Why isn't housing a normal auction process?

When a house becomes available, start an auction period on it (1 week perhaps) where anyone can go up to the placard and place a bid. At the end of the auction the highest bid wins the plot and everyone else gets their money back. No incentive for buying low just to resell, a more powerful gil sink, and no having to pray that you get lucky and catch a vacant lot some day before it gets scooped up. I'm a little surprised that it doesn't work this way already.

Because that's not how real estate works.

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Originally Posted by Raikki

When a house becomes available, start an auction period on it (1 week perhaps) where anyone can go up to the placard and place a bid. At the end of the auction the highest bid wins the plot and everyone else gets their money back. No incentive for buying low just to resell, a more powerful gil sink, and no having to pray that you get lucky and catch a vacant lot some day before it gets scooped up. I'm a little surprised that it doesn't work this way already.

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Cause not everyone is rich and housing shouldn't be only for the rich who can afford a price war. Some people work very hard to simply come up with the gil for a small. Everyone with the money for the listed price should be entitled to buy it. First come first served.

This sounds like it would be a bit more complicated to actually implement. Plus, it would make the housing market even more beholden to those with the larger wallets, which seems to be one of the key complaints about the current system as it stands.

I wouldn't argue with a system like this MIXED with what we currently have. Example being on Coeurl the smalls started at 4mil, you can go up and put a bid of say 200k, no one else buys, then you get for 200k (or the minimum of 1mil I guess), if someone comes along and put the max 4mil that was originally asked per devalue, then they win instantly, your still paying the devalued price of it at the time of putting a max but you also may win your house a lot cheaper.

It would work the same as now, sure someone may come along and buy them all and try to resell but having an auction to try to get cheaper wouldn't change that.

Bad idea due to a few factors:

1) The people with bigger wallets will hold even more of a monopoly: You think it's bad that they bought houses now? Imagine if they were able to spend 8mil to lock you out of the house you wanted. How about 10mil? 15mil? As long as they are below the 40mil mark, that house is a profit for them (At least on Balmung.)

2) This only means that people will camp it at the last minute: Imagine this. You put in a bid of 3 mil on day 1. 6 days later, you're excited - no one's outbid you! Your house seems almost reassured. Bound to you. YOURS.
Except SavvyMcUnderstandsHowAuctionsWorks waits until the last minute and puts in a bid of 3.1mil. He wins the auction, and you lose.

Auctions are bad. FFXI's auction house system is probably one of the few GOOD examples of an auction house system for a video game.

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

2) This only means that people will camp it at the last minute: Imagine this. You put in a bid of 3 mil on day 1. 6 days later, you're excited - no one's outbid you! Your house seems almost reassured. Bound to you. YOURS.
Except SavvyMcUnderstandsHowAuctionsWorks waits until the last minute and puts in a bid of 3.1mil. He wins the auction, and you lose.

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While I disagree with the auction suggestion, snipe bidding only works when people are attempting to be cheap.

If you bid the maximum amount you're willing to pay you'll never lose because a bid was "sniped". And by "lose" I mean this: if the maximum you're willing to pay is 1000 gil, and someone bids 1001 gil at the last second, then you didn't lose because of *how* they bid, but rather because they were simply willing to pay more than you were. Whether they bid 1001 gil a second before the auction ended or weeks before it ended would be irrelevant if you're not willing to go over 1000 gil - you lost because they were willing to pay more, not because of timing. And if you were willing to pay 1002, that's what you should have bid to start off with (particularly if the auctions uses a smart bid system (like ebay)).

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Originally Posted by Gyson

Snip

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the ONLY way this system works, is when you can anonymously put up the maximum amount and not have it be represented. If it's seen that you bid 1002 gil, then it's a faulted system for the same reasons I said so (And honestly you're just shooting yourself in the foot if you overbid on an item.)

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Originally Posted by seraphuslol

Because that's not how real estate works.

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Uh.. that's exactly how it is actually... especially if there's multiple offers for the parcel or property.

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

Bad idea due to a few factors:

1) The people with bigger wallets will hold even more of a monopoly: You think it's bad that they bought houses now? Imagine if they were able to spend 8mil to lock you out of the house you wanted. How about 10mil? 15mil? As long as they are below the 40mil mark, that house is a profit for them (At least on Balmung.)

