How's the housing / farming aspect? Time consuming, or fun?
Also, what are the penalties for death when you're higher up and doing pvp.. can you lose gear or your ship during naval battles?
Can you lose a house or farm to other players?
I'm not to sure how long it takes to build a house, but I do know you need the mats to build it along with the deed. You can harvest the mats or buy em on the AH, or you can buy a house off of someone who wants to sell it to you.
As for farming I would say it is. You get your small farm around level 10, but if you want your 16x16 you have to do a trade run quest line which is time consuming and hard if you low level or not in a helpful guild.
Also, growing stuff does take a bit of time, I think so plants and live stock take hours and if not days.
That's why I said this game does take some patience, but if you find a good guild evey thing is way more fun since you can share and do other things.
As for PvP I don't think you lose gear, unless you have a trade pack on you. You do lose your ship though if it's blown up in a naval battle, so be careful there.
The only way to lose a house and farm is if you don't pay taxes on em and they just disappear.