Finally a topic that I can whole heartily jump into and really give you my detailed thoughts on! I love LOTRO but I very much love stupid little side fluff objects that MMO developers give us to play with. It’s a passion of mine and player housing definitely fits in this area.
First I want to point you to the articles that spawned the “jumping in the discussion” title of this post. You may want to read them yourself!
- Last week’s Tell the Community Team where the question asked what players would like improved and the response was strongly focused on housing.
- Fionnuala had a blog posting about her thoughts on housing.
- Massively’s columnist, Justin Olivetti, addressed housing in his “Road to Mordor” article.
- This week’s Community Team question where question two asks specifically about how you would change housing lock-out and escrow.
Housing is very much on everyone’s minds right now and I’d like to give my thoughts on the subject as I consider myself a bit of a “MMO Fluff” expert.
Decorating
I have to agree and really mimic many players sentiments that the hooks in our current housing system just isn’t set up how you would like to decorate a home. It feels like there’s an item you can put into the middle of the room and everything else is spread out and against a walls (as is visualized by Fionnuala’s kinship house photo).
You’re very limited to what you can or can’t place as the description of the hooks are very specific (thin furniture, large furniture, etc). This is limiting to what items can go where and how much creativity you can place in your house decoration.
You want to create gathering areas for where people would naturally want to sit and chat. Say around a fireplace or near the keg. Maybe have chairs around your breakfast table! With the current system it is very difficult (or impossible ) to do with the hooks placement.
I do understand that the hook placement was to limit how much junk we put in the house and therefore how much rendering and lag entering my house creates. All games I’ve played (with housing) has had a limit to the amount of junk you can put in it. This is not a new concept to me and while I always complain of needing more, I understand it.
I would however would like more freedom to place items where I want them. Give me the same number of furniture hooks (or more please) but remove the placement and furniture type limitations and let me decorate! I’m not saying let me hang tables on the ceiling or anything crazy but let me create the home environment I would like to display and show off at my wild Hobbit Rave Parties.
I know. I know. Easier said than done. I didn’t say I wanted it tomorrow. I’m willing to wait!
Pricing
This is where I tend to disagree with some folks but pleasehear me out before you let me know how dumb you think I am.
I’m honestly sort of ok with the current pricing of the housing system. I know the main complaint is a big sticker price at purchase and then weekly payments but I find it to be pretty darn manageable if you are a fairly active player. Not that others don’t deserve housing in LOTRO just as much but it is the same as real life. If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it.
It’s really not very different than other parts of the game. I don’t have the time to do dungeons so I don’t get radiance gear. That locks me out of any raids I may wish to join. I see this price tag no different than any other type of gating system the game is already using.
While you are eligible to buy a home for yourself at level 15, I didn’t purchase my first home until in my mid-50s (although I went straight to a deluxe model). Even then I was slightly unsure I could make the weekly payments with the casual nature of my play style. I haven’t missed a payment yet and glad I purchased my little hobbity hole. If I found I was unable to keep up with my payments, I would have abandoned the home to free it up for someone else to purchase.
The housing prices are not that crazy to me (and I’m not one of those super rich level 65s everyone seems to talk about). It costs about a gold for a standard size home. While it completely depends on your professions and whether or not you use the Auction House, I can see a level 15 able to earn 1 gold to buy a house. As a matter of fact my new runekeeper had 2 gold by the time she turned 20. It just doesn’t feel that steep to me. The 7+ gold I paid for my deluxe was an exponential jump for an extra chest, 25 decorating hooks and 2 yard hooks but I was able to save up for it and basically if this lazy hobbit can do it, so can you!
The common argument against the weekly payments is that you purchased a house and so why are you paying rent. I have to say that the folks giving this argument either have super awesome houses or don’t own houses in real life.
Lets start with the proper wording. LOTRO calls the weekly payments “maintenance” and I think this is a fair term that makes sense.
See, you don’t just buy a home and then live in it forever problem/cost free. Houses need little fixes here and there. The sink broke, the roof leaks, the paint is peeling. These are typical maintenance items all houses need and you obviously aren’t doing them. You’re out adventuring! Someone needs to come by and mow your lawn and trim the hedges! This is the type of stuff I envision my maintenance is paying for. The larger the house, the more costly it is to upkeep.
