Thread: Is buying a house even worth it?

So I've been playing for about 8 months now, and I'm well past level 15 and haven't bought a house yet, simply because I'm always questioning if it's worth it.

If I were to get a house, the initial price of 1g or whatever it is for a standard wouldn't hurt, but it's the upkeep that bugs me. I mean, ~50s a week? And I know you can pay it about a month in advance, but is ~200s a month just to have your own customized space/storage worth it? Especially because during the school year, I play maybe once every few weeks, if not less.

So...is it really worth it??

EDIT******

I see a lot of people saying, yes, it is good if you have a lot of alts (which I do) and all of your reasons seem valid, but here's my #1 problem:

Upkeep is tracked in real time. What happens if I have a really busy month at school and I don't play for awhile? I have been known to not be on for a month and sometimes more. I love LOTRO, and I play it as much as I can, but I have to put college first. I want to be able to come back after a month and a half of playing and still have everything as it was when I last logged in.

With that in mind...still worth it?

If you have several alts and don't own Shared Storage, then I'd say it's worth it. Otherwise, there's really no other benefit, unless you just really love the aesthetics of it all.

each person is different. By the time you get to level 65 50 silver is nothing. Long before that 50 silvers is nothing. I typically spend 100 silvers or more a night on stable rides.

I was spending one gold a week mailing stuff between my characters. I bought a 8 gold deluxe. The 165 silvers a week which takes me maybe five minutes in game to make because I got all 65s. To cut down on expenses.

I have two accounts, two deluxe houses, 315 silvers a week in rent. I never even notice the cost. I like the benefit of 20% discount on goods. I want to make 100 waybread. I go home buy the one gold in vendor mats for 800 silvers. The 200 silver in saving covers the 165 weekly maintenance. I get the 20% deluxe benefit on repairs, traveling rations, vendor sold wound and other removal potions. I stuff all the items I want to transfer into the two housing chests. Or perhaps into shared storage which is conveniently located near my two houses.

It really depends on your play style. I play seven characters actively. There is always a lot of item movement. Mailing costs were killing me.

Yeah the worth of a house really depends on a lot of factors:

1. how many characters/alts you have
2. how much movement of mats between chars you typically do (esp if you do a lot of crafting)
3. what level chars you have & how fast you can earn silver for the upkeep.
4. how important it is to have a place to display all your trophies you gather during your adventures.
5. whether it would be easier to get more storage through gold or through Turbine Pts.
6. how often you buy vendor mats (pots, crafting mats, rations, etc) or need to repair your gear.
7. & probably several other factors etc...

If you only have 1 char then getting a house might not make much sense. If you don't do a lot of crafting & don't buy things from the NPC vendors very often, then it might not be worth it. If it takes a long time to earn the silver for upkeep, then yeah using the vault & shared storage might be more economical if you have the Turbine Pts. It's really up to you though.

For me having a deluxe house has actually saved me tons of money over the years for all the reasons listed above by Yula. Of course I have 7 Supreme Master Kindred Crafters & to mail stuff back & forth is insanely expensive. Back before Shared Storage even existed having a house was essential for crafters or for those with many chars to pass along items between each other. Now, with Shared Storage it's not as essential for transferring items but the savings for repairs & vendor mats is huge over time.

You'll have to weigh all these factors, do the math, & come to the right decision for your particular situation. Good Luck & Happy Questing! :-)

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yeah yeah, I know my sig is outdated already even though I just updated it lol...

I don't think it's worth it. I have ten characters, and all the housing does is put a drain on my funds. The storage is exceedingly minimal, you're better off buying more bank slots. There's nothing to do at the house or in the neighborhood, and the vendor discount is pretty minimal too.

Keep in mind, I love to involve myself in the setting. I'm exactly the kind of person that would WANT to have a house in Middle Earth, yet I recently abandoned my house because it is a pointless drain of resources.

There's a reason 90% of the houses in Middle Earth are abandoned. My advice is, Do Not Buy.

If you have more characters and want to save money for Shared storage then House is great advantage. When my bags get full, I port to my house and store ores, wood other resources and then immediately port via milestone to sell the rest in town.. Then I continue in my journey.. In some villages with milestone there is no vault-keeper or is on the opposite side of town and it's quicker to do this double (house+milestone) port..

I've also found having a house great for my friends. I keep various crafting shards and such that they might need in my house chests, with an open invite to come grab what they need and replace it later/or replace it with something of equal value. Works quite well. Normally they whisper me if they drop by, and it's no hassle, no running to the bank to grab them things. etc.

