Cry all you want but it fair.
If your friend couldn't afford a small house to sit in and wait until a plot she wanted came open and have the gil for that, you're friend not putting enough effort into wanting that house. It easy, like seriously stupid easy, to make gil in this game. I've went through 1 small, to 1 medium, to 1 large to which I then lost because I couldn't play. Only got half my gil back from that large. Moved off my old server and bought another medium on new server. In total, that had to been a good 70-80mil if not more right there. I currently have 34.4mil after all that. If your friend wanted it that bad, she'd bought a small anywhere, made the gil back up and plus some to buy the plot she really wanted when it was open.

Sorry, but that how this game works. As others said, it how this system works and it never going to change. SE just going to keep throwing band aid fixes over the actual problem. Live with it or not. The smart one's will always beat you to the punch.