Thread: Housing FAQ

How do the storage chests work in a kinship house? If one person puts something in and leaves and some one different comes along and opens the chest can they take out what the first person puts in? Or would that chest show empty for the second person? Thanks in Advance for any information.

any1 can place or remove an item from a kinship house chest even if they didn't put it there, you must be a member of the kinship to do this though

are we able to upgrade our house from a standard to a deluxe and if so do we get some of the money back from the standard

Originally Posted by casa

are we able to upgrade our house from a standard to a deluxe and if so do we get some of the money back from the standard

i haven't failed i only found a thousand ways that didn't work

What is the advantage of owning a house? Seems expensive with upkeep for what real benefit

Originally Posted by sirwayne

What is the advantage of owning a house? Seems expensive with upkeep for what real benefit

I bought a standard house for storage, as extra storage in the vault costs over 700 silver, and the house costs 1 gold. You can store 30 items in the house. Also you get a 10 percent discount from the vendors in your neighborhood, which is good for expensive potions and so on.

How do I buy storage? What is the chest named and who sells it?
How do I decorate the house?

As I recall, the standard house storage chest was sold by the house neighborhood "Housing Supplier" vendor. Look at the Map of your neighborhood to see where the vendors are, then the chest is there at a minimal price. Then you place the chest in your house where you want it.

Read the sticky "Rain's Decorating Guide" on this "Housing" forum to get all the info you'd ever want to know

Looked at Furnishing vendor - there was a "red chest" for sale, Is that storage? Or is that decorative like everything else.

I read Rain's guide, but it is all pictures. Doesn't tell me how to do it. I went into the house, dragged the rug out and tried to place it - the client asked me if I wanted to destroy the rug.

How do I see the hookpoints?

Normally it costs me much less than a gold to feel stupid.

Originally Posted by Quondam

Looked at Furnishing vendor - there was a "red chest" for sale, Is that storage? Or is that decorative like everything else.

I read Rain's guide, but it is all pictures. Doesn't tell me how to do it. I went into the house, dragged the rug out and tried to place it - the client asked me if I wanted to destroy the rug.

How do I see the hookpoints?

Normally it costs me much less than a gold to feel stupid.

Look on the southwestern edge of your minimap. Explore from there and it should become clearer.

Need to change the comment about rotating furniture since Book 12 introduced that feature.

FAQ needs to be updated for all the changes from book 12. I'm also not sure i'm comfortable buying a house yet though its uses as a best method of trading items between my 5 characters is so far about the only reason I see for buying one which means i would buy the cheapest.

Question(s) i don't think were asked:

Are all the venders the same in all homesteads?

Are the same types of homes the same size though different shape for each homestead? (I hope I made sense with this one)

I read earlier in the thread that the floor plans are the same for all homes of the same type for the homestead they are in. Is this correct? Such that the only difference then between them would be location in the neighborhood and the landscape scenery around the home.

Would it really be cheaper to pay the 50s/week upkeep than paying postage for items sent? Or is there a point at which this is a given? Right now it seems to me that I would have to mail between 50 and 100 items a week to spend 50s on postage. I don't think I mail that much stuff.

Speaking along that line. Can kinship storage be used to transfer items between my own characters? If so then buying a house only for the ability to transfer things between characters without having to send them by post seems to me a possible alternative.

Originally Posted by LotRfan2000

Are all the venders the same in all homesteads?

No. I believe that the only items they have in common are the floor and wall colors. They each have different furniture, flooring, wall treatments and recipes.

Originally Posted by LotRfan2000

Are the same types of homes the same size though different shape for each homestead? (I hope I made sense with this one)

I don't think so. A standard hobbit hole sure feels bigger than a standard elf house (low ceilings in the holes notwithstanding).

Originally Posted by LotRfan2000

I read earlier in the thread that the floor plans are the same for all homes of the same type for the homestead they are in. Is this correct? Such that the only difference then between them would be location in the neighborhood and the landscape scenery around the home.

Yes. For example, every standard Bree house is exactly the same as every other standard Bree house. The same is true for any other category of house. The only differences are in location and price -- and the price differences are based on location.

Originally Posted by LotRfan2000

Would it really be cheaper to pay the 50s/week upkeep than paying postage for items sent? Or is there a point at which this is a given? Right now it seems to me that I would have to mail between 50 and 100 items a week to spend 50s on postage. I don't think I mail that much stuff.