"Can I borrow an [item]?"
"Sure, just go to [address] in [homestead]. There's one in the chest."

I enjoy my house to be honest :')
I fill it full of trophies, Im not part of a raiding kinship so for me its quite hard to fill my house full of what i call 'proper trophies' (trophies dropped from a boss in an instance)... its just another part of the game for me Kind of like another quest,
"Fill house full of Trophies" im almost finished though eeeeek! Il just have to buy another one i suppose

I got rid of my houses.

I think the upkeep/mortgage charged in real-world time is inappropriate. I want to be free to not log into the game as long as I please and find my characters and their possessions like I left them.

It's not that the storage in there is much to write home about anyway, and it doesn't accept bound items. Losing the travel port hurts but I mainly play my hunter now anyway, and my guard goes around with nuts.

I will only get the house back when I earn that Inn League beer keg that transports you to random places. But I don't think I'll make it this festival.

The part that's hardest to swallow, at least for me, is that it wouldn't take much to make buying a house worthwhile. There have been MANY suggestions - little things, in many cases - that would largely fix the problem, but they refuse to even acknowledge us.

I have a deluxe house in Thorins that's closest to the entrance and I use the port a lot when going to the ettens so I can keep my map off CD.

My 2 chests are packed full of rep items and food/pots/hope tokens as my 100 slot (I think it's 100, it's maxed anyway) shared store is always full and so are each of my 9 chars vaults.

To be honest the cost isn't an issue. 1x 12 man lvl75 skirm pays about a gold and there's nothing else to do with it.

Originally Posted by Darmokk

I want to be free to not log into the game as long as I please and find my characters and their possessions like I left them.

I was away 2 full years. When I came back I found my house waiting for me to either pay what I was due (wasnt *that* much really) or abandon it. All my stuff was in escrow waiting as well.
So I would say you can be absent as long as you want without anything changing really.

Originally Posted by CFury

I was away 2 full years. When I came back I found my house waiting for me to either pay what I was due (wasnt *that* much really) or abandon it. All my stuff was in escrow waiting as well.
So I would say you can be absent as long as you want without anything changing really.

The due amount is simply too high for it piling up with me not even logging in.

I really don't know what the purpose of his mortgage is. It's not that it saves Turbine any storage. They never free your home in the homesteads because of the upkeep, and all the items you might have put into the storage in the house will be moved to other storage. They save nothing. The whole system wouldn't get any worse if you'd just drop the mortgage, or made it play time (not real world time) based.

The house is essentially three things: a simple role-playing element for the character, extra storage and a port for non-hunter classes. It's a bit of fun that isn't all that essential for gameplay as far as character-building goes, but is nice to have regardless. I'm not sure a deluxe house is worth it, but a basic house is only 1 gold, so why not have one?

Originally Posted by Darmokk

The due amount is simply too high for it piling up with me not even logging in.

I really don't know what the purpose of his mortgage is. It's not that it saves Turbine any storage. They never free your home in the homesteads because of the upkeep, and all the items you might have put into the storage in the house will be moved to other storage. They save nothing. The whole system wouldn't get any worse if you'd just drop the mortgage, or made it play time (not real world time) based.

It was something less than 2 gold for 2 years, if I remember correctly. Certainly not much for max lvl character. It doesnt make much sense, I agree, but it is the way it is, until it changes I am sure not giving up on my house.

If you only count the storage chest then its not worth it. If you, like me, like redecorating and having a place in virtual world where you can just get rest from everything in safe and cuddly environment, a tiny spot in ME just for yourself..... then its worth any gold it may take.

I got a personal kinship house right next to my luxury one and I won the Draigoch statue for my kin garden last week. I love to just sit and watch it.
It really depends on what kind of player you are. Not all things can be measured by money worth or efficiency.

I was gone for 6 months and had a bill for 9 gold for my kinship house, which has waaay too few hooks for decorations, some of the hooks are poorly place or don't meet my needs in other ways, and 3 chests that I can't put bound items in, including bound cosmetic clothing.

It's really not worth it. And like others have said, it all could be made interesting/fun/useful so very easily but they've stonewalled the players on it for years.

So no.

Go visit any neighborhood in the housing system. Most of the houses will be locked due to lack of upkeep. That should tell you more than any number of opinions here on the forums.

If they had used the houses in the towns & villages, and made each house entry an instance with a unique address (5 Bagshot Row, #XXX), and put a limit of 999 (or 9999) purchases of that address, it would have increased immersion and community. The basic concept of putting the housing neighborhoods off on their own in little enclaves away from all the action immediately ruined any chance for increasing interactions between players.