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I'm not so sure I agree with this. I mean it has the potential to fall into your scenario as you suggested, but at the same time making it an auction reduces those chances. Right now you just have to be near the property and buy it quickly @ pricing x, then turn it over for profit over x.

But if the price soars up to a point that people can't turn profit over cost of auction, then they lose reason to bid in the first place.

But again, it could still go either way.

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Originally Posted by Gyson

While I disagree with the auction suggestion, snipe bidding only works when people are attempting to be cheap.

If you bid the maximum amount you're willing to pay you'll never lose because a bid was "sniped". And by "lose" I mean this: if the maximum you're willing to pay is 1000 gil, and someone bids 1001 gil at the last second, then you didn't lose because of *how* they bid, but rather because they were simply willing to pay more than you were. Whether they bid 1001 gil a second before the auction ended or weeks before it ended would be irrelevant if you're not willing to go over 1000 gil - you lost because they were willing to pay more, not because of timing. And if you were willing to pay 1002, that's what you should have bid to start off with (particularly if the auctions uses a smart bid system (like ebay)).

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If someone is willing to bid 4 million gil, they're willing to bid 4 million and 1 gil. Auction sniping is a real issue no matter how you spin it, the only solution is to have it so you have to outbid someone by a certain percentage, say 20%. Regardless of that, I think the auction idea is awful, saved gil for over a year doing things you enjoyed for a small house when they eventually become available? That's too bad, as a crafter with hundreds of millions gil will outbid you with more than you can make in 5 years of casual play (not taking into account gil inflation). Just seems like a suggestion that favours one kind of player over the other "That player bought the house first, that's unfair, it should have been a bid system so I could have outbid them with my immense wealth". Both are awful systems due to the limited demand, but one puts all players on equal footing while the other favours the richer players.

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Originally Posted by seraphuslol

Because that's not how real estate works.

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Really real estate works a lot closer to an Auction then you think... More so when 2 people want the same place.

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Originally Posted by Kyuuen

Uh.. that's exactly how it is actually... especially if there's multiple offers for the parcel or property.

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Not gonna argue. Reevaluate your statement after you actually buy a house

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Originally Posted by Colorful

If someone is willing to bid 4 million gil, they're willing to bid 4 million and 1 gil. Auction sniping is a real issue no matter how you spin it, the only solution is to have it so you have to outbid someone by a certain percentage, say 20%.

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Then make your initial bid 4,000,001 gil if that's what you were willing to bid. You also have it within your power to set your max bid at 4 million + 20%. If you were willing to pay more than that, then obviously you're not placing your maximum bid and making yourself vulnerable to snipe bidding. That's why I said "bid the maximum amount you're willing to pay".. "maximum" meaning just what it means.

At a certain point there's a number where you're going to be saying "I'm already paying far more than I wanted to and refuse to pay even a penny more", and then if someone outbids you that's how the cookie crumbles (regardless of when it happens). Be honest with yourself (particularly when a smart-bid system is in place) and snipe bidding becomes meaningless.

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Originally Posted by seraphuslol

Not gonna argue. Reevaluate your statement after you actually buy a house

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Congratulations to you if you were fortunate enough to buy real estate in real life without entering a bidding war with other interested parties. Suggesting it doesn't happen is incorrect, though.

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Originally Posted by Kewitt

Really real estate works a lot closer to an Auction then you think... More so when 2 people want the same place.

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Housing market is polar opposite.

Material merchandise auctions (non estate) start low and progressively go up until someone wins by time or reaches the buyout price.

Housing markets do the opposite. Sellers start high and gradually lower their price to find acceptable buyers.

EDIT: I'm not saying bidding wars never happen, is just incredibly rare that housing does turn into an auction IRL.

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Originally Posted by seraphuslol

Not gonna argue. Reevaluate your statement after you actually buy a house

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Originally Posted by seraphuslol

Housing market is polar opposite.

Material merchandise auctions (non estate) start low and progressively go up until someone wins by time or reaches the buyout price.

Housing markets do the opposite. Sellers start high and gradually lower their price to find acceptable buyers.

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If a single offer comes in on the house then yes, you are right. However if multiple offers come in on said property then a bidding war can be started. In which it's the sellers option to choose who it goes to; which more often than not, will end up going to the highest bidder.

