The recent blog post about settlements made me think: if there are so many houses in JADE settlements, what about the ability to own some of them?

Features that every character-owned house should have:
-- a door lock that can't be opened except by a unique key or a Knock spell;
-- low(-er) danger level;
-- walls that can't be dug through by neutral characters who tend to dig.

Parameters which would influence the price and could be influenced by settlement level:
-- size;
-- amount of special rooms (like those that increase healing rate or spell learning rate);
-- garden area (for gardening);
-- monster generation (very cheap houses in poor settlements could have rats, bats, worms, or some other minor pest generated inside regularly);
-- dungeon area (for mining, breeding, or something else);
-- built-in altar;
-- wall strength (against enemies who dig, smash, or are able to cause earthquakes).

Beside the ability to drop temporarily unneeded items safely, pets and companions could also be left there. Some houses could be owned by completing quests, some by purchase, maybe some by killing their former inhabitants.

If you somehow piss the settlement citizens off, they could attempt to break into your house and tear it down, heh.