Don’t like thinking of it as maintenance? Here’s another fact of normal home-ownership. Mortgages. Yeah you may have to pony up 7 gold as a down payment but you have years and years of mortgage payments to go.
In general, I’m pretty satisfied with the current pricing of the houses. If you want to lower my maintenance though, I would take it but that’s because I’m a stingy little hobbit.
Lock-Out and Escrow
This is an area I really don’t have a whole lot of experience with. I’ve never missed a payment yet and have been in no threat of being locked out of my home so please forgive me if I’m missing some larger point.
From what I understand is if you fail to pay your weekly maintenance, you will become locked-out of your home and must pay a restoration fee to reclaim it. The main arguments is the cost of this restoration fee is entirely too high and this house is just sitting there unused as the foreclosed homeowner doesn’t actually get booted from the place so the home may go back on the market.
I honestly do not have any opinion of the housing restoration fee simply due to having no experience on it. However, if what Road to Mordor says about it costing several gold t
o restore is correct, then let me jump in and say “BOO”.
The lock-out was introduced with Book 13 patch and sounds like something nice Turbine put in to appease people who saved up that 7 gold and then forgot their maintenance and lost the home; thus having to come up with 7 gold all over again to buy a new home. However, if they still have to pony up a bunch of gold for missing payments and the home is forever tied up preventing new neighbors than this system simply isn’t working.
If someone isn’t able to pay the weekly maintenance or the subsequent restoration fee, they should be removed from the neighborhood (and returned all their items of course). Allow others to join your neighborhood instead of turning into ghost towns.
Not only that, the house stays owned even if the player no longer is subscribed to LOTRO anymore? What? Why should we save the housing status of someone not even playing? Send all their junk to the escrow NPC and free up the home for an active player!
Reason to Visit
As a player of Landroval I can tell you that I do hear of neighborhoods being used and fairly often. They are used in ways I see completely fitting and appropriate for this sort of MMO Fluff. People are having parties, role-playing owning a tavern or holding other such events.
The neighborhoods are even equipped for these types of events as they all have stages, tents and party type areas near the marketplace to facilitate these role-play activities. This is reason enough for me to visit but probably not for most of the population.
There are incentives in place to visit your home but I don’t think they are widely known and few are able to take advantage fully of the benefits offered. The current system (of houses never being foreclosed and then put back up for sale) really is the main barrier for these benefits not to be used. Heck, for all I know they could have been removed since the housing system was released because no one can use them! I couldn’t find any information about them being removed so I believe they still in effect.
- 10% discount on vendor prices inside your neighborhood (in the marketplace area)
- If your house is in the same neighborhood as your kinship’s home you get a 15% discount on vendors. (hard to do if every home in the neighborhood is filled and never goes back up for sale)
- You can call your skirmish soldier in your neighborhood. You can even spare with others using your soldier. A trivial item to most but some folks dig this.
These are not stellar incentives but I believe this is along the right path of reasons for people to visit. 10% off of a dungeon or raid repair bill is a pretty good deal especially since you can easily port there.
Instead of giving player houses crafting centers that they put in their home, I suggest putting crafting centers in the market center of the neighborhood. Let you and your neighbors interact and give like a 5% critical chance bonus for crafting there. These smaller bonuses are the sort of things that make the number crunching (not to mention penny pinchers like myself) want to visit. It’s convenient to get there and adds a bonus. This is what I’d like to see added.
Overall
Overall the housing system LOTRO has is a great start and really isn’t flawed in its current adaptation but could definitely use some adjustments. It can be great and really useful to the players if given some time and attention and give us more reasons to be there.
Interested in how you get your own home and what it takes? See our “Buying Your First House Guide”!
P.S. I want a working wardrobe in my home to store all my cosmetic clothing!
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April 16, 2010 at 3:25 pm
” I can see a level 15 able to earn 1 gold to buy a house.”
Oh man, I must be doing something SERIOUSLY wrong…I’m level 27, and I still haven’t gotten even 1 gold XD
Access to game features is something I like, and while I see housing as a “reward” for having worked for something, I’m still sad I can’t afford one.
As for getting people to visit the neighborhoods…I think that LotRO’s instanced ‘hoods is the greatest idea ever for player housing, and it’s a shame that some people neglect their neighborhoods. Perhapse Turbine could have NPC events spawn in the neighborhoods (don’t know if they do this now) during their seasonal festivals…and ONLY in their neighborhoods. If people won’t head back, give them a reason to do so.
