Allow us to put houses up for sale please

[WhiteWitch]

Now that the backpacks full of cheques are a thing of the past and millions can just be deducted from the bank instantly, surely its now possible to simply have "set house for sale" in the sign menu, the sign would then change to reflect this and show the price.

Anyone can then buy it without having to pursue the owner through forums or ICQ, makes life a lot easier for the seller too, could even add real estate to vendor search.

There would need to be quite a few "are you sure" type messages to prevent accidentally doing it, but I don't see any other issues, what ya think?

 

[Plant Elemental]

That's a really good idea.
The owner sets the house for sale from the housing menu and sets the price. When mouse is hovered over the house sign, it says "House for sale: 2,000,000"
Person who wants it clicks "Purchase house".
Owner has 7 days to confirm, clicks on "Accept" and house is automatically transferred to new account while their gold is automatically transferred to your bank balance.

 

[Arroth Thaiel]

Owner has 7 days to confirm, clicks on "Accept" and house is automatically transferred to new account while their gold is automatically transferred to your bank balance.

If this is a direct sale, why bother with a 7 day confirmation period and having the owner confirm?

The owner has already set the house to "for sale", probably with a warning confirmation screen, and set a price. Clearly the owner wants to sell it. When someone clicks the sign to purchase, just have the house transferred automatically (and maybe have it send emails to both the previous and new owners).

Great request though. Nice.

 

[Gamer_Goblin]

Time to move stuff. If I knew my house was going to sell I wouldn't be concerned placing another house and having that one go condemned.

 

[Plant Elemental]

Exactly.
A 7 day period gives you a time to place a new house, and/or time to move your stuff out of your old one. And when you are all done, you can click "Accept", and the sale gets completed.
An instant sale may be tough on some, especially for somebody who only owns one account and can have one house at a time with nowhere to put all of their belongings.

 

[Mervyn]

will i be able to get a mortgage?

 

[MalagAste]

Would be good if this could also be added to the Vendor Search engine..... so you could search for houses for sale, you know if you were in the market for a good home.

 

[Old Vet Back Again]

This is actually a really good idea. Wonder why it was never thought about before.

 

[WhiteWitch]

Exactly.
A 7 day period gives you a time to place a new house, and/or time to move your stuff out of your old one. And when you are all done, you can click "Accept", and the sale gets completed.
An instant sale may be tough on some, especially for somebody who only owns one account and can have one house at a time with nowhere to put all of their belongings.

Thing is, it would not need to replace the current method, you could still sell a house direct if that's easier, particularly if you were transferring it to a friend or alt account, where you would not want to risk putting on open sale where anyone might buy it.
Essentially it would just be like the difference between selling something to a guy at luna bank, or putting it on a vendor.

 

[Plant Elemental]

Right, keep the current transfer method where you can directly transfer it to someone using the trade window. Then add the sell option to the house menu. You could use either method.

 

[Lord Frodo]

NO This only helps house holding accounts and most of them want real not gold. No to letting houses go on vendor search unless they are charged the same way vendors are charged, now that would be a nice gold sink and if the seller runs out of money then the house falls ASAP, no timer.

 

[Arroth Thaiel]

Exactly.
A 7 day period gives you a time to place a new house, and/or time to move your stuff out of your old one. And when you are all done, you can click "Accept", and the sale gets completed.
An instant sale may be tough on some, especially for somebody who only owns one account and can have one house at a time with nowhere to put all of their belongings.

Good point on the, "where to I put all my stuff" aspect. Hadn't though of that.

I like the idea, but I'm not sure it could be implemented that simply. Let me ask some more questions.

If the seller gets a 7 day period to click that "confirm" button and finalize the sale, what happens if the seller doesn't click the button? At the end of 7 days does the house go to the buyer anyway? Or does the seller keep it?

What happens to all the stuff in the house if the seller hasn't emptied it out?

If the seller gets to wait 7 days, can the buyer withdraw the offer in that 7 days? Let's say the buyer finds a different house they can purchase immediately. Can the buyer get their money back and go buy the house that is for sale immediately? Or, once a buyer says "I will buy this house", is the buyer is locked into that house until such a time as the seller sees fit to "confirm" the sale or the 7 days pass?

