Buying a new house before selling your old one

In real life nobody wilfully sells their house without knowing they will be able to find another place to stay. That said we should be able to secure a new house before leaving the old plot.

Let there be a window of time before you have to be moved out.

It would really suck if you moved your City level house and found out the plot was taken by the time you got back to the new location. Then only to return and find your old plot gone too.

This is the only idea I've heard during the on-line video sessions that never sits right with me.

"The idea you have to pick up your plot first before placing it in a new spot is flawed somehow"

 

Yeah, agreed.

It should be as simple as selecting an empty lot and then just clicking "transfer". Boom, your house is magically transported.

 

Ok, went back and found an answer to this in a chat log:

ironman2008
March 22, 2013 - 10:49 am
I would hate to try to move my house and find no lots

Chris
March 22, 2013 - 10:51 am
@Ironman, to move your house you go to the empty lot you want and move the deed. You claim the new one before the old one is released. No fear of getting stuck out int he cold. Also, only selling as many property deeds as we have open spots

 

There's a little potential snag here if there is exactly as many deeds as there are lots: a City deed work on Towns and Villages, and a Town deed work on a Village.

If the amount of each kind of deed is equal to the amount of each kind of lot, and one City deed owner decides to claim a Village lot, then there will be a City lot empty somewhere and a Village deed owner without a plot available. The same is true in any other case where a deed is used on a lower quality lot.

 

@smack thanks for the research. That's awesome.

 

@Silent Strider: Well, there's going to be more deeds than lots. There will be cases where players who don't have a tax-free deed and don't maintain their upkeep, it will be 'foreclosed' so to speak. The deed and house are returned to that player's inventory and the lot is freed up for others to purchase.

But in regards to higher tiers using up village lots, that may happen but could be rare. A city or town deed are supposed to be so valuable that it would behoove the owner to stay in the same level as originally purchased. Furthermore, if real estate is going to be as competitive as they think, even all the village lots might be scarce enough to warrant that sort of move.

While that not be true in all cases, you're right, it could cause that situation. However, as there are so few town or city lots relative to village lots, it likely won't happen often or at all, but you never know. A crazy city owner might just want to move to some village in the boonies once he's had enough of the city life.

 

and remember you can have more deeds than houses, you can have 2 or more deeds but you can only use 1 at a time

 

Where did you read/hear that? What if we want a nice summer home to visit on occasion? Or even to loan out to friends?

Daniello

 

@Daniello:

Until there are actually more lots than players that are willing to purchase a deed I'm opposed to players being able to have more than one lot. From interviews seems like Portalarium already predicts a lot shortage early on, and allowing players to have more than one lot would just make the problem worse.

After enough lots are available to satisfy every player willing to pay in-game money for a house, though, there should be no issues (as long as the housing market is monitored and rampant speculation kept in check at least enough to allow new players to find a lot of their own at reasonable in-game prices).

After all, while I can't speak for other players, I wouldn't be surprised if not being able to enjoy one of the game's main proposed features, it's housing system, was enough to push many player into offline play; I would likely be one of them. And pushing players offline is not good for the game.

 

Daniello I think Chris said it a couple of days ago in one of the times he was on live chat