For those of you struggling with how to buy a house in Final Fantasy XIV, this comprehensive guide will answer all of your questions and doubts. Purchasing a house in FFXIV is possibly one of gaming’s hardest achievements. And there’s a good reason why.
Final Fantasy XIV is an RPG experience from developers Square Enix. It set in a huge world providing ample elements for players to sink their teeth into. One of the major milestones in a player’s journey is securing a house they can call their own. The tricky part is that buying a house in FFXIV involves a lot more than simply having enough money.
What makes owning a FFXIV house a delectable proposition is what you can do with it. In addition to having a place to store your personal effects, you can dedicate your days to gardening or decorating your house. Plus, the fact that houses and plots are difficult to come by makes the achievement feel even more rewarding.
How To Get A House In Final Fantasy XIV
First off, FFXIV housing prices can range from 3 – 4 million Gil for a small house to 40 – 50 million Gil for large plots. Having saved enough in the bank, you next need to know when exactly housing opens up in the game and which residential area has plots available.
Players can either buy a plot of land for a personal house or a Free Company house accessible to every member of their FC. To get a house in FFXIV, you need precise timing and to be at the right place at the right time. Also, you need to be at a certain grand company rank and FC rank to be eligible.
You also require a construction permit to have the rights to build a house in case you have purchased an empty plot. Lastly, there are a few tips and tricks you can keep in mind to increase the chances of edging out your competition when hunting for a desirable property.
Buying A Personal House
Perhaps every player’s dream is to own a personal house in the fiercely competitive FFXIV housing market, riddled with multiple servers and numerous players vying for the same property. Before you go on a quest for your new house, there are a few rules you need to know.
Players can only own one personal house for every service account. This means you can only have one personal house, and not multiple houses on one server. Having multiple accounts on the same server won’t help you here.
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Also, you need to enter your house at least once every 45 days to keep ownership of your house, or else you lose it to demolition and the land returns to the market.
You must be at least level 50 and hold the Second Lieutenant rank in your Grand Company. And you also need to have completed the mandatory quest in a particular zone to be eligible for buying a house in Final Fantasy in that zone.
Each ward and corresponding subdivision has had an apartment building added to them. To get our hands on an apartment, you must attain level 50 with at least one class as well as rank of second lieutenant in the Maelstrom, the Order of the Twin Adder, or the Immortal Flame.
So, how exactly does the buying process take place?
You obviously need an available house or plot to purchase. Finding one is easier said than done. This is because the same properties are present on every server, and hence, have a lot of players competing for the same set of houses.
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Secondly, players need to be precise enough to click and buy a personal plot the second the random plot availability timer finishes. Much like a flash sale, being the first to do so from the placard at the entrance of the house will decide what’s in store for you — a brand-new habitat or mere disappointment.
You may, however, try your luck in less populated servers where the competition is naturally low. Once you successfully manage to buy a house by keeping a careful eye on the random plot availability timer, you can happily spend time decorating it to your liking.
Buying A Free Company House In FF14
For buying free company houses, you need to have at least 4 members in your FC and your FC should have reached Rank 6. You cannot be a leader of another FC that owns a house (through an alternate account) on the same server.
With this out of the way, you can scavenge the lands for an available house or plot to buy, provided your FC’s leader has given you permission to purchase or relinquish land. You should also utilize all members of your FC to keep an eye on the boards for available properties. The more people monitoring the boards, the better your chances will be of spotting an available house before everyone else.
Lastly, just like personal houses, at least one member of your guild must enter the FC house once every 45 days to retain possession of the house or else the auto demolition will kick in, returning your house to the market.
When Housing Becomes Available
Spotting an available house in FF14 is half the battle won. Considering the intense competition for buying plots and houses, you should thank your stars if you manage to find one.
There are a few different ways to find your next personal house or a free company estate.
- Checking the Boards: As we discussed before, the boards are one of the sources to discover houses on sale.
- Inactive Housing: This refers to properties repossessed due to the respective owners not being able to retain hold of the land. You can attempt to buy such houses that are considered abandoned the moment they are listed for sale.
- Relocation: If someone buys a new land and relocates there, their existing house will become available. You can then go ahead and try to purchase it.
- Square Enix updates the game: With every patch pushed by Square Enix, the game will inevitably have a fresh supply of houses. Depending on your PC specs and Internet speed, you might be one of the very first to spot these new properties.
Note that new houses usually appear in the game just a few minutes over the hour (in real-world time). Times like 9:01 or 10:04 or 14:05 are some examples.
