Why isn't housing a normal auction process?

[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)).