If you aren't on the pts you can't go into the player houses yet, but explorers will note that most of the player houses have rickety boards over their gates that allow first person peeking at the properties. So has anyone run out to the houses, and does anyone have "dibs" on a specific home? (A list is in the natch potes, linked at the top of the forums right now).
My pick from the outside is Hundings Hall in Stros M'kai. Wow that's an amazing home. 360 degree ocean views, and the obscure wayshrines of the starter islands keep pit the riff raff, lol. My friend says Mathiisen...much prettier, but...hum...high elves. You'd have a lot of mixers with really good wine, but if I have to hear one more forty minute conversation from an Altmer about his staff that isn't ironic double entendres...sigh.
But for the budget-conscious, the places in Baandari are really cool. Probably a lot of mosquitos. But if they get out of control, just invite a pact dragon knight over for a while and the smell will kill them all off.
The coolest mansion seems to be Ebonheart. Wow...the designers went all out there. It even has a public lava pool hot tub. No really, go take a dip in the flow coming down off the property. It's been temperature controlled perfectly so that you can relax and destress with no damage. You can't see much of the dagger fall mansion, but it looks massive. The Aldmeri mansion might be the most overpriced place in the game...sorry, my fellow khajit, but of the mansions this place looked pretty mediocre. Maybe it has a bowling alley inside or something, but from the outside it doesn't look worth $4 mil.
The houses look pretty cool. Not sure my khajit is going to give up sleeping next to the dumpster behind the inn in Rawl'kha, though. You wouldn't think French Onion Soup would be good after it's thrown out, but turns out 2 day dumpster soup is amazeballs.