April 16, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Like I said, it depends on the professions you choose and if you use the Auction House at all. Goldenstar certainly couldn’t have afforded a house at 15 or probably even 30. I remember buying that first horse as a very painful experience & I believe a friend lent me what I was short.
But being unable to buy now doesn’t mean you can’t later! You can do it!
April 16, 2010 at 3:43 pm
My sister’s house is locked and it will cost her 1g and change to unlock it. Right now, I can’t recall if it’s a small or deluxe but I’m betting deluxe. I quit playing for about a year and a half, but I made sure to log in every so often and pay my house fees.
Overall, I’m a bit torn on this housing thing. Having a lifetime subscription, I can come and go as I please but I always have to worry about paying my house. People want houses to be repossessed to free them up for others, and I can kind of agree, but at the same time I disagree. I’d be super pissed, possibly to the point of never playing again, if I lost my house that I’ve spent so much money on (I’ve had one since they were introduced) because I was unable to log in to pay (and random persons didn’t pay for me).
As for reasons to be in a neighborhood, yeah, there really aren’t any. I stop by my house to drop things off or pick them up from housing chests, decorate a bit if I have a new item, or stock up on traveling rations. I don’t even bother with repairs in my neighborhood because it’s inconvenient to run back home and repair. The only part of the area I see is from my house to the vendors, which is a fairly short ride. Heck, I think I’ve only ever encountered 2-3 other people in my neighborhood in all this time.
April 16, 2010 at 4:15 pm
I do agree I’d be upset if I lost my house forever because I forgot to pay.
However you do get 6wks of prepay. That’s a month and a half to forget to pay or not logging in. Do you feel more time is needed?
I had it in my head but forgot to add in my post that I’d like for mail ingame to remind me if maintenance is due. If it doesn’t already do this.
April 16, 2010 at 4:44 pm
You do get an in-game mail to remind you of maintenance but that’s only good if you log in. I’m not entirely sure why my sister stopped playing but I know at least part of it is her new-ish computer went kaput. I didn’t realize that she wasn’t logging in before that happened to pay until it was too late and her house was locked.
6 weeks can go by so very fast. More time would be nice to account for life happening. Maybe I had a house fire and lost my computer; the last thing on my mind at the moment would be paying upkeep on my house but you can bet once I’m back on my feet (or at least have a computer, lol) I’d be pissed if my house was repo’d.
I can’t decide on length of time, but there definitely needs to be a decent span between the time a house is locked and the time it’s repo’d, if they implement that. Give people a chance to get back in the game and unlock or abandon their house. Maybe the house is locked after 2-3 months and then repo’d 3-6 months after that. I know that’s a long time for those that are eager to buy the house to wait, but it gives the home owner plenty of time to work things out.
I know of at least two houses in my neighborhood that have been locked a long time; one still is but the other has recently come up for sale. I don’t know if the person logged in and abandoned it or what. The house that’s now for sale is a small one, which brings up another point; there’s several houses for sale in the various neighborhoods/locations, it’s just people don’t want them because they’re the small ones, they want the deluxe with two chests. I’m not saying everyone wants the deluxe house, but the majority that I see complain about locked houses on the forums mention specifically the deluxe houses.
April 16, 2010 at 4:08 pm
“As a player of Landroval I can tell you that I do hear of neighborhoods being used and fairly often.”
Man, I wish it was like that in my neighborhood on Gladden
As I mentioned in the community feedback thread, I’ve owned a house for nigh on to two years now. In that time, I’ve seen other people in the neighborhood only twice (this includes a period when i was spending hours fishing in the creek every day). Half the houses are locked due to failure to pay upkeep, and have been for months (I walk around and try the doors — I like seeing how other people decorate).
If you’ve got an active neighborhood, I truly envy you. Mine has always been a ghost town.
April 16, 2010 at 4:11 pm
I believe my personal neighborhood is a dead one. I never see anyone there. But I agree having events in your neighborhood is great!
April 16, 2010 at 4:29 pm
I want more decorations & more flexibility where I put them. I like the idea of EQ2-like city housing where you live in a major city & everyone has a door. Then there’s no problem getting people to stop over. Also that fixes the abandoned house issue. Now it’s just an abandoned door.
