Ever see houses for sale while playing the game but you don’t know what it’s for? It can get very confusing at first and you’re not even sure why people would even need houses in this game. Luckily, In this New World: Aeternum Housing guide, we will cover Housing and Territory Standing to help you understand Housing and Territory better.

New World: Aeternum – How To Own a House

When can I get a house?

Your character needs to be at least level 15 to be eligible to buy a house and it will cost gold depending on the tier of the house you want to purchase. You can buy a second house when you reach level 35 and a third house when you reach level 55.

What are the locations where I can buy a house?

The locations where you can buy houses include Windsward, Everfall, Monarch’s Bluff, First Light, Cutlass Keys, Weaver’s Fen, Brightwood, Reekwater, Restless Shore, Mourningdale, Ebonscale Reach, Brimstone Sands, Mountainhome, and Edengrove. People often choose their houses based on how near these houses are to certain resources or activities, as well as player density. It’s ultimately up to you where you want to purchase a house as most locations have their pros and cons.

What are the benefits of owning a house?

House allows you to place trophies. These trophies are furniture that offers powerful global buffs, such as increased gathering efficiency, crafting bonuses, damage boosts against certain enemy types, and higher chances of finding rare loot. Houses also offer extra storage by letting you place storage chests, effectively expanding your settlement’s storage shed capacity. Also, owning a house allows you to participate in settlement buffs, which are often enabled by the company controlling the area. These buffs can increase harvesting yields, improve crafting, and gear score, or reduce damage taken from enemies. Your house also allows you to fast travel there from pretty much anywhere on the map, so house locations can be pretty pivotal.

What are Trophies?

As previously mentioned, trophies are furniture that provide buffs. These buffs are global and do not have a duration which makes them very useful. Each house allows you to place 5 trophies maximum regardless of the tier.

Trophies are categorized into four distinct types:

• Combat Trophies: These improve your damage against specific enemy types linked to the trophy.
• Crafting Trophies: These improve your minimum gear score when crafting items related to that trophy.
• Gathering Trophies: These increase your luck for specific gathering skills tied to the trophy.
• Loot Luck Trophies: These improve your chances of finding rare items from chests and defeated enemies, making them valuable for looting.

Trophy buffs do not stack up if you add two of the same type of trophies in the same house, but they can stack up if you have the same type of trophy in another house.

What Are the Different Tiers in Housing?

• Tier 1 requires a territory standing of just 1. They usually cost 5,000 gold and have a maximum of 1 storage chest. It will have a fast travel cooldown of 4 hours.
• Tier 2 requires a territory standing of 15. They usually cost 10,000 gold and have a maximum of 2 storage chests. It will have a fast travel cooldown of 3 hours.
• Tier 3 requires a territory standing of 20. They usually cost 15,000 gold and have a maximum of 3 storage chests. It will have a fast travel cooldown of 2.5 hrs.
• Finally, Tier 4 requires a territory standing of 30. They usually cost 20,000 gold and have a maximum of 4 storage chests. It will have a fast travel cooldown of 2 hrs.

Do I get a discount for purchasing my first house?

Yes, you can purchase your first house with a 5,000 gold discount. That means if you’re buying a house worth 10,000 gold, you’ll only need to pay 5,000 gold in total. Also, the discount is applicable to any tier, so if you’re waiting until you’re eligible for Tier 4 to buy your first house, the discount will still be applied.

Property Taxes

Unfortunately, like in the real world, once you own a house in a settlement, you’ll need to pay property tax every seven days. The tax rate is determined and adjusted by the company that controls the territory, and you can check the base property tax for each house in the housing menu before purchasing.

If you don’t pay your taxes, the features of your house will be disabled. This means no more fast traveling to the house, no more buffs, and no more access to the storage in that house. You’ll get these back once you pay up. It’s also worth noting that property taxes don’t stack up. You can be gone for a long period of time and you’ll only need to pay the previous week’s due amount.

Leaving a house

You can choose to leave a house if you want. If you want to abandon a house, you can easily do it from the housing menu and all your items will be moved to the storage in that area. It will also refund you half of what you paid for that house.

New World: Aeternum – Territory Standing

Next, let’s move on to Territory Standing. In New World Aeternum, Territory Standing is basically your reputation within a specific area. The more you do things like quests, crafting, or fighting enemies, the more points you earn, which helps you level up your standing in that territory. Each time you level up, you get to pick perks like faster gathering, lower property taxes, extra storage, or cheaper crafting fees. It’s a way to make things easier for yourself based on what you’re focused on in that area.

How to Build Up Territory Reputation

There are a lot of ways to build up your Territory Reputation and earn points. These are some of the methods I felt were the best way to raise your reputation.

Cooking

It’s best to start by stocking up on cheap ingredients like red meat and firm fish fillets. Be sure to play the Territorial Triumph song buff for an added bonus for your reputation. After the song, make your way to the kitchen (this may be slow if you’re carrying a lot of meat). Select the travel ration recipe and cook your gathered ingredients. This can earn you around 7,766 territory standing right away. If you have enough resources, this method is worth it; I gained over 11,000 standing in just a couple of batches.

Tackling Corrupted Portals

Watch for announcements in global or recruitment chat about group runs for taking down corrupted portals. Joining a team not only earns you territory standing but also weapon XP and rewards from chests after defeating them. Higher difficulty portals yield better rewards, starting around 300 standing for smaller ones.

Crafting

If you have surplus materials and gold, head to the territory you want to improve and craft items in bulk. Crafting grants standing—about 920 for each batch, which adds up over time.

Exploring the Territory

Discover uncharted landmarks to earn territory standing just for exploring. Pick up quests along the way for additional character XP, gold, and more standing. This is an easy way to level up while navigating new areas.

Town Project Board

Don’t forget about the town project board. Each territory has a notice board with various tasks that can earn you between 600 and 700 territory standing, depending on task difficulty.

Territory Reputation Points And What You Can Spend It On

When you’re putting points into rewards, aim for that first milestone of 12 (30.5% return). Don’t waste points on perks that give less than a 1% return early on; the gains just aren’t worth the effort in the early game.

Standing EXP

Make Standing EXP your number one focus until you hit 12 points (30.5%). If you add the Territorial Triumph buff from playing music, you can keep that boost at 60%. This is super important because getting to Rank 300 takes a while, and this can help cut that time down by about 30%.

Gathering Speed

Next up, max out gathering speed to 12 points (30.5%). This perk is really handy at the start, but it loses some value later when you get tools that boost your speed by 650-850% and music buffs that add another 75%. So while that 30% boost is great at first, it becomes less significant as you progress.

Property Tax / Crafting Tax

Both property tax and crafting tax are equally important, especially if you’re planning to own a house in the area. You’ll be paying weekly for that, so cutting those costs by 30% is a nice perk—especially if you’re eyeing a Tier 4 house with maximum storage. On some servers, this can hit around 167 gold a week. Crafting tax matters too since you’ll be doing a lot of crafting in your home area, earning standing EXP while you’re at it. Level these taxes up evenly.

Trading Tax

Trading tax is something to think about more in the mid to late game. Early on, you’ll be focused on crafting for standing, so trading tax isn’t a big deal yet. You might spend about 5-10 gold a week on trading taxes while crafting and property taxes usually add up to more.

Faction Tokens

Faction tokens are super important in the endgame, but they’re not really useful early on since most items you can buy are PvP-related and easy to grab. Only start investing here after you’ve maxed out the other options to 30%.

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That’s it for my guide on How To Own a House in New World: Aeternum. If you have any other questions or need information on certain stuff, please check out our Beginner Guide as well as our Wiki to learn more.