The guys from Obsidian have promised that they'll make it possible for every player with a decent reputation to build his own dwelling place, with quite interesting functions. Or at least I hope so, because the producers didn't say much about this. The only example which got out from their labs sounds like this: when the player goes off wandering aimlessly, he can leave one of his henchmen to watch over the dwelling and, while staying there, can do a bit of research for some better spells than those already available.