April 16, 2010 at 4:54 pm
When housing first was added, players that stopped playing would lose their house (items into escrow, house freed for repurchase). People complained that some had extenuating circumstances – military deployments and/or some other long term “I can’t access the game for a long time” circumstance. So it changed to where the house locks but isn’t freed for repurchase.
I sympathize a bit, but the net effect is bad. Assuming normal turnover (steady stream of people stop playing offset by steady stream of new players, some of these players have houses or are interested in getting one) all Turbine can do is keep making housing instances, as existing housing fills up rarely to be reused.
I think housing should revert now, freeing up property. To compensate, those who are forced to take a long break from the game should be allowed to repurchase at a steep discount, to get credit for their initial outlay.
April 16, 2010 at 7:35 pm
On Decorating:
Everquest 2 has, by far, the best house decorating system on the market right now. It is still limited, but the limits are large enough that you can fill your house to the brim with cool and interesting items. It actually looks like a house. Additionally, you can place items almost anywhere within reason. There are no “hooks” just total limits on the number of items. Turbine should take a long look at that system and try to emulate it within the confines of their own engine.
On Pricing:
The pricing seems fine to me as well. I mean, it’s a house. Houses are generally expensive. And, I’m probably an exception, but I was able to afford both my Deluxe House and my level 35 horse (a combined 12 gold) by my mid 20s on my very first character through careful use of the auction house and the Explorer profession. So it isn’t impossibly expensive. Even right now, at level 42, after purchasing *several* mounts in the new system I still have almost 20g.
As for the maintenance fee, I would be more understanding of it if it served a real purpose. All it is, is a money sink. Failing to pay doesn’t free up the house for other players, it only forces you to pay the unlocking fee. It’s a fee to stop another fee and that’s all it really accomplishes.
On Lockout and Escrow:
The lockout feature serves a good purpose, to give players who have failed to pay their maintenance costs a chance to get back their house. However, there should be a limit on how long your house can be “Locked” before it goes back on the market. I would suggest a 1 month window. After that, your house goes back on the market for other players.
And, just to show how desperately this is needed, on Landroval, Bree-land only has *3*, that’s right *3* Deluxe Houses left across all of the housing instances combined because they never go back on the market unless they are manually abandoned.
However, I do have sympathy for those that take extended absences, as I do frequently. To facilitate this new 1-month lockout period, if you lose your house this way, you should be given back a percentage of the cost of the house in escrow. Say, you take a two month break, lose your Deluxe house and come back. You lost your house, but you got back 4g in Escrow to help you purchase a new one. I think something in line with that would satisfy all parties involved.
The houses can (eventually) go back on the market instead of being locked by inactive players.
The lockout period gives you ample time to unlock your house should you forget your maintenance fees.
Unlocking your house is still less costly than letting it go back on the market (1g fee to unlock, versus 3g loss on house).
You get some gold back if you lose your house, helping you purchase a new one and get back into the swing of things.
April 16, 2010 at 7:48 pm
On Reasons to Visit:
The idea of adding crafting workshops would be nice. It could even be a cooperative effort. Say, for example, to unlock the Superior Workbench in your neighborhood you had to turn in crafted goods (components made on a Superior Workbench, for example) to an NPC. After X amount of goods are turned in, the Superior Workbench is unlocked for use. Using it in your own neighborhood gives an additional 5% crit (as mentioned in the post).
And everyone in the neighbor can pitch in or even help each other. My main is an Explorer, so I have metric tons of materials of all shapes and sizes. I could supply some of the other professions to speed up the acquisition of the crafting workshops for my neighbor. It’s an incentive for me to work with other crafters, specifically ones in my neighborhood.
Anything that would increase interaction with your neighbors.
April 17, 2010 at 9:46 am
I like your thoughts, Memmio.
My main issue with housing at the moment is that abandoned houses never go back on sale, creating ghost towns. And me and my brother saw *so many* nice houses which we would have liked to purchase…all of them locked up.
April 17, 2010 at 1:43 am
Hello
It’s a 20% discount inside your neighborhood, and 15% at your kin house. I always thought 10% house and 15% kin! Did this change? Does anyone know if they stack?
You can check your character’s passive skills, look under housing and the discounts are listed. I checked a supplier, a home housing supplier, and a kin housing supplier. The discounts were as listed.
I learn something new about this game every day.
Don’t mess with the crafting centers. They are the best places to see other players. They are active hubs, don’t kill them off.
