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it's also an expensive trainwreck built on RNG, artificial scarcity, and subscription retention metrics.

see, final fantasy 14 works on a residential district system. this means every single player-owned house actually exists as a physical location in the world. all you need to do is tell someone your in-game address and they can go there and see your house, no instancing required.

in many ways, this is really convenient! you don't need to be online to host house parties! you can guarantee people coming around to see your decor! you can have a bunch of neighbors and match houses with them (or wildly contrast houses, for comedy's sake) as much as you please!

the problem is that because every housing plot is a real physical location players can claim, open plots become extremely scarce extremely quickly. everyone wants a house, and everyone wants a good house. but because there's a set number of plots in each district, not everyone is able to have one. you want that spiffy grade mansion in ward #16? too bad, someone already owns it. unless they decide to pack up their bags and leave, you will never get an opportunity to roleplay as a landowner. housing is first come first serve, and if you didn't come first, tough luck to you.

and before you ask, yes, this means a vast majority of ffxiv characters are homeless.

so what happens when a housing plot does go on sale? well, first and foremost, you need to have the money to buy it in the first place;

and then. you need to enter a lottery.

lotteries are usually extremely competitive, and extremely costly. you get your money back if you lose, but there is never a guarantee that you'll win. you can camp out at an open plot for ages, saving up money across hundreds of hard-earned hours, just to have everything snatched out of your grasp at the last possible moment because the random number god said it hates you in particular.

and then- assuming you do find an empty plot, and do win it, and do own it- then you have to retain it. monthly. with real world cash. to the tune of approximately 15 US dollars.

aka, the standard ffxiv subscription fee.

you see, if someone owns a house without logging in at least once a month, that house will be automatically demolished and their ownership will be automatically revoked. all of that gil, luck, blood sweat and tears, all of it is wiped away in an instant if you don't keep track of your monthly housing timer. this means- unless they want to lose everything they worked to achieve- in-game landowners are categorically unable to take breaks from the game.

there's been many, many, many a tale of people growing disillusioned with ffxiv and only keeping their subscription to keep their house. this is a common occurrence. it's a predatory tactic used by square enix to keep people paying for as long as possible, no matter what, just so they don't put all of their time and effort to waste.

which is where we are now. houses are always in demand, but there's never enough open plots. houses are also always locked behind insane amounts of money and RNG, meaning it's very very difficult to buy one even if the plot is suddenly on sale. even then, you must constantly retain your house, else all of your work will be pointless.

to put it another way; housing is an artificially scarce RNG system that taxes you $15 per month so you don't lose everything you own. square enix holds your house hostage even if you're lucky enough to own one in the first place.