Why isn't housing a normal auction process?

[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.

[seraphuslol]

Because that's not how real estate works.

[LaylaTsarra]

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.

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.

[StriderShinryu]

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.

[AlphaFox]

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.

[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.)

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.

[Gyson]

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.

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)).

[Eidolon]

Snip

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.)

[Kyuuen]

Because that's not how real estate works.

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

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.)

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.

[Colorful]

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)).

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.