If anyone could clear this up for me i'd appreciate it.

I've started my 3rd character and want to play an axe and shield Nord bard, possibly do the Mages college but overall just want to roam the countryside and be dragon free. I avoided ever going to Riverwood and Whiterun and the only Dragon so far is from the opening sequence. I know I'm able to become the Thane of the smaller towns like Morthal and Winterhold but obviously they have no houses to buy. At some point I'd like to settle down, maybe get married & have a place to hord my stuff instead of just selling it all the time to stay light on my feet.

I had plans to become the Thane of Riften as I like that house and the deck with the water view, and it's not over priced like Solitude. Following the wiki pages it says you can become Thane without ever doing any of the thieves guild quests. I helped the Argonian on the docks and the related quests from the Jarl to clean up her holds slight drug problem. But upon completing the quest I recieved a weapon from her but the dialogue never popped up to help X amount of people & buy a house to become Thane? I reloaded it a few times and tried completeing quests for her townspeople 1st and still no dice?

Am I wasting my time here? Dont really want to get all involved with the Markarth or Solitude quests if i still cant buy a house there either...


BTW, 1st character is Wood elf, assassin type where i completed the majority of the quests through 210 hours. I dual bladed most of the way with my goal to get to dual Katana's since I based my character off of Miyamoto Musashi (the inventor of dual sword combat)

2nd Character is an Ocr who only wears Heavy Armor, is a smithing genius and rocks the two handed battle axes and warhammers and is about 25 hours in.

For my 3rd I just want a peaceful Nord Bard who roams the land without shouting at everyone or messing with those pesky Dragons (nothing personal against them as I like slicing them up with my first 2 characters)

Thanks for any help you may be able to lend me

You can buy the house in Whiterun as soon as you bring the Dragonstone Tablet back from Bleak Falls Barrow. However, this immediately starts the next quest so you can never go to that watch tower or the dragon fight will trigger. Also, it mean's the Jar's Housecarl will be there permanently.

However, there are several houses to buy, you just have to do a quest or two for the Jarl of that hold or for the hold's city before you can get it.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Houses

Badprenup (btw nice name & not being sarcastic)

I appreciate your quick reply, but I feel maybe you didn't read my whole posting.

As you can see I've played this game more than extensively and I mentioned reviewing the wiki for assistance. I've bought all the houses with my 1st character and I know that as long as you don't speak to the Jarl of Whiterun you can keep the game dragonfree. And also I tried completing the quests for the Riften house except for joining the Thieves guild...

I just am hoping I dont find out that to own a house in any hold you have to start the Dragon festivities...

Has anyone else tried a play thru like this? I cant be the only one?

You don't need to start the MQ to buy houses in the other cities. At least not in Riften, as I have the house there on my Bard who hasn't talked to Balgruuf yet.

For the actual Riften thing, the same thing happened to me. Sometimes the quests just don't start. If you are on PC you can use the console command

setstage FreeformRiftenThane 10

And that will start the quest. Otherwise it won't matter how many people you help. By the time I figured that out I had done half of the possible quests that weren't Radiant lol

Edit: Also, sorry for not reading the entire OP, I missed a part.

Great news! Thanks

When I tried before my character was pretty new, maybe only level 7-8... Maybe you have to be above 20 or something before the Jarl of Riften will have that conversation available. I think I remember seeing that for a different city? Markarth maybe?

I'm up to level 15 now so I'll keep going back every few levels and see if I can get my house going...

Thanks again that awesome news to know I'm not wasting my time here...

I'm pretty sure the Whiterun house is the only one you need to start the main quest to get.

I'm playing a couple of "non-dragon born" characters so I'll know for sure pretty soon here.

I found the best way to avoid the main quest and the over grown cliff racer spawns. Instead of going to Bleak Falls. I went to Riften and did some fetch quests.
The Riften House isn't too big. But it is a good starter house to store your stuff at low levels and save for a bigger place.

Thanks Again Badprenup, yeah unfortunately no console commands for me as i've been playing on PS3... ( a lil lag here & there when my file save was 15mb, but nothing to throw a hissy fit over)

Tried going back to Riften and the Jarl there is clueless in terms of helping me become Thane, I may have to bite the expensive bullett and go for the Solitude house. At least the Jarl's court is prepared to have me clean out the Vamp Cave, hopefully I can knock those Quests out and they'll offer me the "help X amount of my townspeople and you can buy a house and become Thane"

Better start saving my cash...

Fear not, it does in deed work. Just got the right to purchase property in Solitude... I have 8k on me so time to save up for my mortgage!

You can buy all the other outside of whiterun. Reguards to riften the number of people to help never popped up, but I was able to buy the house anyway. You have to help quite a few people though. I do think honeyside is the best house to own as well.

In riften the jarl never ask you to do a certain amout of quest to help inhabitants.

Just do quests and regulary check with the jarl if a new dialogue option is available.