housing conundrum: there needs to be a better way.

[Reinha]

My strawberry garden and snowy cafe mansion are visible the moment you step into the ward even when I'm not online.

What was that again? I'm online. I don't see your house. I would have to know where your house is and travel to it before I could see it.

I assume you have some kind of visual disability instead of an intellectual one, so here it is again, with bigger letters. Notice how it never mentions you being online, but you being in the ward and me not being online.

Again, RIFT Dimensions had it solved. There was a menu with a search function for houses on the same world. Pick the Dimension you wanted to visit and press the Enter button. You were taken directly to it. The owner did not have to be online for it to be available to visit just as apartment owners don't have to be online for you to visit their apartment.

Ultimately, things are in SE's hands. What are they willing to produce for players? We know what they are capable of doing via both the ward housing and apartments.

This isn't RIFT, this is FFXIV where apartments don't have exteriors and people with apartments still want ward houses. What does have an instanced exterior is the island sanctuary, and people can't visit those unless the owner comes online and goes on their island. The islands one can visit are also limited to those of friends and fc members. One cannot teleport straight to anyone's island. Those are the instanced options they are capable of providing.