[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Firstly...
[playful dig]
Heirarchial. Heirarchial! HEIRARCHIAL!!

Now that that's out of the way...
[/playful dig]
You, as a player, can go ahead and buy the house. It's one player that owns the house, mechanically, anyway. You can say it's the guildhouse later, if you like, but currently there is absolutley no difference between residential and commercial real estate on Layo.

You can RP a group of friends, sure. Be careful, though, not to have anything even remotely official... This "Mining company" seems a bit much, if you really want to get down to it. Ranewin and Pyyran (used to) make alchaemical goods together, for sale and trade. They made pretty good business, too, but it was just the two of them; two independant crafters who decided they'd be better off sharing reagents (though the much-desired reagents have a tendancy to get used very quickly, by whomever stumbles across them) than working alone. You can do something like this with a slightly larger group, I imagine, but remember... Be careful to not make anything official.

Bob makes Widgets. He needs Sprockets, Whizzlers, and Wadgets to make the Widgets, though, and he can't make any of those three basic components.
Sally makes Sprockets, Freebies, and Whizzlers, but needs Froodles to make Whizzlers. Bob can make Froodles, though.
Jim can make Wadgets, but he needs Freebies to do it.
Solution? Sally makes Freebies, gives 'em to Jim. Jim makes Wadgets while Bob makes Froodles, which he then gives to Sally. Sally makes Whizzlers and Sprockets, and finally Jim and Sally hand over thier Sprockets, Whizzlers, and Wadgets to Bob. Bob makes a Widget, sells it, and splits the gold.

Mmm, economics.