If you’re a new player or even a long-time veteran of Final Fantasy 14 you’ve likely wondered about purchasing a house for your Warrior of Light at some point but weren’t sure of the ins and outs of the process. This quick guide lays out everything you need to know about housing in FF14 so you can get to customizing your house, tending to your private gardens, or setting up a chocobo stable.
Free Company Housing vs. Private Housing
Before jumping into private housing, it’s important to touch on Free Company housing quickly. Most established FCs have large houses with chocobo stables, communal areas, and a company workshop. Members of that FC can even rent out a single room in the house and customize it however they please. The downsides to a FC house is obviously you may not have access to decorating communal areas or the workshop until you level up in the FC, so there are typically more restrictions and smaller living quarters. Additionally, you can rent out a room in your FC’s house as well as own a private house.
Apartments
If buying a whole house by yourself seems daunting, you can always start out with an apartment, which are far easier to buy and more readily available. Apartments cost half a million gil and require your character to have one level 50 class and Second Lieutenant ranking in your Grand Company. Of course, apartments are much smaller, consisting of only a single room, but they have automatic access to chocobo stables and do not rely on the random buying timer – which I’ll get to later – so they can be bought whenever vacant.
Requirements
If an apartment or a FC room isn’t enough for you and you have a fair amount of gil burning a hole in your pocket, then first check that you meet the minimum requirements to own a house. Like apartments, you must be Second Lieutenant ranking in your Grand Company and have at least one level 50 class. If you meet these requirements then it might be time to start looking at where you want to purchase a house.
Locations
There are four current locations: The Goblet in Ul’dah, The Mist in Limsa Lominsa, The Lavender Beds in Gridania, and Shirogane in Kugane. There is no housing available in Ishgard at the moment, but the Ishgard Restoration is rumored to add additional housing once completed, which may be seen closer towards the next expansion. Each location is divided into several wards, which are also then divided into individual plots. These plots are what you will be looking at to buy rather than a house itself.
Sizes
Once you’ve established which of the locations you prefer, take a look at the size options for housing and their prices. The size of a plot will determine what kind of house you can build with small plots building cottages, medium building houses, and large building mansions. Small plots typically run anywhere between 2-5 million gil, medium 15-37 million gil, and large 35-87 million gil.
Buying a plot
Next to saving up gil, buying the plot itself is probably the most difficult step. Housing is in high demand in FF14, so you may have to wait a while and check your preferred locations every day for a plot to open up. Speak with the NPC who displays the wards, and any plot that doesn’t have an owner’s name beside it is an empty plot. When you teleport over to the plot and attempt to buy it, you may get a message that says the plot isn’t ready to be sold. In order to prevent players from gaining a monopoly on trading plots, a random countdown timer from the time the land is vacated must expire before the plot can be purchased. Typically, the timer ends around 6-8 hours, but if the plot is in high demand, you may need to camp out and check the plot’s status every few minutes to beat out other potential buyers.
Building a house
Congratulations, you’ve successfully purchased a plot and all the hard work has paid off! Now comes the fun part – customization and decorating. Buy a construction permit to get started on building the house, but don’t wait any longer than 45 days otherwise the plot will be auctioned off again due to inactivity. Fortunately, permits are far cheaper than the plot itself with small permits running almost a half a million gil, medium 1 million gil, and large 3 million gil. Once the construction permit is purchased, you can start right away customizing the exterior and interior of the house for as long as you wish. Just make sure to check back and enter the house every couple of days because, again, after 45 days of inactivity the house will be demolished and auctioned off in order to prevent inactive players from hording houses. Otherwise, enjoy all the perks to your Warrior of Light being a homeowner!