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Originally Posted by seraphuslol

Because that's not how real estate works.

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But this isn't real life..its a fantasy game? And also that is exactly how it works..people place their offers for a house and then once the time is up, the seller chooses. So..wat? Of course if you build your own house then it is different ^.^

But yeah, houses don't usually go for auction like cars and so forth...but OP idea is better then what we have now. Either that or allow people to purchase one house only per FFXIV account! My FC have a large house and that is all we need tbh!

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Originally Posted by Gyson

At a certain point there's a number where you're going to be saying "I'm already paying far more than I wanted to and refuse to pay even a penny more", and then if someone outbids you that's how the cookie crumbles (regardless of when it happens). Be honest with yourself (particularly when a smart-bid system is in place) and snipe bidding becomes meaningless.

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Then we have two different mindsets, if I think that 6 million is the most I'd ever be willing to pay, I'm going to go the extra mile and pay a few gil extra. I'm willing to pay 6,000,230 gil, but now 6,500,000 gil. A dungeon run gets me what, a few thousand gil?That's the ability to have a sniping war for quite a lengthy amount of time depending on how soon they snipe. All it really results in salty players and however places the last bid by some lucky miracle. Disregarding the sniping argument, there's still the situation where only rich players have access to even small housing. Are you honestly telling me those who play the game all day crafting and making hundreds of millions should be the only ones allowed to own a house? In what way is that a better system than what we have now? It's an alternative, in no way is it better.

I understand this isn't real life, I also understand that people (including those in this thread) can't complain that they want immersion and realism and then cry when immersion and realism happen.

Also, unlike auctions, housing sellers can simply decide not to sell. Auction rules state that the item WILL be sold. That's not the case with real estate. Selling is at the discretion of the entity selling.

The main problem is that the housing prices haven't been adjusted since 2.38. There has been a considerable amount of inflation since with no new gil sinks. Dutch auctions are all good if people aren't willing to pay the max price, but here the max prices are cheap enough and land scarce enough that people will do it with an adrenaline rush in their haste.

Auctions by default take the ecosystem into account, and also give time for people to pay what they're willing (and any reasonable auction system would have minimum bid increments to prevent penny ante + time extensions to prevent obscene bid-sniping). True, the rich will win out over the lucky, but is it really fair to be lucky? Or maybe it will just make RMT more attractive, but I don't see that getting any worse. You'd get 80% back just by letting the land rot, so it's not like you'd losing everything by sinking gil into property.

One personal house per account should have been there from the start but it's too late now barring mandatory relinquishment (get full $$$ back I guess).

Q:

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Originally Posted by Colorful

Are you honestly telling me those who play the game all day crafting and making hundreds of millions should be the only ones allowed to own a house? In what way is that a better system than what we have now? It's an alternative, in no way is it better.

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A:

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Originally Posted by Gyson

While I disagree with the auction suggestion, snipe bidding only works when people are attempting to be cheap.

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/10char

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Originally Posted by Raikki

When a house becomes available, start an auction period on it (1 week perhaps) where anyone can go up to the placard and place a bid. At the end of the auction the highest bid wins the plot and everyone else gets their money back. No incentive for buying low just to resell, a more powerful gil sink, and no having to pray that you get lucky and catch a vacant lot some day before it gets scooped up. I'm a little surprised that it doesn't work this way already.

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Add to this a restriction on property ownership to one *personal* estate per account, per server, shared between any/all Alternat characters on the same account & server and you have a winner. Housing speculators who can't buy multiple lots and can't 'sell' property, or rather sell their relinquishing of a property, will quickly give up and look for something else to exploit for personal gain.

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Originally Posted by Gyson

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/10char

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My bad, I should have read it over. .-. Well glad to see you agree then, I don't see how the OP finds any benefit to this system. If you're already rolling in gil you might as well buy the house from another player.

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Originally Posted by seraphuslol

Housing market is polar opposite.

Material merchandise auctions (non estate) start low and progressively go up until someone wins by time or reaches the buyout price.

Housing markets do the opposite. Sellers start high and gradually lower their price to find acceptable buyers.

EDIT: I'm not saying bidding wars never happen, is just incredibly rare that housing does turn into an auction IRL.

