Is there advice on how to obtain a house in the capital, and at what prices? Is it worth it? Assuming that the haven quarter isn't the best place to live!

You can get a shack in the slum at the waterfront; downside is that it’s small ugly and non central, upside it only cost 2000
As reward for becoming the leader of the mage guild you get a room in the main guild tower, downside only one safe chest.
As reward for becoming leader of the thief guild you get a pretty nice apartment with two rooms and lots of storage. Downside is that it’s on the waterfront and just as non central as the shack. Non other except if you use mods.

Best house to get IMHO is the manor in Anvil. Cool way to get it, tons of storage and it is easy enough to get there with fast travel. Plus, good location for KotN end game.

The shack in the Imperial City, has a base cost of 2000 gold. Add furniture, and most importantly, storage, and it will cost you about 4000 gold total.

Thanks! - Are owned houses safe anywhere, or do I have to expect burglars?

No, you're so safe you don't even need to look the door!

Wish it was as safe IRL But i would recommend Anvil, or if money is no concern, Skingrad, Rosethorn Hall, at 50.000 gold total.

I remember a discussion of a mod that would let you take over the house of someone who had been killed during a quest in the Imperial City. What I don't recall is whether it got made, and which house it was (it may even have been a general one that allowed any unoccupied house to be bought). The house or houses would be bought at the same location as the Shack, i.e. the complaints office in the Market District.

Mods have added various other homes, including one in the sewers.

Yeah, it's a shame there was apparently little done about homes in the original game! - About the mods: I guess you can only run one at a time, so if people make mods for this and that, you will have sour choice.



What if I throw pieces on the floor? Do they vanish in the house?

You can drop an item anywhere in the game, and it will stay forever.

Hm .. so what is the need of houses then? I could just make a pile of goods somewhere. Probably administering them would be a bit difficult ..

Safe place to sleep, interesting conversation piece. Also if you just drop everything everywhere, especially lockpicks and other small things, they are impossible to find. I've wasted hours of game time doing that. Also, I've yet to find a good mod that adds just a regular house to the IC, they're all sewer mods or little things/shacks.

There should be a mod created which compiles all the tiny little things which aid "life" in game and which are little controversial. I'd like to hear more about current mods and mod projects. Is there a good read on it?

I take it you mean Immersion mods? I don't use any of them, but I hear good things about http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=21104, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34199, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25078, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11778 and http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3172. There are also numerous hunger, fatigue, sleep, washing etc mods out there, its just having the time to look for a good one.

The mod you are speaking of is http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=27951

Best of luck to finding a good house!

No it wasn't as general as that one. It may have been abandoned when Claim that Interior came out. The details I recall were that it was IC-only, and you had to buy the house (at a realistic price) before it was yours, to deter you from killing Umbacano whose home would be priced out of reach. Lorkmir's wouldn't be on the market until you report his death, and you couldn't buy a shop or tavern and become a merchant.

I recently discovered that Marana Rian has an "unowned" spare bed, and of course she'll teach to to sneak in and use it. Nice place she has there!

If you kill the owner of a house during day-light hours USUALLY all you have to do to sleep in there is use the console command "setownership" on the bed you want. Everything in there is safe and no one (but guards if they follow you) will enter (if they're not in the faction) iirc