To be fair, when YoshiP was talking about a house costing as much as what three fresh 50 characters would have combined he was talking about personal housing, not FC housing.
My pet theory is that the ridiculous initial prices of the FC housing is in part meant to remove a lot of RMT gil from the server economies. There is a red colored font blurb in the patch notes about how FC housing purchased with RMT gil will be confiscated and I suspect a lot of innocent players who happen to be in the same FC as cheaters who RMT are going to suffer for it.
My pet theory is that the ridiculous initial prices of the FC housing is in part meant to remove a lot of RMT gil from the server economies. There is a red colored font blurb in the patch notes about how FC housing purchased with RMT gil will be confiscated and I suspect a lot of innocent players who happen to be in the same FC as cheaters who RMT are going to suffer for it.