I haven't done the math myself, and I don't plan to. I bought my house mostly for the shear joy of "owning" my own little corner of Middle-earth. Also, the extra storage is more of an issue for me than item transfer is.

Originally Posted by LotRfan2000

Speaking along that line. Can kinship storage be used to transfer items between my own characters? If so then buying a house only for the ability to transfer things between characters without having to send them by post seems to me a possible alternative.

If you have access to your kinship house's storage, that would be a very easy thing to do. I, for one, would have both characters already at the house before putting anything into the chest to shorten the time the items are in a chest accessible by others.

there's a housing decoration called a magic black mushroom pot or something similar. is that still available? i used to see them at the ah, but are they now bound to players? i really wanted one! now i gotta wait till some random festival? same with the new beer kegs, 'inn league keg' ? gotta wait until they're at a festival? why should my lotro life revolve around waiting for festivals, we pay to play, items should be always accessable, not just one week every 3-5 months, that just seems like a rather silly scheme for a game paid to play. k, i just had to vent somewhere, ty,

Yes, the Black Mushroom Pot is a festival thing -- and only available to farmers. During the Summer Festival, there is a woman at the western edge of the Party Tree area who has you plant spores in the little field behind her. Then during the Fall Festival, she is back and has a mushroom growing tent over the field and she'll give you the Black Mushroom Pot as a reward for the work you did in the summer. I haven't checked mine to see if it's BoA now or not (it's in my housing container).

As for the keg -- sorry, haven't got a clue.

with all the new updates was wondering if they made any changes to housing. i have a standard house but i need more storage is they a way to upgrade to a duplex or buy more storage chests. also if we want to buy a new house do we have to abandon the one we have now or can we sell it.

Originally Posted by Madmatt1976

with all the new updates was wondering if they made any changes to housing. i have a standard house but i need more storage is they a way to upgrade to a duplex or buy more storage chests. also if we want to buy a new house do we have to abandon the one we have now or can we sell it.

Currently the only way to move up to a better house is to abandon your current one. All you will get back as far as coin is unused upkeep. I am not sure if you have to unload storage and decor before abandoning or not. Deluxe comes with two storage and standard can only have the one. I guess the storage and extra hooks for decor is supposed to be enough incentive to want to pay the extra. I currently don't see it worth it until I have at least two characters like 40+. Or they offer much more incentives or improve it to upgrading from previous so that the coins spent buying the old house are put towards the price of the new house.

Originally Posted by LotRfan2000

Currently the only way to move up to a better house is to abandon your current one. All you will get back as far as coin is unused upkeep.

Correct.

Originally Posted by LotRfan2000

I am not sure if you have to unload storage and decor before abandoning or not.

No, it will go into the escrow at the bank just as it would if you lost the house due to nonpayment of maintenance. (Side note on that: Once Book 13 goes live, you will not lose your house for nonpayment. You will just be locked out of it until the maintenance is paid.)

I thought this would be an important note to add.


If you do a Character transfer. IE...move your toon from one server to the other and that toon owns a house then it is best to keep your house. Empty all the chests out but keep the house. You will find out that when your character appears on the new server you will be refunded the cost of the house and you can purchase a new house on the new server with that money.

I wish you would get some of your investment back when you switch houses, be it to a bigger one or to a prettier spot.
It would make sense that you would get a little back by selling the house back to the housing broker... instead of losing your investment completely.

My question would be such as this:

Me & wife want a corner of ours, we can purchase every type of house, including Kinship one. I have various questions that left in my mind tho...

If we buy a deluxe house, will other of us if added in permissions get zoning to there or discounts or do we need to buy two for that? And same question for kinship house... Do every character in kinship gets discount or zoning skill there? Since it will be "our" corner, we don't need each of our own, but just to travel together or use benefits together...

Thank you in advance

Do you and your wife have separate accounts? If yes, you would need to either get 2 personal houses or get a kinship house in order to get discounts and map home to the same neighborhood. With a kinship house, everyone in the kinship gets mapping and discount rights.

If you are on the same account, you can just get one deluxe house. Alts get mapping and discounts in the neighborhood. You cannot however give these permissions to a character not under the house owner's account.

Originally Posted by Linwen

Do you and your wife have separate accounts? If yes, you would need to either get 2 personal houses or get a kinship house in order to get discounts and map home to the same neighborhood. With a kinship house, everyone in the kinship gets mapping and discount rights.

If you are on the same account, you can just get one deluxe house. Alts get mapping and discounts in the neighborhood. You cannot however give these permissions to a character not under the house owner's account.