Where To Get A Plot
Final Fantasy XIV’s map consists of four major residential areas where you can buy a plot or a house.
- Lavender Beds – Gridania
- Goblet – Ul’dah
- Shirogane – Kugane
- Mist – Limsa Lominsa
These housing districts or housing wards will have availability of plots updated in the Residential Area Guide. You can also use Aetheryte to find available plots. When you happen to discover one, you can hit ‘Select’ to get directed to the specified ward.
It’s also advisable to familiarize yourself with the zone you’re targeting so you can teleport as close as possible to the property you’re planning to buy.
Where To Get A Construction Permit
Your chores don’t end even after buying a plot. To actually start building personal houses or free company estates on your patch, you need a permit within 45 days of purchase. If you don’t do it in time, you stand to lose your house due to repossession of inactive housing.
You can obtain a permit from the Housing menu under the Social tab. You can also head over to the Market Board to check if a construction permit is available for a cheaper price.
Make sure that if you’re investing a considerable amount of time and money in this entire endeavor, you also stay active in the game and enter your house often. Otherwise, your house can be put back up for sale.
Housing Costs
The cost of houses varies depending not only on plot size of the property but also on its location and the duration for which it has remained unsold.
Generally, a small plot costs around 3 to 4 million Gil, a medium plot is priced at approximately 15 to 20 million Gil, and the largest plots are available at an even higher price range of 40 to 50 million Gil.
You need a decent amount of Gil for building costs after buying a plot of land whether you want a large, tiny or medium house. The budget can be as low as a few hundred thousand for a smaller house to well over 2 to 3 million Gil for large plots.
Housing Relocation
You can relocate your house to a new plot whenever you choose, provided you have enough funds to buy the destination plot. What you need to do is simply initiate the purchase of the destination plot from the placard and use the relocation prompt to move your old house or FC estate to the new location.
The cost of relocation is computed as follows:
(Cost of Relocation) = (Destination Plot Price) – (30% of Old Plot Price)
30% of the minimum value of your old plot can be used to offset the purchase cost of the new plot. If this 30% component is more than the purchase price of the new plot, the relocation cost is waived off.
Relocating to a new plot automatically moves your items to storage that you can later access to decorate your new dwelling. It even transfers all your private chambers and company workshops to your newly bought house.
Unlock All Housing Areas
Needless to say, you must unlock all available housing areas to maximize your chances of getting your paws on a free plot or house.
Each zone or ward in FF14 comes with a specific quest you need to complete to become eligible for buying land in that zone. Every zone except Shirogane involves completing a Level 5 quest, whereas even small plots in Shirogane demand that you complete a Level 61 quest.
The details of each quest are as follows:
- Lavender beds: Speak to Margeria at Bentbranch Meadows in Central Shroud
- Goblet: Speak to Imme at Scorpion Crossing in Western Thanalan
- Mist: Speak to Ahctkoen at the Red Rooster Stead in Lower La Noscea
- Shirogane: Speak to Tsurubami in Kugane (You need to have reached the Stormblood expansion to unlock this area)
Tips & Tricks To Improve Your Chances
No matter how comprehensive you are in your hunt for that dream plot or house, there will always be the possibility of someone edging you out on a sale.
To improve your chances, there are a few strategies you can employ to ensure you’re not one-upped by some other savvy player:
- Camp & Wait It Out
After a plot goes on the market, its price starts decreasing the longer it stays there. You can wait for the price to reduce to a level you’re comfortable with and get a good deal. But you won’t be the only one waiting.
The cheaper a house gets, the higher are its chances of getting sold.
Because you need to physically go to a property to purchase it, one nifty trick is to camp outside a plot and wait for the right price to buy a house. You can ask your friends to help you out by urging people not to buy the particular property.
You can also engage people in trade to bar them from accessing the board. They will not be able to initiate a purchase as long as the trade is engaged, and you can buy the plot out from under them.
- Turn on Do Not Disturb
The dirty trick of engaging people in trade to stop them from accessing the board? Turns out people can do that to you as well.
But there’s a way to block rival players from doing that – turning on Do Not Disturb. When attempting to buy a house or plot, put yourself in Do Not Disturb mode to prevent all trades, invites, and tells from coming through.
You can enable Do Not Disturb by typing /busy in the chat bar. You can turn off Do Not Disturb by typing /busy again.
Conclusion
That’s all folks! We have tried to provide a well-rounded guide to buying personal and free company houses in FFXIV and hope you would have benefited from it.
Remember that the most important thing is to have fun in the game. But honestly, having fun gets easier when you have a fancy pad to chill in. So happy house hunting.