Get what houses do now working better. I think of my house as my corner of Middle Earth. Make decorating it easier. Get rid of the empty houses.
How about moving the store area to a central location? Have one store for all the Bree houses. That would create an active hub in the housing area. The actual houses could stay where they are, just create a store instance connected to all the house neighborhoods.
Thanks
Mike
April 17, 2010 at 7:59 am
Looks like the 10-15% changed. The kinship discount used to be only if your house was in the kinship. They must of changed it since it is very difficult to do so.
You are right it is 20% off in my house’s neighborhood and 15% in my kinships neighborhood.
They didn’t stack in the old version. We’d have to find someone with a house in their kin neighborhood and compare prices to see if they get 35%, Very curious,
April 18, 2010 at 12:45 pm
I can understand being frustrated by people with inactive accounts having locked houses that no one else can buy. However, It’s also a good thing at times, too. My husband played for a very brief time, and before he quit, I had him buy a house right next to mine. Before his account became inactive, I had him give my main character permissions for his house. Now, even though he doesn’t play, I pay upkeep on and use his house as extra storage. It’s much more convenient for me to have this second house than to try and purchase ever more expensive vault bags on some of my alts.
The old system where a house was released if you didn’t pay your upkeep wasn’t that bad actually. You got back a portion of the purchase price for the house (maybe even the full amount, if I remember correctly). I lost my house this way when I took an extended vacation from LOTRO and it gave me the chance to find a house I liked better in a more convenient location. None of my items were gone, and I had the money to relocate with no major issues.
April 18, 2010 at 1:36 pm
I personally wouldn’t consider your husband house in the same category of the others. You’re actively using and paying maintenance on it. It’s not a foreclosed wasted space. It is very useful to you. I’m jealous you got two houses and all that storage!
July 21, 2011 at 1:15 pm
All you need to do, Goldenstar, is start a character on a second subscription that’s F2P. Get that char to level 15. Either earn the gold or send it from your main and give permissions. I have two houses on Landroval that way and am planning a third in the same neighborhood as my main house.
April 19, 2010 at 11:56 am
If Turbine gave us more flexibility to choose our neighborhoods, say, set up certain instances where as long as X players/kins bought houses, it would generate a new instance instead of making us wait until all of a certain type are gone, I wouldn’t be so hard pressed to say “put the foreclosed back on the market after X time, but give them a certificate of ownership for when they come back (as well as put the stuff in escrow).” The other problem with the current system in regards to new spawns is they went out of their way to make so few “choice” houses per instance which then folks all want and often prevents folks from trying to instance together, and we also have no way to upgrade those standards, or even downgrade a kin–one thing that would truly help housing be less ghost towny.
If Turbine gave us a choice where you could either live in a “forced active” neighborhood that would put unkept houses back on the market, or a “vacation” neighborhood where you knew going in that you’d most likely never see your neighbors, but you’d also never have to worry about losing your home or address, I would not press for putting houses back on market. But currently we do not have that choice.
I also wish they’d make flexible instances for those of us who really do all want to live in the same neighborhood as our kin, (meaning it’s plot based as opposed to the set number of houses of each type) but that’s another massive revamp we’re most not likely to see.
I completely understand that for many, r/l prevents them from even checking in once a month, but Turbine simply doesn’t make it easy for those of us who want more active instances to have them. Imagine, if you will, what your actual r/l neighborhood would feel like if no one ever came or went in the houses around you for months on end–in some cases, over a year. It’s sad and creepy (I live in a neighborhood like that now, actually, though we’ll be moving soon thank goodness. We’ve got over a dozen and a half empty houses within a one block radius, two are right across the street.). The only plus between the game and life is that the houses ingame don’t deteriorate or get squatters/animals when no one actively lives there.
I’m definitely in the camp who says give us more flexibility (and items! and let us dye rugs different colors, etc etc) where housing is concerned.
I have always wanted crafting capabilities in the neighborhoods. Some of the crafting areas (especially the oven at MD) here on Landroval get downright ridiculous numbers wise at certain times, where people have no choice but to craft “on top” of one another (picture 10 tailors with their table animations crammed on one side of the superior workbenches in Esteldin, for example, while the tinkers and forresters are on the other), which just looks silly and doesn’t need to be that way. Most of those people wouldn’t craft there nearly as often if they didn’t have to. Yes, it would cut down to an extent on the possibility of running into folks at crafting areas, but many of those areas still have very high traffic anyway (Esteldin being a very good example), so it wouldn’t be too terribly different. Farming though, I think would be most affected if they allowed for housing instance farming.
