I remember you. Least your name. I have played straight from about 2000-2001. Every shard I played (except OSI Siege Perilous) seemed to have issues with housing. Either people wanted bigger or better homes (castles, keeps or near gates/cities) or they just wanted to place a spot. Everytime I hear about more housing I think of Malas and how spread out it seemed to make the population.
i also played on Drachenfels and Europe back on t2a/Renaissance.
yes plots for bigger houses were very expensive , BUT a small tower or small buildings in general were pretty cheap and if you had the time you could be able to place one on your own after some hours. I remember a small tower was sold for 250k , way more expensive then the deed itself but still reasonable.
Logs were at around 2 millions , there it started to get expensive.
on outlands even a very small house costs SO MUCH gold , a new player cant farm in a reasonable time.