House-hunting

[Sarobjorn]

I finally have enough cold hard cash to buy a standard house. (In-game only, I'm afraid )
I was hoping to buy a house in the same neighborhood/instance as the KF kin house. Unfortunately I didn't see anything for sale in that 'hood. Any suggestions? There were quite a few houses overdue on their upkeep payments... but apparently the banks in middle earth are pretty lenient on mortgage payments. I don't think they give anyone the boot unless people stop paying real $ for their LOTRO account, right?

Does anyone know a standard house owner (in the KF neighborhood) who doesn't use theirs and would be willing to abandon it? I don't know what I could offer in exchange until I'm higher level... but I'd certainly owe them a favor in the future.

I've read that some folks establish a personal home in a different homestead than their kinship house. I thought Thorin's Gate seemed ideal though since it's so close to Thorin's Hall and the swift travel stables. The Bree-land homesteads are waaaay the hell out in the middle of nowhere. It seems to me that low level characters would have to spend a lot of time getting from the Bree-land homesteads to any stable-master. That seems like kind of a deal-killer to me--at least until I'm level 35 and can get a decently fast horse. Am I missing something?

Any advice on finding a house would be appreciated... especially if you know of any potential openings in the Kengsal (sp?) neighborhood!

Thanks,
~Sarobjorn

[Jharak]

Hey Sarobjorn,

congrats on the cash flow!

I don't know of anyone else living in exactly the same neighbourhood unfortunately. The way houses are allowed to sit unused for months and months drives a lot of people nuts, but housing in general is a lower priority for the devs which I can understand.

You're right that the Dwarven neighbourhood is by far the closest to a local stable master. I think the Elven community is the worst, but probably tied with Bree. The sooner they add stable masters at the neighbourhoods the better! Having said that, I don't think many people travel over land to or from their houses anyway. Most will map to their houses, then just map back to where ever their Map Home skill is tied too. That's how I commute anyway.

Other than that, my only advice is to keep checking with the housing vendor. When I was looking for a house, I wanted a particular house in Bree, didn't mind which neighbourhood, and was checking everyday for 3 weeks before it became available. It may just take some time but if you're not in a rush I think you'll get what you're looking for eventually.

Hope that helps.

[Llemorin]

It's actually kind of funny... Not only do they not give people the boot in houses as long as you keep up your subscription, but even if you don't keep up your subscription you will still be able to keep your house and everything in it as long as you eventually come back and pay upkeep (and it's not even on back weeks either!). Too bad real life rent doesn't work that way...

With that said, I'm not familiar with too many other homesteads. I'm not sure how much luck you'll have finding someone in the neighborhood to give up the housing. Your best bet if you like Thorin's hall's placement would be to pick out another neighborhood and make it your own. I set my homestead up in Thorin's for the same reasons you mentioned - vicinity to the stables as well as swift travel to pretty much all the key destinations to middle earth (or at least a one stop travel there for those areas connected to Rivendell).

You may want to just pick out a housing that you find most appealing to look at though... Since you can use the kin port to get to Thorin's whenever you want. Just a thought at least since with the housing available your free port (with a slightly long cool down) to your housing environments will then open one up to the Kin house for you and then your own personal housing as a secondary one.

As for finding someone willing to move out of the neighborhood - that's a bit tough to say. A lot of the people in the Kinship neighborhood were there when the game first started and have either moved onto greener pastures and left their housing in an empty state of disarray or are lifers probably unwilling to give up their hold. Good luck though!

[Bhazrak]

All that happens when you fail to pay upkeep on your house is it becomes unusable and stays that way until you make all the weekly payments for upkeep since you last paid. I was gone for 9ish months, and ended up paying around 900 silver to be able to start using my house again. So no one ever gets the boot from their house, you have to abandon it manually to free it up.

As for housing areas as recall places, Thorin's is the best since its not out in the middle of no where. The shire's not too far, nor too close and human/elf housing is near nothing. With the kinship house being near Thorin's already, it's a moot point.

To me, it comes down to aesthetics. Live where you want to live because you like the look/idea of it all.

Edit: Blah @ hitting reply then not checking to see if anything's been typed out after you go afk forever.

[Ualtar]

I had a particular house in the Hobbit area that I really liked, so I bought that one. It also gave me an easy way to get to a scholar study since Rivendell can be a pain for a man.

[Spazzalicious]

i second the statement about basically never using the Thorin's stable.

I used to use it a lot at lower levels, but now my lvl 65 toons don't use it at all, because it doesn't lead anywhere I need to be.

Right now I wish there was a Milestone at the CG stable which offers swift to Mirkwood, Moria, and Rivendell. Next best seems to be Home set to Emyn Lum which has swift to CG. I haven't picked up the Return to Mirkwood yet, and that might change my Map location when I do.

Getting to Moria from the old world just stinks. It's horrible. Once you are in Moria, set Map to Moria.

Then all I really use is Return to Home City and Map in order to get around. Personal and Kin house get used mostly to repair, particularly with the introduction of Shared Storage which makes the house vault basically useless (although mine is still full)

I have a house in Thorin's but not the same area as the Kin house. It is a nice house, but I'd like to get a bigger one. Just haven't looked for one yet. The location of my house is great and I bought it because I really liked the look of the place. If you travel from the Kin house to the vendors, you pass by the location of my house, it is the one just down the stairs on the right out in the open on a hill overlooking the cliff with lots of crystals around it.

Good Luck finding your perfect home

[Sarobjorn]

Thanks for all the good advice, people!