IMO What they should have done is left it up to a silent auction kind of thing. You see a house for sale, you throw up what you would be willing to pay for the house and whoever offered the highest gets it after the 24 hour bidding period from when the house went "For Sale". It's honestly the only reasonable way to go about it because unless you tell other people what you bid, you can somewhat determine how much the house is worth it to you. Additionally if you really want it you can just throw a large amount of money at it. If someone still managed to bid more than you, well they clearly wanted it more.

Fortunately I have myself a house already located in Lavender Beds but it was beyond annoying to camp a house for hours, someone shows up for a significantly small fraction of that time and ends up getting lucky on when they pressed it.