TL;DR
- Purchase your first house at Level 15 with a 5,000 gold discount applicable to any tier
- Strategic house placement in resource-rich settlements like Windsward or Everfall maximizes efficiency
- Trophy bonuses provide powerful global buffs for combat, crafting, and gathering activities
- Higher housing tiers reduce fast travel cooldowns and increase storage capacity significantly
- Weekly property taxes must be paid to maintain all housing benefits and functionality
In New World: Aeternum, property ownership transcends mere cosmetic appeal, serving as a cornerstone of strategic gameplay advancement. As you navigate the treacherous landscapes of this mysterious island, establishing a residential foothold delivers tangible mechanical advantages that streamline resource management and travel logistics. Your home becomes an operational headquarters that directly influences your progression efficiency across all gameplay pillars.
A residential property functions as a personalized fast travel nexus, dramatically expands your localized storage capabilities, and enables the display of trophies that confer persistent character enhancements. Beyond these functional elements, you can customize your living space with crafted furnishings, transforming it into both a reflection of your achievements and a tactical command center. Whether your focus lies in commerce, craftsmanship, or combat, mastering residential mechanics proves essential for optimizing your Aeternum experience.
This comprehensive manual details every facet of property acquisition and management, including progression gates, optimal settlement selection, benefit optimization, and critical economic considerations.

Housing Unlock Levels
• Level 15: Unlocks initial property acquisition capability. Purchase pricing scales directly with selected housing tier and settlement economic factors.
• Level 35: Permits secondary property investment, enabling distributed settlement presence across Aeternum.
• Level 55: Authorizes tertiary residential ownership, maximizing strategic coverage and benefit stacking potential.
Multiple property investments exponentially increase your fast travel network coverage and cumulative storage capacity, representing progressively valuable assets as you advance through endgame content. A common strategic error involves purchasing lower-tier properties too early, wasting the valuable first-house discount on suboptimal investments. Instead, consider reaching Level 20+ before making your initial purchase to qualify for Tier 3 housing with enhanced benefits.
Best Locations to Buy a House
Property acquisition opportunities exist across numerous settlements, including these strategically significant locations:
• Windsward: Central positioning with excellent resource access and crafting station density
• Everfall: Economic hub with high player traffic and market activity
• Monarch’s Bluff: Early-game convenience with straightforward resource routes
• First Light: Strategic positioning for northern territory operations
• Cutlass Keys: Coastal access with unique gathering opportunities
• Weaver’s Fen: Specialized resource proximity with less competition
• Brightwood: Mid-game crafting center with balanced amenities
• Reekwater: Endgame resource access with higher difficulty requirements
• Restless Shore: PvP-focused positioning with faction warfare advantages
• Mourningdale: Northern territory base with mining and logging concentration
• Ebonscale Reach: Elite crafting location with high-tier station access
• Brimstone Sands: Expansion content hub with unique material gathering
• Mountainhome: Defensive positioning with natural protection advantages
• Edengrove: Magical resource center with arcane material abundance
Strategic residential placement typically prioritizes proximity to critical resource nodes, optimized crafting infrastructure, or high-population economic zones. Each settlement presents distinct advantages and limitations, making location selection dependent on your primary activities—whether convenience-driven resource gathering, economic trading efficiency, or territorial control positioning. Advanced players often establish a triangular property network covering northern, central, and southern regions to minimize travel costs across all major activity zones. For players focusing on combat optimization, positioning near faction hubs or elite territory entrances provides significant time savings.
Benefits of Owning a House
Property ownership delivers multiple interconnected gameplay advantages:
• Trophy Bonuses: Residential displays accommodate trophy placement, conferring powerful character-wide enhancements. These permanent buffs include substantial gathering speed improvements, crafting success rate bonuses, increased damage output against specific enemy categories, and enhanced rare item acquisition probabilities. Strategic trophy combinations can increase your efficiency by 15-30% in specialized activities.
• Extra Storage: Properties enable chest installation, dramatically expanding localized storage capacity and revolutionizing resource management workflows.