As far as I know, the housing discounts don’t stack, and the main reason why is because it’s impossible for all kins members to buy houses within that same instance as where their kinhall is unless the kin is quite small–it’s an issue of being fair.
Although I can appreciate the spirit behind instanced housing settings, housing in general needs a massive overhaul–has needed it pretty much since it was introduced. I honestly don’t know what they were thinking with some of the decisions they made.
(And I’m still waiting for them to let us buy more than one house per account…but let me stop here before I make this any longer with all my wishes.
)
April 20, 2010 at 12:58 pm
On the European forum of LOTRO I posted the following message, this might be interessting to share with you also.
I have no idea if the suggestion is ever been made before, but yesterday we had a conversation in my kin (Dutch Peacekeepers) to find an empty neighbourhood for ourself… But there is always the fact that there are more than 1 kinhouses in a neighbourhood and besides that there are very little empty neighbourhoods available, at the moment there is only 1 in the Shire Homesteads.
While talking about it I thought about the idea of buying a complete neighbourhood, but well, at the moment that’s not an option.
Also the fact that a neighbourhood has only a couple “Deluxe Houses” could be a disturbing fact. Maybe an option to “upgrade” your house for a couple of gold or even a bunch of crafting materials… (for example, 2 stacks of plank, 2 stacks of ingots and 5 gold is needed for an upgrade from a “Normal House to a “Deluxe House”
About the Kinship neighbourhoods I have one last idea, it would be great if the kinship name would be displayed at the Housing Area Gate, so others kins can easily pay a visit. And last but not least, officers should have the option to deny of allow the entering of non-kinship members in a kin-neighbourhood.
If people have other suggestions, please share them with us!
The more, the better!
Some Ideas of possible requirements:
* Rank 10 kin
* More upkeep for kinhouse
* Minimum number of members in kin
* Successor assigned (just in case)
Some of possible options:
* Decorational “spots” outside the houses and garden, controlled by the Kinhouse.
* Kinship-only Auctioneer in the Market square
* Upgradeable houses (except kinship house)
April 20, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Sorry it took so long to approve your comment. It got caught in our spam blocker somehow!
A kin buying a neighborhood is a cool idea. It would have to expand to include all the kin. Maybe offer different housing times in case they’re in like Thorin’s Halls but I really want to live in a hobbit hole. Not sure if the lore can bend that far but hey we’re brainstorming here!
I like the upgrading your house idea.They could all start out as little houses that grow and grow.
April 21, 2010 at 8:41 am
All good game designers go looking at other products to get ideas. The Warner Bros./Turbine devs need to go investigating eqII and SWG housing. Period. It can be done so well. There are the models. Now, put on your creativity hats and come up with something even better.
And fix the hairstyles and colors for females Elves. It is just insulting to have our male counterparts looking better than us. Don’t make me shave a hobbit just to get myself some true red hair.
As always, thanks Goldenstar for opening up a great discussion.
Mynastari on Landorval
July 21, 2011 at 1:30 pm
Kinhoods are possible, but require diligent planning on the part of the Kin. My kin on Landroval (Lonely Mountain Band) has successfully launched 2 and are on the verge (if not in) of a third. We have sign-ups for houses on the forum, watch for all or most deluxe houses to be bought up. Sometimes kin will buy the remaining deluxes to force a neighborhood spawn. We gather after a kin meeting or Ales & Tales and buy up a neighborhood. We also have alt kins that buy up the kinhouses. We give housing permissions to a couple leaders in case we go away for a time.
It would be awesome if Turbine would make this easier, because I love living in a kinhood. It would be nice if we could limit purchases in our neighborhood to kin only. When someone abandons a house, we have to watch for it to come on the market so the buyer can get it before non-kin grab it. This did happen once and the buyer was very cool and we just bought them a house in a different neighborhood. Then they started asking about our kin
I would say 6 months to 1 year of inactivity/not paying maintenance and you lose your house.
Neighborhoods do need more deluxes, but I don’t want it to be harder to spawn new neighborhoods, so I like the upgrading idea. I’d also like to be able to transfer a house to another character directly with them buying the house from you, not Turbine.