Thank you, we are on different accounts, so kinship house gives us every right. Good to know that

Originally Posted by Veltkreeg

Can your alts use "return to house"?
No.

Is this still the case?

No, this was changed in Book 12. Alts can now recall to the house and receive neighborhood vendor discounts just like the house owner.

Sorry if this has been asked before, I scanned through but did not see it. Is it possible to purchase a tier 3 house as a personal home?

Originally Posted by KDP

Is it possible to purchase a tier 3 house as a personal home?

Absolutely.

As long as you are the leader of a Rank 7 Kin in good standing and don't mind locking out your entire Kin so you can use a Kin Hall as a personal house.

Originally Posted by Stilgaard

Absolutely.

As long as you are the leader of a Rank 7 Kin in good standing and don't mind locking out your entire Kin so you can use a Kin Hall as a personal house.

Boo, I want 3 chests for myself

nvm..found answer in help menu

So now the main question for me is.....

How long are they going to hold onto an abandoned house that the person no longer pay maintence???

I work hard for my ingame money and dont mind paying the maintence fee, but if someone isnt going to pay it how long before I can dump my old house and get this abandoned one in the neighborhood that I really want to be in??

This FAQ seems really out of date...any chance of getting it updated?

I thought I heard somewhere that it is more worthwhile to get a deluxe house if you have the money because the upkeep cost was less. But in the FAQ it's like 100s more. Is this correct, or is the FAQ just outdated?

Originally Posted by Herone

I thought I heard somewhere that it is more worthwhile to get a deluxe house if you have the money because the upkeep cost was less. But in the FAQ it's like 100s more. Is this correct, or is the FAQ just outdated?

I can't get in game right now to tell you the exact amounts, but the upkeep for a deluxe house is more than the upkeep for a standard house. The actual upkeep amount varies slightly depending on the price of the house you choose (due to location and yard space), but the guide is correct in that it is more expensive.

Yes deluxe houses are more expensive, however the extra storage space makes up for the extra upkeep. My personal opinion is that a deluxe house is the one to get unless you have no need for extra storage. Plus the added benefit of transferring items between your toons makes any house worth it.

I know that originally you lost your house when your maintenance ran out. But didn't they change it with 14 so that it just becomes locked until you pay maintenance on it again? Can someone tell me for sure, because I may be taking a break from the game but I don't want to lose my house and the stuff in it.

Originally Posted by Narthalion

I know that originally you lost your house when your maintenance ran out. But didn't they change it with 14 so that it just becomes locked until you pay maintenance on it again? Can someone tell me for sure, because I may be taking a break from the game but I don't want to lose my house and the stuff in it.

Yes houses just lock now. I have a deluxe 165s maintenance house and the unlock cost is 330s. So when I'm not going to not play for more than several weeks and its close to expiring I just let it expire since the 330s would be less than paying the maintenance for the time I'm not playing.

Two things need to be corrected:

"Can you rotate decorations?
No."

I guess originally you couldn't rotate decorations, but you can now.

"Can your alts use "return to house"?
No."

Of course they can now.

Originally Posted by LotRfan2000

Yes houses just lock now. I have a deluxe 165s maintenance house and the unlock cost is 330s. So when I'm not going to not play for more than several weeks and its close to expiring I just let it expire since the 330s would be less than paying the maintenance for the time I'm not playing.

Just to clarify, the unlock cost is equal to 2x the monthly maintenance fee, no matter how long the house is locked, is that correct? In other words, if my monthly maintenance fee is 165s and my house gets locked, the unlocking fee is a flat 330s, whether the house is locked for 6 months or only for 1 day. Right?

This was pretty badly out of date, so I took a pre MOM crack at it:
Quoted from first post:

How much do houses cost?
Prices vary, but are in this general range:
Standard (Tier 1): 1g, 50s upkeep
Deluxe (Tier 2): 7g, 150s upkeep
Kin (Tier 3): 15-17g, 300s upkeep
See: http://forums.lotro.com/showpost.php...5&postcount=37
*There is no difference in number of hooks or chests or anything you can put a number on from one price to another (for the same house type). Expensive houses have "better" locations and more yard (if you can even tell), and often very nice homes are at the lower price.

How much do storage containers cost?
Container 1: 100s
Container 2: 500s
Container 3: 2.500g

How much space does each container have?
30 slots.

How many storage containers can I put in my house?
1 container per tier of house.