What if a buyer wants to place a house? Are they prevented from doing that if they have agreed to purchase a house from the house sign and are waiting for the seller to confirm?

What if a buyer finds a better house they like more? Can they agree to buy the second house? If they agree to buy two houses, which one gets condemned?

Lastly, I have to say, in our immediate gratification society I not sure a buyer would be willing to wait seven days. That'd be like waiting for an E-bay auction. Why do that when you can just "buy it now"?

Again, I like the idea of being able to sell a house from the house sign, especially since gold can be exchanged in such large amounts. Listing the available houses in vendor search would be nice also.

However, I think house sales would need to be direct and immediate, like placing an item on a vendor. Otherwise, it opens up a huge can of worms with tons of different situations. Think of the customer support calls some of these would generate! That's not even considering people who would be purposefully trying to exploit a system with so many variables.

I have no idea how to solve the, "what do I do will all my stuff problem". That seems to be the core of the problem with an immediate sale, as you have pointed out. Maybe that's why the dev team has never done this?

If you can figure it out, I bet Messana would buy you a ****ing ice cream cone.

 

[virtualhabitat]

Seller could select shipping crate storage option for daily fee.

All items inside house would be placed in shipping crate upon successful sale. Shipping crate fee to be determined...
Shipping crate could be accessed by character/account only when character is in secure location (i.e. a new house, co-owned house, etc.).

If account runs out of gold to pay shipping crate fees, items go poof. This should not be a problem for most, as the account will have just sold a house!
Shipping crate works just like transfer crates. You can take items out, but you can't put items in.

 

[Whitewolf of *VK*]

thats a great idea i like it, but also i think they need to make it so you must refresh your house like you do a boat like it used to be, so many unused homes just sitting there taking up space. instead of having to refresh it every 7 days maybe make it every 14 days.

 

[Arroth Thaiel]

Yeah, I was thinking about the shipping crate (actually moving crate as these already exist) as well.

Immediately though, you'd have people load up houses with stuff, then "sell" them to a second account or whoever, and use that crate as extra storage. If the dev team doesn't mind the server space, then that would be one way to go. They might lose out on the sales of codes for extra storage space though. Especially if you could load up a castle, sell it, and get all that stuff transferred into a crate that follows you around. Who needs to buy storage space increases from the UO store at that point?

What happens if a character sells a house full of stuff and gets a "holding" crate (shipping, moving, whatever), then places a new house and fills it with stuff and sells the new house? Do they get a second crate, or do they only get one and if they sell the second house, everything in it goes with the house, drops to the ground, or goes poof? Or does the first crate go poof and the character only get the stuff from the new house in a new crate?

Do you limit a character and say "You can only place one house if you have a "holding" crate active" and you can't place a 2nd house until the "holding" crate is emptied? What happens if the new house is smaller than the old house and has less storage space? You still run into the "what do I do with all my stuff" problem. Actually, it's just postponed from the initial sale in that scenario.

If you limit access to a secure location, does that include an inn or someplace else characters could access the house contents while they wait for a new house? Or would it have to be in a owned house (new house) or co-owned house? What if the character has transferred shards and doesn't know anyone to be a co-owner? Do you limit the access to the crate or let them get it from an inn?

Is this "holding" crate available to all characters on the shard from the account where the original house was? If not, six of the seven characters are out of luck in accessing the gear from the house (there is a customer support call). How would you securely transfer items from one of your characters to another? What if you didn't have a house or a co-owned house to securely transfer items?

Does the "holding" crate transfer shards? Or does it stay on the shard the house was originally on?

Hmm, these are just the questions I have off the top of my head.

I bet development teams everywhere see ideas like this and just bang their collective heads into tables.
It seems like such a simple - and good - idea, but there is so much that can go wrong.

I'm just trying to imagine the development time to fully design, build, and test something with this many variables. You'd have to answer every single question, and then a whole bunch more those of us on this side of the game can't even fathom.

 

[Plant Elemental]

I think the original intent of this idea by the OP was for someone who:

a) wanted to sell their house without having to post on forums and keep checking back
b) wanted to sell their house with more exposure via a search option in-game
c) wanted a quicker way to sell their house rather than coordinate via PMs or ICQ and find a time to meet in-game that works to both the buyers and the sellers schedules.

I look at it as a good idea....or at least a start of one. And true, there would be a lot of mechanics to work out and a lot of questions to answer.

