I've dabbled a bit with housing via previews, research, and the free Halls of the Lunar Champion, but houses are practically useless except as an exercise in decoration.
The most useful place is the South Morrowind base in Cyrodiil. It contains: wayshrine, banker, merchants, stablemaster, every single type of crafting station, outfit station, home furnisher, war researcher, and gold vendor, all of which you can use free of charge at any time. No other place in ESO is set up better than this particular spot.
It is a FREE port (no timer) from ANY place in Tamriel for any character level 10 or higher. Simply press 'L' and port.
Some people argue houses allow you to have a target dummy for DPS calculations. Guess what? In Cyrodiil the whole zone is full of target dummies!
I unlocked all the rooms for the HotLC, and clearly its the best house value in the game. Hands down! But it doesn't have the functionality of South Morrowind.