• Settlement Buffs: Through property ownership, you qualify for territory-wide enhancements activated by the controlling company. These communal benefits may significantly boost harvesting yields, improve crafting results and equipment scores, or provide defensive damage reduction against regional threats.
• Fast Travel: Your residence operates as a personalized teleportation nexus, permitting instant return from any map location. This functionality makes residential positioning critically important for travel optimization and overarching gameplay strategy. Similar to strategic positioning in our class selection guide, optimal house placement reduces downtime between activities.
Housing Tiers and Benefits
Residential properties categorize into four distinct quality tiers, each featuring unique acquisition prerequisites, variable gold expenditure requirements, and progressively enhanced mechanical advantages:
Tier 1: Demands territory standing 1, costs 5,000 gold, accommodates 1 storage chest installation, and imposes a 4-hour fast travel cooldown period.
Tier 2: Requires territory standing 15, costs 10,000 gold, permits 2 storage chests, and reduces travel cooldown to 3 hours.
Tier 3: Necessitates territory standing 20, costs 15,000 gold, allows 3 storage chests, and further decreases cooldown to 2.5 hours.
Tier 4: Mandates territory standing 30, costs 20,000 gold, supports 4 storage chests, and minimizes cooldown to just 2 hours.
Progressive tier advancement delivers compounding returns on investment, with Tier 4 properties offering 100% more storage capacity and 50% faster travel regeneration compared to entry-level options. For players engaged in comprehensive game mastery, the storage and cooldown advantages of higher tiers frequently justify the additional gold expenditure through long-term efficiency gains.
First House Discount
New property owners receive a standardized 5,000 gold price reduction on their initial residential acquisition, regardless of selected property tier. For illustration, purchasing a 10,000 gold property would only require 5,000 gold actual expenditure. This inaugural discount applies universally across all housing tiers, enabling strategic postponement until qualifying for premium Tier 4 properties while still benefiting from substantial cost reduction.
Optimal discount utilization involves delaying your first purchase until reaching Level 20+ and Territory Standing 20, allowing acquisition of a Tier 3 property at Tier 1 effective pricing. This approach typically saves 10,000+ gold compared to sequential tier upgrading, representing one of the most significant economic decisions in your Aeternum career.
Property Taxes and Consequences
Property maintenance necessitates weekly tax payments, requiring settlement every seven-day cycle. The specific taxation rate fluctuates based on the company controlling the territory, with base property tax visible in the housing interface before commitment.
Delinquent tax payments trigger immediate functional restrictions:
• Fast travel functionality becomes completely disabled for the affected property.
• Trophy-derived character enhancements are automatically deactivated.
• Storage system access from the delinquent property becomes severely restricted.
However, tax arrears don’t compound over extended periods. Following prolonged absence, payment for only the most recent delinquent week restores complete functionality—a crucial consideration for players managing multiple properties across different territories. Budget approximately 200-500 gold weekly per property depending on settlement economic conditions.
Abandoning a House
Property relinquishment remains possible through the housing management interface, though carries substantial permanent consequences:
• All stored possessions transfer automatically to settlement storage systems. Should storage capacity limitations exist, immediate item retrieval may prove impossible.
• NO reimbursement occurs for property abandonment. All gold invested in the original acquisition becomes permanently lost.
• Property tax investments are immediately forfeited upon abandonment. Any remaining duration on current tax payments receives zero compensation.
• Property relinquishment constitutes a permanent action. Should you desire alternative residential options, full-price repurchase becomes necessary.
Before committing to property abandonment, carefully evaluate whether strategic relocation or retention for storage and travel advantages offers superior value. In many cases, maintaining an underutilized property for its fast travel point alone justifies the ongoing tax expenditure, particularly when strategically positioned in high-traffic regions.
Action Checklist
- Reach Level 15 minimum, then strategically delay first purchase until Level 20+ for Tier 3 access
- Research current territory control status and tax rates before property acquisition
- Select optimal settlement location based on primary activities and resource needs
- Utilize 5,000 gold first-house discount on highest affordable tier
- Install appropriate trophy combinations matching your gameplay focus
- Establish weekly tax payment reminder system for multiple properties
- Plan triangular property network at Levels 35 and 55 for maximum coverage
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