Housing Guide

Your own home

West of Aeven lies Hearthhaven, a town of cottages, family homes, lakeside houses and grand estates. Every house there can be bought by a player. Inside, it is your own private copy of the house: you furnish it, choose the floors and walls, decide who may come in, and the pets you are not taking along live there and wait for you.

Leave Aeven by its western road (Hearth Road) to get there.

Buying a house

Every house has a sign in front of it. A sign that says FOR SALE means the house is free.

1. Click (on a phone: tap) the sign to see the house: its size, rooms, yard, how much furniture fits and the price.
2. Press Buy this house, check the price and confirm. The gold comes out of your bag and the house is yours at once.
3. The sign now shows your name: "Austin's House". Walk through the front door to go in.

You can also see every house in town from Rosalind the Realtor at the Real Estate Office on the market square, and on the Hearthhaven Homes page of this website.

Each character owns one house. Lake views and bigger gardens cost a little more.

Furniture

Holt the Carpenter sells furniture for every room and the garden; Pippa the Pet Keeper sells pet beds, bowls, pet houses and cat towers. What you buy goes into your furniture storage, not your bag.

Inside your house (or standing by your yard), press Decorate in the house panel at the top right:

• Choose a piece from your storage. It follows your mouse, shown green where it fits and red where it does not.
• Click a tile to put it down. Press Turn to rotate it.
• Click a piece that is already standing to pick it up and move it, or Put away to send it back to storage.
• Press Done when you are finished. Right-click drops whatever you are holding.

Furniture never blocks the way: doorways, stairs and the path through the house always stay clear, and nothing can be put where someone is standing. Garden pieces (benches, flower beds, fountains) go in your yard around the house; indoor pieces stay inside.

You can also take a piece out of storage as an item (to trade it or give it away) and put it back later. Holt and Pippa buy furniture back for part of its price.

Some furniture is never sold in shops: trophies dropped by dungeon bosses, pieces from seasonal events, achievement rewards, and cosmetic furniture in the Alduin Market for Alduin Coins.

Floors and walls

Owners can give each room a new floor (oak, dark oak, flagstone, rose stone, cream marble, tiles and more) and the house new walls. Pick one in the Furniture window and you see it on the room at once; only when you press the button is it laid, for a small price.

Who may come in

Open House in the house panel, or ask Rosalind:

• Private: only the owners.
• Friends: people on your friend list.
• Guild: members of your guild.
• Invited guests: only the names you add, for an hour, a day or until you remove them.
• Open to everyone.

Lock the door to keep everyone but the owners and your decorators out. Anyone inside is shown out to the street. A decorator may arrange furniture in your house (with their own furniture). You can also hide your names on the sign: it then reads "Private Residence".

Pets at home

Your pets that are not out with you live in your house. They wander from room to room, nap on pet beds and come running to greet you when you walk in. In the Pets tab you decide which pets live at home, which room each one stays in, and your favourites. Visitors can pat them. A pet never leaves your pet list because of the house.

Married couples

When you marry, a house one of you owns becomes your shared home automatically. Both of you own it equally: both can decorate, invite and manage it, and the sign reads "Austin & Sarah's House". If you both own a house, nothing is sold: each of you keeps your house, and you choose which one becomes your shared home with Make this our shared home.

Selling

Rosalind buys houses back for 70% of what was paid. Your furniture goes back into your furniture storage first. A brand-new house can be sold the next day. A shared home is only sold when both spouses agree: one asks, the other confirms in their house panel.

Divorce

If a couple divorces at the Law office, their shared home is sold automatically:

• It is sold for 70% of what was paid, and the gold is split evenly between the two. If the amount is odd, the extra gold piece goes to the spouse who bought the house.
• Each spouse is paid at once if they are online, or the next time they log in. Each payment is made exactly once.
• Every piece of furniture goes back into the storage of whoever placed it. Pets stay with their owners.
• Anyone inside is shown out to the street, and the sign says FOR SALE again.
• A house that only one of you owned is not touched.

Achievements

Wear a title from the Titles tab of the housing window.