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I am going to guess you are american and have never been in a community where housing shortage and an abundance of fools and money. In Canada in the province of Alberta this has happened in the last decade. Most houses sold for hundred of thousands of dollars more then listing. Realtors would not even sell houses until they got 4 or 5 competing bids. Some properties literally doubled in price from bidding. You still after the bid have mortgage insurance approve the property value. But at the time they were approving everything sky was the limit.

Good idea. People are worried about people with big wallets where I worry about the people buying houses off party finder for the price of lease just to have the person relinquish and said person also needs to pay for the lease now. effectively doubling the cost for that person, maybe even tripling because who sells at no profit in this scenario?

I don't like the 1 lot per account idea because it's fun playing Monopoly (I just have a small house so I don't play that housing game). Maybe also incorporate a system that allows you to sell the lease and plot in one go so the poor soul doesn't have to pay triple the price?

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Originally Posted by Stormrider

I am going to guess you are american and have never been in a community where housing shortage and an abundance of fools and money. In Canada in the province of Alberta this has happened in the last decade. Most houses sold for hundred of thousands of dollars more then listing. Realtors would not even sell houses until they got 4 or 5 competing bids. Some properties literally doubled in price from bidding. You still after the bid have mortgage insurance approve the property value. But at the time they were approving everything sky was the limit.

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Holy cap that's awful

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Originally Posted by Gyson

While I disagree with the auction suggestion, snipe bidding only works when people are attempting to be cheap.

If you bid the maximum amount you're willing to pay you'll never lose because a bid was "sniped". And by "lose" I mean this: if the maximum you're willing to pay is 1000 gil, and someone bids 1001 gil at the last second, then you didn't lose because of *how* they bid, but rather because they were simply willing to pay more than you were. Whether they bid 1001 gil a second before the auction ended or weeks before it ended would be irrelevant if you're not willing to go over 1000 gil - you lost because they were willing to pay more, not because of timing. And if you were willing to pay 1002, that's what you should have bid to start off with (particularly if the auctions uses a smart bid system (like ebay)).

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The purpose of an auction isn't to bid your maximum amount at first. That would simply be stupid because you could very well end up overpaying. When you bid at an auction, you bid the minimum amount required to beat the other bidders, then you offer more money if someone else outbids you. In the end, it is whoever is willing to pay the most over all, but the goal isn't to hit that cap immediately because other potential buyer's caps may be far lower and you're wasting your money if you pay your maximum immediately. This is why snipe bidding works, because the "sniper" is willing to pay a large amount of money to get the product, but they're smart enough to realize that they don't HAVE to if they wait and bid just slightly higher than the previous bidder at the last second. You say it only works when "people are attempting to be cheap", but that is indeed the primary point of an auction. Otherwise you'd have people paying a ludicrous amount of money for these things right off the bat, (for example in this case 500mil gil), because they didn't care about saving money. Auctions are designed to be so that whoever is willing to pay the most for an item, pays the least they could conceivably have to pay for it.....

As for the topic in question, I don't support this at all. The housing market is already controlled by a relatively small group of people who sit and watch for plots to open and buy them immediately. Sometimes though, other people can get them because they're a little bit faster. With an auction system though, the people with massive quantities of gil, (let's be honest, most of which are gil sellers), wouldn't have to watch for when plots of land open up. They'd just have to see when the last days of an auction are, and focus on outbidding people then. There would be no chance at all for houses to slip past them UNLESS someone Sniped them, which is highly unlikely to occur.....

The game could adopt a bidding system like most online auctions tend to use now-a-days..where the current bid may not even be the highest bid.

A ton of auctions which are not held in real time use this "maximum bid" function which will allow a person to show a current bid of x amount of Gil but will actually have y amount in the background and the system will auto bid for them if someone tries to snipe. It sounds like a terrible system but it works mainly because people will only realistically put down what they think the item is worth.

Now in regards to that last statement, to someone with large pockets a mansion would be worth, as an example, 200mil, but someone who desperately wanted to get a house for his friends and just never got the opportunity to be on when things opened put down 300 mil. Ridiculous? Maybe. To that guy who paid 100mil more for a house for his friends, probably the best 300mil he ever spent

There are better ways to address the housing shortage than a monopolistic, ill-conceived auction system. Just my opinion.

As a random aside, it'd be a stupidly effective gil sink on high-pop servers, though.