The lack of flexibility in decorating is sad compared to other games, including (of all things) Sony's FreeRealms. The lack of variety in both a) the basic stuff for decorating they came out with and b) in adding new stuff on a regular basis, is depressing. The sense of design and taste in the home/yard furnishings is very limited, and often awkward. Ultimately, the whole thing is implemented like suburban tract housing -- and there's no need to do that.

None of this is new. Other players have said it countless times over the past several years.

It's totally worth it if you don't want to spend real money (i.e., Turbine Points) for shared storage. That's the only reason I ever buy a house. And eventually, you have so much game money there's nothing else to do with it (unless you want to buy every Rep horse in the game).

I would say its only worth the storage. I have to keep puting in 250s a week for really nothing. The only reasons I have a house is to say I have a house and because my kins house is right next to it. Its one of those things you dont need but just want to have it to say you have it. (unless you need the storage)

you can make 250 silver in ten minutes at lvl 75. a house is worth it for the storage

Originally Posted by Winnower

Go visit any neighborhood in the housing system. Most of the houses will be locked due to lack of upkeep. That should tell you more than any number of opinions here on the forums.

Locked houses don't mean the player is still in the game and not paying upkeep. Most of them are probably people who have left the game-- the houses don't go back on the market as abandoned, which I think is a system which should be instituted if a player hasn't logged on for a set period of time. House furnishings could be held in escrow indefinitely, at a cost, but the house itself should go back on the market.

I'd say the decision to buy a house rests mostly on whether or not you like the aesthetics of the home... there are limitations to how far you can go to decorate, but a dedicated player can find a way to make it look gorgeous... the upkeep really should not be a detriment as you level, since currency gets easier to obtain as one progresses...

the other incentive to getting a house is the shared storage between alts on the server, which can be 30 or 60 item slots, depending on standard or deluxe houses... later on, you will get quest rewards that are housing decorations, although there are only several of these...

I read in the announcement section of the forums that the GMs will be visiting homes across all servers through sunday, inspecting them and handing out some type of reward, if I remember correctly... either way, I don't think it hurts to get a home, at least for the ability to increase shared storage...

to be totally honest a house serves ONE and only ONE purpose. nothign to do with space,nothing to do with alts. teh only reason to consider buying a house is. is there a town that has the craft that makes you go to that town often.if the answer is no do not buy a house.all this talk about transfering is ####,in the end you will be in a town you did not want to be in.it be cheaper just to exapnd your bank,and have access i any town or mail your stuff.house only serve 1 purpose that is a rental of a port to that town. the best use of a house was in another game,you had access to you house from any town in game.you got bonuses for logging off in your house.so bascially you go to a town enter house and logg off,you could grow plants in your house,ie they made a reason to visit your house.it served a purpose.other games got the hosue so boggged down that it was work just to keep up the house.lotro fall in between ,the house exists. serves no real purpose,but does require some upkeep.do you need it, not really.is it a hinderance not really.it's just there.

I'd say it is worth it. I rarely use it to transfer items and I hardly ever use the vendors there (in fact, I'd totally forgotten the discount). But, I love my house. I'm one of those people that love decorating my own little space. Upkeep has never been a problem, even when I bought my 7g deluxe house at level 30. I've always been able to keep my upkeep paid up as far as possible. Selling "junk" loot when my bags are full takes care of upkeep easily, especially now that my main is approaching 75. If you plan on just buying the house and then letting it get locked because you didn't pay upkeep, please don't buy it. There are enough locked houses already.
IMO, housing needs superior crafting areas to maximize their "usefulness" potential. At the moment, houses are nothing more than a glorified trophy case, a few shared storage slots, and, if you're like me, a place to take time away from all the fighting to decorate (or get drunk from your Inn League keg and wind up in a random place with no pants).

Im missing something. People keep saying house give you a port. so I gain a port to my house but then dont I have to use the milestone to port where I really want to go? I could just use the milestone in the first place?

The house port is a different skill than milestone port. So if you have a house in Thorins homestead, you just dont need to have your milestone in Thorin hall, just keep your milestone at a place where you dont have any kind of port. Its just efficiency.

Its worth it to me. Or at least the cheaper housing. You get a free transfer destination, and you get free storage. Probably no one looks at the house, but I still like adding to it. Its better than nothing anyways.

There aren't enough hooks or locations to put things though. We should be allowed to put things anywhere, not just specific locations.