Housing? Costs, Decay, and how it affects everyone...

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I don't get it. Classic homes cost a lot more than they should. That's fine and everything, but I have a two floor "brick house" (Looks just like one, only with two floors), that costs me like 40% of what a classic "brick house" would cost. I don't understand why customizable houses cost so little compared to the classic ones. I also noticed that Castles are not 800k like what some site said, but like 6mil instead. I've seen castle-like homes though, which resemble a castle but are perfectly square. This tells me that they are indeed customizable houses, that probably, like my two story brick house, cost way less for about the same amount if not more space? It doesn't make sense to me. Is the extra cost increase just for the satisfaction of having a "classic" house? xP

Then what is up with decay? I've been hunting for some collapsing houses (used to do it for profit and reselling land, because people like those mosterless spots), and the timer seems a lot longer than I remember (haven't figured it out yet, found a few at "Greatly Worn" stage that have been there for over a day). Also, the automatic refresh thing must be something UO added in somewhere along the line? These two things are making me think of giving up trying to find some houses about to fall altogether. This is probably why I see "houses" (if you can call them that, you know the type... Just a foundation with nothing in it), everywhere. With the three accounts per IP, it also means you could have three houses you never have to watch due to the automatic rule. This rule about accounts also seems pointless because there is no skill cap, why on earth would you need like MaxCharactersPerAccountX3 characters? Each character can be godlike at everything, so the account thing just further hinders the falling of housing. I could have two "alt" accounts and each have them auto-refresh housing, and never use up all of my character slots on my "main".

So, my issues with it are the following:

1) Classic houses seem overpriced for what you get, since customs seem to give you the same or more amount space for less generally.
2) "Houses" or "Frames of Houses" are rampant I noticed after running all around the world. They are cheap after all and don't fall down until like, 2 months I read somewhere because of the slow decay? (It really isn't an eyesore and annoyance at all, right? =.=')
3) Automatic refreshing and account limits make housing falling even more rare. Some of those "Frames of Houses" are probably being auto-refreshed by new players who quit would be my guess. Also, I can use two other accounts to perma-auto-refresh two houses and never run out of slots on my "main" because of the no 700 skill cap. (No need for lots of characters)
4) The slow decay itself (if it really is as long as people are saying), means when someone leaves they are still "hogging" an area for months. And, you know what they say in real-estate: Location, location, location. xD

The only benefits I see are:

1) More custom homes in the game due to classic ones costing alot
2) Your house is pretty much safe until you quit playing altogether for a long, long period of time

[King Kong]

Not sure how to answer some of what you asked.


But custom houses can be more expensive, it's just cheap for the plot.

Start putting up walls, floors, stairs, etc. All that costs.

The classic houses already come with doors and walls and everything you need to have a house.