Quote Originally Posted by Jojoya View Post
What makes you so certain they are not used at all? I'm fairly certain your friends aren't on a stakeout watching all of those houses 24/7 every day of the year. That those houses are retained during periods when demolition is not suspended indicates they're getting used in some way. If they weren't they'd be getting demolished.

A lot of houses are purchased solely for workshop access. The player goes in and goes straight to the workshop then leaves via teleport or log out. It could be very easy to miss the 5 seconds they're standing outside their house. SE requiring FCs to own a house for workshop access is another issue but it doesn't change that otherwise apparently empty houses are being used for that purpose.
I'll take the Spriggan example in Goblet and now spreading in Mist (via a RMT service no less but that's another topic and I can't link anything here) :

You have one single individual, who's clearly rich, has multiple upon multiple characters and accounts. Owning the 2 divisions in a Goblet ward, every single plot. Spreading even now in other wards, Mist and probably other locations I didn't bothered to look at.
That individual likes to present her actions as : I like to decorate. Which is fine, but this is really really pushing it in a market that has extremely low offers and massive demands. All this happens, mostly because that person has the wallet for it and why SE is not going to take any action. All the person has to do, is have a notebook/excel file and visit each house like every week-end to refresh the timers. Virtual money or fees is nothing to them, let alone having multiple subs on multiple accounts.

We had a similar case in WoW with multiboxing and abuses, for once (granted it took ages), Blizzard nuked it. Only good deed they've done in recent memory.

And you know what's funny ? Hardly any visitors to these places. Just a few screenshots for Instagram/Twitter and Discord (where it's specified no RMT but you dwell in it, hypocrisy at it's finest). I just finished decorating my garden and I've already had people checking it out. These plot hoarders either do it for RMT or selfish reasons (in my example, someone with a deep wallet and wanting multiple houses to decorate and showcase on social media).