The Final Fantasy XIV Housing Crisis

I don’t consider myself an expert at the game, but I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XIV since the end of summer 2021 and am caught up with the main story from A Realm Reborn to Dawntrail as of this writing. After finishing Dragon Quest X Version 5 back in July of 2021, I was itching for a new MMO experience, so I finally took the plunge into Final Fantasy XIV.

I recall back in 2010 when Final Fantasy XIV first launched, it was an absolute disaster and was probably the sole reason why Dragon Quest X never got localized in English.

When I went to E3 2013, Square-Enix rebranded Final Fantasy XIV as “Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn” which was technically Version 2 as the vanilla 2010 version was Version 1. A Realm Reborn was launched in 2014 to critical acclaim and Final Fantasy XIV has been here to stay ever since.

Final Fantasy XIV has grown to be my 3rd favorite game in the Final Fantasy series after VI and IV with it’s loveable and memorable cast of characters, it’s engaging story arcs across several expansions, and excellent MMO gameplay.

Since I owned a house in Dragon Quest X and eventually a MyTown with 3 houses and a large outdoor area, I wanted my own piece of Video Game Real Estate property in Final Fantasy XIV.

How hard could it be to get a house?

Dare I say that it’s actually easier to get a house in real life than in Final Fantasy XIV?

Before April of 2022, getting a house in Final Fantasy XIV was done by camping outside an empty plot and clicking on the sign rapidly in hopes you were the first one able to get the plot. Players would wait for days, weeks, and months, possibly using bots and automated macros in the PC version in order to snag a house.

I first started dabbling in housing in the fall of 2021 when I was finished with A Realm Reborn and starting Heavensward. I had just gathered around 5 million or so gil from the main story and other endeavors, but I didn’t have the patience to wait at an empty plot unless I camped out like most players, so I abandoned that idea.

Luckily, I was able to get a more available apartment in Gridania and decorated it.

In 2022, my friends and I moved servers from Crystal/Couerl to Crystal/Malboro for personal reasons.

In April of 2022, Square-Enix changed the housing system to a lottery system meaning you can go up to a signpost at an empty house plot, pay the gil, and get a random number. You no longer needed to camp outside and click on the signpost 24/7 in vain hopes you would get a new home.

Thanks to this website: FFXIV Housing Tracker, I was able to track whatever empty houses in my server (Crystal/Malboro) and put in my bid.

For most of 2022, I would constantly lose the housing lottery without fail every time. I would fail so much that I had raised more than enough gold from my retainers to afford a medium house instead of a small house I was initially going for.

I was on the verge of giving up, but I figured I had nothing to lose by trying since I had more than enough gold and traveling to a plot only took 10 minutes or less. However, the constant housing lottery failure does grate on you after a long time.

Later in the summer of 2022, Square-Enix introduced the “Island Sanctuary” as a your own large island to go on scavenger hunts, gather items, and build your own farming center. I tried it for a bit, but got tired of the same repetitive tasks over and over. It’s been a while since I actually returned to my own island and Square-Enix just gave players the ability to decorate your island with outdoor furniture.

Not quite like decorating your house, but you can at least put a chair or two on your island.

In January of 2023, Square-Enix opened a ton of new housing plots on all servers and I had finally gotten lucky enough to get myself a personal medium house in Shirogane near the beach!

It took me about a month to fully decorate my house and I’m still constantly adding more and more thanks to the furniture you get from the yearly events. I had just moved from Couerl to Malboro and also was able to get a new apartment in the same housing plot. While I can simply use my aetheryte to travel to my apartment and house, I can easily just run up or down the stairs in my Shirogane plot from my house to my apartment at anytime.

Since I was part of an FC (Free Company) which are equivalent to guilds from other MMOs, my friend who was the leader of our FC stopped playing for months, making me the FC leader by default.

I decided to use this opportunity to clear out our old small FC house in Ishgard to get a large plot for a large house. Thanks to my retainers, I saved up more than 60 million plus gil to afford both the plot, house, and a ton of furniture.

Sadly, my luck was not as good as January 2023 as large plots are the most difficult and competitive, making you compete with 50-100+ people. I’ve been trying to get a large plot for my FC since 2024, which makes it about 2 years at the time of this writing with no luck yet.

I used to try to be among the first ones to bid since I would get up early for work and would be able to get to housing plots before most people. When that didn’t work, I would wait a few days before putting my bid in, but that sadly hasn’t worked either. I’ve tried putting my bid in on different days and hours, but still no luck with a large plot.

Once you get a house, you need to login to Final Fantasy XIV and enter your house every 45 days or your house will be auto demolished and the plot will be open to everyone again. Luckily, you don’t need to enter your apartment every 45 days to keep it. When my friend stopped playing the game for a while, I ended up getting the email from Square-Enix saying that our FC house was going to be demolished, so I made the extra effort to enter the old FC house every other day to keep it alive until I demolished it personally to get a large plot.

I would read threads on reddit about players finally feeling free and relieved that they let their old houses get auto demolished. I was baffled at first, but many of those players like my friend got too occupied with real life things like work, children, etc and couldn’t find the time to login for even 5 minutes anymore which I totally get.

I’ve been fortunate enough to login to my house mostly within the 45 day limit since 2023 and I hope to keep that streak up for the near future. But, you never know what curveballs life will throw in your way. When I attended my sister’s wedding in Florida at the end of 2025, I didn’t bring my laptop with me, so I was unable to play Final Fantasy XIV for at least 5-6 days.