 

[Merlin]

NO This only helps house holding accounts and most of them want real not gold. No to letting houses go on vendor search unless they are charged the same way vendors are charged, now that would be a nice gold sink and if the seller runs out of money then the house falls ASAP, no timer.

^^^

This post.

 

[Angel of Sonoma]

thats a great idea i like it, but also i think they need to make it so you must refresh your house like you do a boat like it used to be, so many unused homes just sitting there taking up space. instead of having to refresh it every 7 days maybe make it every 14 days.

Words cannot express how opposed I am at the idea of manually refreshing my houses. Granted the servers are more stable than they were in the past but I lost several houses back in the day because of server reverts that 'unrefreshed' my homes. Aside from that, I pay my sub fees so I can take breaks for months at a time b/c of work, home, kids, etc without the worry of a losing a UO house.

As for the original post, I like the idea.

 

[Conleth]

Words cannot express how opposed I am at the idea of manually refreshing my houses. Granted the servers are more stable than they were in the past but I lost several houses back in the day because of server reverts that 'unrefreshed' my homes. Aside from that, I pay my sub fees so I can take breaks for months at a time b/c of work, home, kids, etc without the worry of a losing a UO house.

As for the original post, I like the idea.

I remember those days, having to refresh! Grandfathered home...having to refresh...Ah, the golden age of UO... hehe

The house refresh thing was open for very healthy debate at that time, most of it was against if memory serves.

I think the OP has a great idea!
Cheers

 

[DifferenceDifference]

I have a few wishes, too.

1. I want to rent one of the empty houses in Britain (city). I don't understand why I have to live in the wilderness while houses are kept abandoned for years within city limits. Same applies for most other towns, villages and cities.
2. I also need a cave for my dragon. They don't quite fit into those stables, they require their own cave to live and sleep in. Look, he's already shaking in agony.

http://i58.***********/4sb9mr.gif

 

[It Lives]

There is way too much with this idea that would go horribly wrong. Long term I can picture wanting a forth account and having to buy from a bot placing third party. Please leave home placing and buying and selling in the players hands.

 

[Angel of Sonoma]

I have a few wishes, too.

1. I want to rent one of the empty houses in Britain (city). I don't understand why I have to live in the wilderness while houses are kept abandoned for years within city limits. Same applies for most other towns, villages and cities.
2. I also need a cave for my dragon. They don't quite fit into those stables, they require their own cave to live and sleep in. Look, he's already shaking in agony.

http://i58.***********/4sb9mr.gif

Wouldn't it be cool if we could actually rent a room at the in-town Inns and use the chest for storage.

 

[Merlin]

The heart of the idea is good, but the devil is in the details and there would undoubtedly be ways this would end up going wrong or being exploited. Maybe if there was a way you could 'flag' your house as being on the market for selling so that visitors could come see it, but not some direct buy-out system.

In general... "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". The current system might not be totally perfect, but it certainly doesn't require an entire revamp.

 

[Whitewolf of *VK*]

Words cannot express how opposed I am at the idea of manually refreshing my houses. Granted the servers are more stable than they were in the past but I lost several houses back in the day because of server reverts that 'unrefreshed' my homes. Aside from that, I pay my sub fees so I can take breaks for months at a time b/c of work, home, kids, etc without the worry of a losing a UO house.

As for the original post, I like the idea.

I to take breaks i normaly dont play at all in the summer time, but i still log in once a week to refresh my boat, point is there is homes just sitting there not being used at all, and a few of them i know for a fact are on inactive accounts but for some reason they wont decay

 

[MalagAste]

I to take breaks i normaly dont play at all in the summer time, but i still log in once a week to refresh my boat, point is there is homes just sitting there not being used at all, and a few of them i know for a fact are on inactive accounts but for some reason they wont decay

Recently one of those houses next to my Port finally fell. And the one between my Castle and Keep fell awhile back. So all is good.

 

[Leeda]

I remember people losing homes when we had to refresh often due to a server problem or an illness. I think it is a bad idea to even think about going backwards. For me I log on everyday. I have not heard if we lose loyalty points. Just in case. I would just have to add go in and out the door. Altho many of us use teleporters. Would they count that toward refreshing. That would make it hard to take a vacation.