.

I've used apartments and FC rooms to create things that greatly exceeded my expectations going on, and it's good practice on how to actually use the games decorating system.