I was new to housing when I came back to ESO last year for Elsweyr. I thought for friends or guildmates to have access to your house, you had to put the player or guild on the visitor list. But recently I realized that this may not be so. So I removed everyone from my list to test it, and realized friends can still go to my primary house even when I'm not there.

What I'm wondering is what is the purpose of the visitor list if it doesn't affect who has access to your house? Is it just there so you can assign limited visitor or decorator access?