I found Lakeview Manor to be an excellent starter home. You can get it very, very quickly after arriving in Skyrim. No complicated quests to go through, just kill a bandit leader and your done. Almost all of the materials can be got for free as long as your are willing to do some dungeon clearing (Embershard Mine and Halted Stream Camp are your two primary, early targets for their iron.) So beyond the 5k for the land, it is not going to cost you very much.

The houses in Hearthfire are wonderful for people who are into crafting. Finally, all your crafting needs are brought together into one location. Plus there is storage right next to the crafting stations, unlike most of the existing homes. Lakeview also excels in this regard because the guardians stones are right down the road and you can switch up your stone quickly depending one which crafting skill you are currently working on. About to work on smithing? Run down and get the Warrior stone. Going to brew some potions? Run over and get the Thief stone. Ready to do some enchanting? Power leveling illusion? Alteration? Run back and get the Mage stone.

Also, depending on who and how many folk you have in the house, you won't have to put up with all those annoying NPCs. No more guards telling you about their arrow in the knee. No more Nazeem asking if you have been to the cloud district. No lizard offering you work when you get bored. Plus the NPCs that you do have at home will actually get out and do stuff. Ysolda just loved using the grain mill at Heljarchen Hall. My steward apparently is practicing to be a miner some day. Your housecarl patrols the grounds looking off into the distance for any trouble.

And if you are into displaying armor, there are plenty of mannequins available. Too bad there are not more weapons plaques though. Mostly you get a lot of shield plaques.

Kind of drifting off topic, but Bethesda Game Studios and Arkane are both published by Bethesda softworks now, and the business end of publishing says that competing with yourself is always a bad idea. Just look at what Capcom did when it released all those Silent Hill games in March-April. They essentially ruined their own Fiscal Year.