Yeah, I used to play RS and yes, that does sound very familiar. I'm not sure if it would go over well though. It's a good concept that RS did, but would it work with WoW? I'm not sure.

I played runescape as well and i think that RS's method of player housing would work quite well in WoW.
have either a 1) a new profession that makes furniture that you can sell via the AH and use in your house or 2) an NPC that sells stuff for your house.

I'd also say make the new profession (carpentry, building, ?) a secondary because all the other primarys make something that helps you either gear up, do more damage, or something of the sort. "Carpentry" would just make something look pretty. therefore it seems like prime secondary material to me.

In my opinion the Housing part should never be implemented.

In runescape it was a moneysink to stop inflation, but it didn't really add much to the game. It costed a lot of time and money to make your house even slightly interesting. People only went to very well equipped housing to use the utilities there (or begg for money, whatever)

I just think that player housing means shutting yourself of from the other Warcraft players... in an online game. I remember that in runescape there was absolutely nothing interesting to do in your own house. There were some walls, some utilities, and a couple of fun things... that ment jack since there wasn't anybody to share the fun with.

Which, in turn, sounds like the house on The Realm (online), back on the day.

We had a lock box, and we could use some creatures pelts for rugs ... And lots of other stuff. Some players had a "profession" of decorating houses (payed online with gold), including some websites dedicated to it.