My house was obviously still up, although I needed to clean my chocobo stable.

One of the biggest criticisms that Final Fantasy XIV gets is how terrible it’s housing system is compared to other MMOs like Elder Scrolls Online, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, and even Square-Enix’s own Dragon Quest X.

Final Fantasy XIV is Square-Enix’s biggest money maker, so it should be easy, right?

Well, it’s not that simple.

Even though Final Fantasy XIV is making the company a ton of money, Square-Enix as a whole has not been in the best financial situation since the sales for Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth and it’s other franchises have not hit sales goals.

It doesn’t take an accountant or a rocket scientist to realize that Square-Enix can’t just throw a ton of money at something non-important like housing in Final Fantasy XIV while they’re trying to stay afloat as a business.

Over a decade ago, “Sleeping Dogs”, one of my favorite Square-Enix games sold over 3 million copies. However, it was still considered a financial failure by Square-Enix, preventing a sequel from being made.

When the first iteration of Final Fantasy XIV failed, Square-Enix had to make 2 mediocre “sequels” to Final Fantasy XIII in order to gain player trust again and to make enough money to stay afloat while they were revamping Final Fantasy XIV into A Realm Reborn. With the recent reports of Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth not hitting sales numbers and their massive layoffs, you can easily tell Square-Enix isn’t exactly the most business savvy company out there.

The last time we got extra housing plots across all servers was back in January of 2023 which is more than three years ago from the current time of this post in 2026. Fans like myself wondered why doesn’t Square-Enix just add more housing plots every year or so. I heard rumors that the code used for housing was so spaghetti and messy (just like my own game dev efforts) that it would be detrimental to the development time for Final Fantasy XIV. That time and effort would be better spent on other things (like trying to keep the entire company afloat).

I would also wonder why doesn’t Square-Enix just use instanced housing like Elder Scrolls Online or even their own Dragon Quest X.

Mostly because of the predatory 45 day login requirement that tethers players to their subscription or else they lose their house.

Square-Enix already has a more than difficult and painful enough process just to get a house in the first place. They already brainwashed us into believing getting a house was already an extravagant effort and the thought of losing our houses makes us keep throwing money at Square-Enix to constantly renew our subscriptions.

As predatory as this all is, it’s actually pretty ingenious to keep us all subbed.

If Square-Enix made housing instanced and easily available like World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls Online, and Dragon Quest X, players can easily stop subscribing and never fear losing their houses. Costing Square-Enix all of that precious subscriber money.

Making a limited amount of plots also forces players to stay subscribed to the game so they can at least try their luck to get a house in Square-Enix’s terrible lottery system. Scarcity creates demand and demand equals more subscription money.

If Square-Enix already allows us to decorate our Island Sanctuary with outdoor furniture, why not just let us build a house there?

Same reason why making the housing limited equals more people continuing to pay for their subscription. If everyone can easily get a house, there will be no demand and subscription money will get lower and lower.

As much as I hate and despise these predatory practices, you can’t deny the fact that they actually work and are keeping Square-Enix afloat amongst it’s years of financial failures.

Final Fantasy XIV housing is the least of Square-Enix’s problems.

Well, Square-Enix can at least give us an aetheryte to our Island Sanctuary, right? It’s only been almost 4 years at the time of this writing.

Sigh.

The simple answer is no, but having a home to call your own in an MMO adds so much more to the replay value and continuing your subscription.

It took over 20 years for World of Warcraft to finally add housing in the game and they used Final Fantasy XIV as inspiration of what not to do to alienate players. Blizzard made sure there were enough housing plots for everyone and made it incredibly affordable at 1000 gold pieces than the 3-50 million gil that Final Fantasy XIV requires. You can even leave World of Warcraft for as long as you want and not lose your house which is a plus in my book.

I was even lucky to get my horde house on it’s own private island and my alliance house in a nice hill area.

Elder Scrolls Online gives you enough gold with your yearly subscription to get ANY type of house in your own instanced area and if you pay a little more, you can have the house automatically furnished. I already own my own private island and several castles in Elder Scrolls Online. Also, your houses don’t disappear if you stop playing and subscribing.

Dragon Quest X auto demolishes your house if you’re inactive for a year or more. While this isn’t as fair as World or Warcraft and Elder Scrolls Online, it’s still far more lenient than Final Fantasy XIV’s 45 days.

Before April of 2022, your chances of getting a house in Final Fantasy XIV were pretty slim to none unless you were able to camp outside and use macros and bots to buy a house. Players have commented the lottery system is far more fair and put the cheating bots and macros out of business. You can simply put in your bid, come back a few days later, and hope for the best.

I’ve also been reading that it’s easier to get a house on less populated servers. If you’re not already on them, that would require you to pay a real money fee to move servers and go through the entire house lottery process all over again. I’m fine being on Crystal/Malboro for the time being.

As for me, I still login to the game every day to do my retainer item gathering and sales which has made me the bulk of my fortune. At the time of this writing in 2026, I’m still trying to get a large FC house, but haven’t been lucky for the past 2 years.

I’m still fine with my apartment and medium personal house, but I’ll still try my luck at getting the large house of my dreams for my FC.

If I ever get it, finding the time to decorate it will be tough, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.