No way that acquiring a house in an undeveloped age costs a significant amount.
I looked it up because it smelled like bullshit to me.
The daily salary of a captain in the 1600th was 8 shillings (20 shillings = 1 pound).
The annual cost of a cottage (2 stories, 1 barn) in the early 1400th is 2 pounds.
Now even if we're being generous and assume that the cost is 10 times higher in the 1600th, it only take a captain ~1 month of work to pay the annual fee of a cottage.