How much will Player Housing cost in WoW? Speculating on the real estate values of Azeroth

With another blog post from Blizzard this month about the upcoming Player Housing feature, it’s worth speculating on some things that have been touched on but not laid out explicitly, such as the cost of buying a home on Azeroth. So how deep will your pockets need to be in order to take home the keys to your dream home, and how much gold will it take to fill it with all the decorations you ever dreamed of? Keep in mind that Player Housing is an ongoing in-development feature, so even the content of Blizzard’s own articles may not reflect the final in-game realities of Azerothian home ownership.

In the first look we got at Player Housing back in February, the team introduced pillars that influenced every part of the the development process. Those boiled down to wanting to design a neighborhood experience that was social, evergreen, and deeply creative for each player. The only non-pillar guiding tenet was that the team was hoping for wide adoption — the more players who participate in Player Housing, the more successful it would be considered.

This is where we get the first hint that the price tag for a house will not break the bank: “Most players should want a house in Azeroth, and if a player wants a house in Azeroth, they can have a house in Azeroth.” While the cost is not called out specifically, stating that everyone will be able to have a house suggests that the amount of gold you’ll need to fork over in exchange for a deed will be low or negligible.

In the most recent blog post that went into more detail on Neighborhoods and Endeavors, there was more specific talk about the process of buying a plot of land containing a house. Players can relinquish a house in order to move to a different Neighborhood, with the plot of land going “back up for sale”. While this doesn’t really give any new information directly, it does point to the process of buying a home that does not involve lotteries, bidding, or prohibitive costs.

But what will Player Housing cost?

So what is a good purely speculative ballpark figure for the cost of a plot of land in Razorwind Shores or Founder’s Point? I am going to guess that we won’t be seeing price tags anywhere near as high as some of the in-game gold sink items whose long, graceful necks have required millions of gold to acquire. I think even costs in the six-figure range would be too prohibitive for a majority of players. While I don’t think that you’ll be able to plunk down 99 silver and walk away with your own house, I think that sticker price in the 1,000-10,000 gold range seems to align with much of what the team has said so far regarding wide adoption.

As a reminder, Blizzard has not officially given us any price information about Player Housing. This is speculation based on how Blizzard has explained the feature and the price of other items in game.

What will decorating my house cost?

Fully decorating your yard and interior to the heights of your dreams may be where you’ll need to start reaching deeper into your gold pouch. While decorations will be rewarded from virtually any in-game activity — including drops and from achievements, so you’ll be able to go out and collect things on your own — there are two ways that players with a passion for housing may end up broke if they’re not careful.

The first is the fact that many of the reported tens of thousands of decoration items will be purchasable from NPCs, with the only concrete example I can find being a screenshot of a Hall Rug from the Stormwind Quartermaster for 142 gold. Multiply that by a huge number of vendors in each area, multiply again by the number of expansions that we have journeyed through, and you’ll see how the cost of being an interior decoration completionist might quickly get out of hand.

There’s also the promise of each and every profession being able to craft housing decor. If you’re an artisan crafter, you’ll need to spend time and/or money gathering reagents from each expansion in order to fill out your decoration collection. If you’ve never picked up a blacksmithing hammer in your adventuring career but have fallen in love with a Revendreth-inspired wrought-iron gate, you’ll need to save up some gold for a trip to the Auction House.

Finally, Blizzard has said that while most decorations will be rewarded in-game, there will be decor in the cash shop available for purchase. Think of it like the current offerings of mounts, pets, and transmogs available for purchase with real money — certainly optional, but in existence nonetheless. There is, again, nothing specific on this front, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see decoration items included in the packs and bundles that rotate through the store monthly.

So how much do you think we’ll need to save up when Player Housing drops and we’re all clamoring for our very own pieces of Azerothian real estate? How much gold are you willing to spend so that your yard and home are the talk of your Neighborhood?