I know that there are some changes coming to the housing system with EW, but I think we all know that isn't going to solve certain outstanding issues. I've only been playing since early this year, but as someone who has wasted weeks of my life camping out at placards to never get a plot, I've had this idea for quite some time on how SE could revamp the housing system.

Here's my idea:

A raffle-based housing system. When a plot opens up, everyone has 24 hours, from the time it went up, to enter the raffle for that specific plot (you enter at the placard in front of the plot). You can see how much time is left to enter by either checking the housing wards from the city aetherites, or by checking the placard for the specific plot.

After the 24 hours the raffle closes, a player gets selected at random, and is then given the chance to purchase the plot. That player will have 2 hours to claim and pay for the plot [the window to buy is so short because housing is in such high demand]. If you get selected, you'd be notified either by the email associated with your SE account, by in-game letter, or both. If a player fails to claim the plot within that time, another person gets randomly selected. This keeps going until the plot is sold AND built upon. Also, if someone transfers their estate to the plot, but vacates the plot within 24 hours of moving there, the raffle timer will continue as if it was never interrupted.

You could enter as many raffles as open plots available, but with some limitations:
(1) multiple characters from the same account couldn't enter a raffle for the same plot;
(2) you can only own one plot;
(3) you can't enter a raffle if you already own a home, or if any other character on your account owns a home. This means it's one plot per account (not per character, so making other alts wouldn't matter because you still wouldn't be able to enter a raffle with more than one character per account). There would be no exceptions to this, so people with grandfathered accounts wouldn't be able to bypass this.

I think a raffle is better than a lottery because no one has to worry about putting a down payment for a plot they might not ever get, and if you don't get selected by the raffle, you lose nothing, you don't have to waste time sitting in front of a plot sign for hours on end, and you don't have to worry about being refunded a deposit. Refunding gil deposits for housing entries seems like an unnecessary thing to program into the game, when it just feels like there is a way to avoid having to do that altogether. You either win, or just continue going about your day.

I'm not a programmer by any means, so there are probably some nuances that I don't understand, and some elements that I might be forgetting to consider, especially since i don't know how or whether this is even possible from a programming standpoint, but that's just my idea.

I'd love to hear some feedback on whether you guys think this is a good idea.