Can you have more than 1 house on a server?
No. You can get full permissions to a friends house (even taking over the house of a person who quit the game) and if you pay upkeep, you can use it pretty much as fully as a second house except without a teleport.

Can a kinship leader purchase a personal house in addition to a kinship hall?
Yes.

Can a person buy a kin hall?
No. But you can get a kin hall with 2-3 people easily if you want to go to the trouble and expense, and can convince 2 others to either share it or let one person use it fully or whatever arrangement. 2 accounts means none of your toons are in a real kin, but it is doable.

Where are the housing zones located?
Hobbit: Southfarthing, south of Michael Delving
Dwarf: West part of Dwarf starting area
Man: South of Midgewater Swamp
Elf: East of Duillond (Flash Map)
See http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=93693

Where are the housing brokers located?
Housing Brokers are available near the entrance to each neighborhood.

What happens if I don't pay the upkeep?
Your house is locked and you cannot go in until you pay twice the monthly fee to unlock it.

Can you rotate decorations?
Yes, not fully 360 but more of a +- 90.

When do new housing zones open?
A new housing zone opens when the current zone sells out. In my opinion this is a bug: new zones should open when all houses of a particular tier are purchased.

Can you upgrade a house?
No.

Can your alts use "return to house"?
Yes.

Can you put workbenches or a forge in your house? Or vendors?
No. My thoughts on this are mixed. On one hand, it would be very convenient. On the other hand, it may make places like Thorin's hall extremely desolate.

What level do you have to be to purchase a house?
Level 15.

What permissions are there on houses?
There are 5 permissions that can be assigned on a individual, kinship, or everyone basis:
- Visitor: Enter/exit house
- Housing Chests: Put items into or take items from a container
- Upkeep: Can pay upkeep
- Decorate: Ability to decorate the house
- Manage Permissions: Ability to change permissions

Can I pay upkeep in advance?
Yes. Up to six weeks.

What happens if you abandon a house?
It will put all of your items from the house in an escrow account that you have to access within 6 days to retrieve the items. It also returns all monies you have paid into the escrow account for maintenance fees. It does not, however, return any of the money that you paid for the house. (Yugi) There is also a 24 hour cooldown before you can purchase another house.

Are neighborhoods racially restricted?
No.

How do you upgrade your small house then?
You abandon the old one and buy the new one, then move your stuff in 50 trips from the bank to the new place. Fortunately, few downgrade in size, so its usually just 1 chest of stuff and a few decorations.

What do you do when you have a bound decoration that you cannot move?
More of an issue with kinships, but you can go and drop a nice slimy herchem(spelling?) tentacle into your buddy's bedroom if he foolishly gave you permissions, and there is nothing he can do about it. If you abandon, the bound item goes into the owner's escrow, not yours. Otherwise, you have to plead with your friend to remove the offending decoration, and if the person no longer plays, your stuck.

What is special furniture?
Seems to be a handful of items that are too big for large spaces, but not really all *that* special.

What is new for housing in MOM?
Not much, 2 "pets", one is a bird (?) and the other a mouse that scurries around the assigned wall spot. So far no other mention from the betas on housing changes.

Originally Posted by forusrname

What happens if you abandon a house?
It will put all of your items from the house in an escrow account that you have to access within 6 days to retrieve the items. It also returns all monies you have paid into the escrow account for maintenance fees. It does not, however, return any of the money that you paid for the house. (Yugi) There is also a 24 hour cooldown before you can purchase another house.

Well done, forusrname. I would like to suggest a couple of corrections to the above-quoted text, though.

First, you have more than 6 days after abandonment to retrieve your items from escrow. I just abandoned a house a few days ago to buy a different one, and I was given at least 13 days to retrieve my items from escrow. (I suspect the correct figure is actually two weeks, i.e., 14 days, but by the time I looked at the timer there were only 13 days plus some number of hours left.)

Second, it should be made clear that the 24 hour cooldown runs from the time you purchase the house that you abandon. The 24 hours do NOT run from the time of abandonment. For example, if you purchase a house at 5:00 p.m. on 11/1/08, and you immediately abandon it, you will not be able to buy a new house until 5:00 p.m. on 11/2/08, because that is 24 hours from the time you originally purchased your house. Once you wait the 24 hours, though, you can abandon the house at any time and immediately buy a new one. So, for example, if you purchase a house at 5:00 p.m. on 11/1/08, and then you abandon it at 6:00 p.m. on 11/2/08, you can buy a new house immediately after the abandonment, because it has been more than 24 hours since the original purchase.