Buying houses in cities

[Phlebas]

Remember, the players should want to keep the cities safe. A little bit of legal hassle here and there sounds fine, but layer it on too much and the players may wind up joining the next orc horde that come to sack the city.

Fair point, but the city is the centre piece of the campaign, most of the group were born there or have serious ties and the plot involves preventing the total destruction of.... (some of my group browse this forum so can't give too much away)

They've already encountered a few problems with petty bureacuracy (as a result the priest now has an advocate on retainer to deal with licences and fees) so I wont stress it too much unless its plot specific.

 

[Arnwyn]

A few of my party members are now shopping for houses, (and a site for a new temple). Does anyone know of any (preferably free) resource listing a variety of city houses and prices?

With plans would be good because i really am that lazy.

Not free, and no single resource exists (nor can it, really, since it varies so much by city, much less campaign setting!).

However, if you want detail, here's what I use/do (off the top of my head, as my more detailed 'Real Estate Guide' I made [yeah, really] is at home, and I only post from the office):

Step 1: Buildings (including floorplans): Stronghold Builder's Guidebook (WotC, 3.0). Not bad, and easily tweakable to conform to what you and your PCs want in terms of detail and price. (Also includes rules on how those crazy mages really do make those rooms with funky magical affects.)

Step 2: Land. You'll have to make this up. My suggestion is to come up with a base price for a "standard" plot size (eg. 20' x 20') and "standard" area of the city/region (whatever you define those to be, based on your particular campaign). Note: The price for the land may be 0 if the PCs just want to buy a building and not own the land (but are then restricted from, *ahem*, building "basements" (vaults, entrances to sewers, etc) since the city will still own the land.

Step 3: If applicable, apply factors to the plot size and to poorer/richer neighborhoods (eg. dock district -10%, warehouse district -5%, merchant quarter +10%, etc) and or distance from city (eg. <1 mile from city walls, 1-5 miles, 5-10 miles, 10-15 miles, 15+ miles).

Step 4: Upkeep. Maybe 5% or 10% of the 'build cost' of the building per year.

Step 5: Taxes. Much like upkeep.

Alternate #2:
Buy the aforementioned MMS:WE pdf/book. You very likely will not regret it.