Last night I bought my first house in New World.
It was a momentous occasion! I knew I wanted a house in Everfall, I knew which house I wanted, and I knew what I had to do to get it.
Different tiers of houses require a certain reputation with the city in which you want to buy, and if you want the highest tier house you need a territory standing of at least 30.
To get the appropriate territory standing, you need to do a lottttt of activities in that territory. Faction quests, Townboard quests, even killing random things in the area, it all contributes towards your territory standing.
There are four different tiers of houses in most cities. The tier of the house grants you certain features. The house that I bought is a Tier 4 house which means I can fast travel to it every 2 hours, place up to 4 expandable storage furnitures, have more trophies on display and more furniture in general.
Each tier of housing costs a different amount, and the first house that you buy is half the usual price, so it's recommended that you buy an expensive house first to take advantage of the price cut.
Once you have purchased your house, it's time to get decorating!
The decorating menu seems pretty standard.
You select an item that you have either on your person or already in your storage, and you can place it wherever you wish and rotate it to whichever direction you want the item to face.
Decorations can be found randomly in treasure chests out in the world, or you can craft them yourself at the Workshop. You can also find Schematics randomly in chests too, to learn furnishings that would otherwise be unavailable.
In order to continue being able to actually use your house, you need to pay weekly taxes.
I was horrified to learn that the taxes per week for the house that I bought were $1,600 a week. Good thing I'm an avid Trading Post Trader, but it kind of scares me away from my original plan of buying three houses in three different cities.
I'm not quite sure I can afford taxes for three properties.
Luckily, if you don't pay taxes you don't lose the house! You just lose the housing features like being able to place more furniture, being able to fast travel to it, and any buffs your trophies may give you.
Also luckily, as you progress through each territory's standing, you will have the occasional option to lower property taxes for that territory. I was dumb and didn't. I focused all my territory standing points on extra storage and gathering speed, and making the crafting stations cheaper to use.
As you progress through Furniture Crafting in this game, you can make yourself some trophies to adorn your house with.
These trophies offer benefits to your character when out in the world! Some will give you benefits whilst crafting, others will increase your damage against certain mobs, and even better, some will benefit you when gathering.
Sadly, I'm unable to craft these just yet, but I'm looking forward to having them active in my house in the future. 😊
The ones listed only have Minor/Basic benefits, so I'm assuming there'll be better ones available later in the game.
All in all, so far the Housing system seems pretty standard. It reminds me of ESO's housing system, which I am thankful for; the Star Wars one with it's forced grid placement was irritating. Although... these taxes are terrifying. I get taxed enough in the real world, thanks.
My one real complaint though, is that pets in this game are considered furniture and not a companion that can follow you around the world like in every other MMO in existence.
The puppy in the above screenshot is Barkimedes, a reward from finding some skeleton bones in the first Expedition with which to feed him with. And here he is, on my front verandah, lounging about, and not following me on my adventures like he should be. 😞
All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, 
