Player housing is one of those features that sounds simple and turns out to shape your whole server. Where people live decides where they hang out, which roads get traffic, and what real estate agents, burglars and police end up doing all day. It’s also one of the easiest places to overspend on interiors that nobody visits.
The notes below are about planning housing so the buildings you pay for actually get used.
Shells, MLOs or both?
Most housing scripts give you two options. Shells are small interiors that sit somewhere hidden on the map, and players teleport into them through a door marker. MLOs are real interiors built into the world at the actual address, so you walk in through the front door.
Shells are cheap on performance and you can have hundreds. MLOs feel far more real, because the house is actually there and you can see the street from the window. Neighbours can knock on the door. Police can watch the house from a parked car.
A lot of servers mix them: shells for the bulk of ordinary apartments, MLOs for a smaller set of houses that matter for roleplay. That’s usually the best value.
Which houses deserve a full interior
Spend your MLO budget on homes that will see heavy use or carry story weight:
- Gang houses and crew hangouts, where a lot of players gather.
- Mansions and big properties that a wealthy character or a business owner would buy as a status symbol.
- One or two starter homes in a busy area, so new players see lived-in housing straight away.
- Remote properties like cabins or farmhouses, which give county roleplay a base.
When you look through house MLOs for FiveM, check the mix of styles in the range before choosing. Cities feel more believable when the housing isn’t all one look. A modern home, a beach house, a cabin up north and a tight city house on the same map read as a real place.
Think about who lives there
Before placing a house, decide who it’s for. A big modern home suits a businessperson or a celebrity character. A modern house interior aimed at wealthy characters fits that tier: its listing talks about bedrooms, kitchens and panoramic views, which is the kind of place someone saves up for and then throws parties in.
Smaller houses in South Los Santos or Sandy Shores are better for gang members, new arrivals, or characters who are deliberately living on the margins. Matching the building to the character makes your real estate agents’ job easier, because they can actually pitch homes to different types of buyers.
Plan for burglary and raids
If your server runs house robbery, MLO homes become targets. That’s great for roleplay, but it means thinking about how a break-in plays out. Where’s the entry point? Is there a back door or window? How long does it take police to get there?
Spread robbery-eligible houses across different areas so police can’t just camp one neighbourhood. And keep owned player homes separate from robbery targets unless your community is fine with people losing their stuff.
Storage and wardrobes
Every housing script needs at least two points inside: a stash and a wardrobe. Many also add a spot to log out or change character. When you look at an interior, check that there’s a sensible bedroom for the wardrobe and somewhere like a garage or basement for storage. A stash floating in the middle of a living room looks odd.
If the house has a garage, check whether your garage script can use it as a parking spot. Players love parking inside their own house, and it’s one of the details that makes an MLO feel worth it over a shell. How ps-housing, qb-houses and esx_property handle those points is covered in our ESX and QBCore setup guide.
Don’t crowd one neighbourhood
Several detailed houses on the same street can add up. Each interior is streamed when players are nearby, so a cul-de-sac with five full MLOs costs more than five houses spread around the map. Placing them with some distance keeps performance steady. For the technical side of why this happens and what to measure, the MLO performance guide covers streaming, LODs and resmon checks.
Start with fewer, better homes
Launch with a small number of good houses and a pile of shells. Watch which areas players actually want to live in, then add more full interiors there over time. You’ll spend less and end up with neighbourhoods that feel busy instead of a map dotted with empty mansions.
When you plan the next batch, the FiveM MLOs catalogue also covers the businesses that sit around a neighbourhood, like corner shops, bars and gyms, which helps a residential area feel like somewhere people actually live.