Tips for buying against Plot not yet available for purchase. 4.2 housing

[Thief]

I was finally able to purchase my first house! Landed a plot in Lavender Beds, it was a fun, stressful, and exciting hunt that lasted about a week. I wanted to put out some info and tips to those still house hunting, because when I started there wasn't much on the topic except "It's a random timer"

Unfortunately, I can confirm from my experience that this timer is 100% random. I tried a few things while hunting and compiled my experiences below:

-I have never seen a plot sell in less than 8 hours, if it goes quicker, chances are it was a relocation...
-I have seen plots stay unavailable as long as 14 hours
-I have seen plots devalue as much as 2 times, and sometimes not at all. The plot I bought stayed at 3,000,000 purchase price until I bought it. Devaluation timers don’t appear to be relevant to availability.
-I have seen plots with a sale time of 4:44pm. 10:17am, 3:34pm etc. Plots DO NOT become available at the top of the hour as I initially suspected.

[Thief]

-I have seen plots sell in between minutes as well. This proves that plots do not become available at the top of a minute. I was trying only to buy when the minute would turn over and lost a plot. Plots literally become available at any second. This really sucks because it means it's a spam fest with multiple competitors.

So, tips for buying:

1. Watch the wards and the clock
Check the wards before you do something that will take about 8 hours, like going to work, school, or sleep. Write down on a paper what plots are available and their location. When you get to play again, check wards, if those same plots are still up, they are getting close to being able to purchase. No need to sit on these all freaking day, you'll waste your life and get more frustrated. This can keep your hunts down to 1-4 hours roughly. Unless it’s one of the longer 14+ hour waits.

[Thief]

2. Try a controller
It's a lot easier than the mouse, and produces less fatigue. This is personal preference of course but try it out. Also the targeting with a controller is as simple as pressing X to get you right on the placard.

3. Put yourself in /busy status
This will keep you from receiving unnecessary chatter or tells, or harassing ones from the competition.

4. Hunt in blocks
This is a big one, try to set a window for hunting of 2-4 hours. Anything more is really taxing and emotionally hard if you don’t get the plot. If you only spend 3 hours hunting, there isn't so much heartache when you lose out as opposed to 10+ hours of wasted time. That will wreck you. Using the timing method above should accommodate this. Since you know which plots have already been available for 8+ hours. If you can, put a movie on or something else to help pass the time.

[IkaraGreydancer]

2. Try a controller
It's a lot easier than the mouse, and produces less fatigue. This is personal preference of course but try it out. Also the targeting with a controller is as simple as pressing X to get you right on the placard.

3. Put yourself in /busy status
This will keep you from receiving unnecessary chatter or tells, or harassing ones from the competition.

4. Hunt in blocks
This is a big one, try to set a window for hunting of 2-4 hours. Anything more is really taxing and emotionally hard if you don’t get the plot. If you only spend 3 hours hunting, there isn't so much heartache when you lose out as opposed to 10+ hours of wasted time. That will wreck you. Using the timing method above should accommodate this. Since you know which plots have already been available for 8+ hours. If you can, put a movie on or something else to help pass the time.

Ive been doing step 4 and all that manages to do Is help me realize that housing isnt worth what you have to go through to get one. Spliting my hunting up just makes me want to go back and do something productive in the game. In stead of sitting at a placecard. (No jab at you of course)

[Thief]

5. Find a purchase spamming rhythm
Get into a zone with your purchase clicks. I would sometimes spam super crazy then wait, or would just try a few times every minute or so. Pick what works for you. I did notice that the more people spamming seemed to lower the wait, but I don’t have any data to back it since I don’t know exactly how much they were trying to buy. I do know I lost two houses after spamming hardcore for about 10 minutes with 3-4 other players trying also. When I took a break after spamming I came back to them being sold….

[DalmasHamon]

Hey! Ty for the guide. This stuff is hard to find. I have a couple questions.

1. When you purchased your house were you spamming against another player? I've lost 3 spam offs so far after 10+ hours. It felt like their cadence was muuuuch slower as well. So I was wondering if there is some refresh that needs to take place.

2. Do all properties start with the same devaluation timer? If so what is it/what can it be? It seems like the ones I've been seeing might start at 15 or 16 hours for the first devalue. I'm trying to isolate this so I can consistently tell how long a property has been available.

[Dustytome]

Do all properties start with the same devaluation timer? If so what is it/what can it be? It seems like the ones I've been seeing might start at 15 or 16 hours for the first devalue. I'm trying to isolate this so I can consistently tell how long a property has been available.

The devaluation timer should be every 6 hours, then it refreshes after lowering the price slightly until it eventually hits the lowest point which is a little under 50% the original price.

[DalmasHamon]

The devaluation timer should be every 6 hours, then it refreshes after lowering the price slightly until it eventually hits the lowest point which is a little under 50% the original price.

Below image shows devaluation timer over 14 hours left.
So the information in the Playguide is incorrect or at least incomplete.
http://imgur.com/a/22Y5q5g

[Ryoben]

SE has done a great job in FFXIV with removing many of these types of frustrating situations found in FFXI but have failed miserably with housing. My wife is now logging in on a regular basis to spam for housing hours on end. We are blocked from a significant amount of content by this and to make matters worse, we lost a house and everything in it the last time we took a break. They could remove a lot of this frustration by showing a countdown timer for private purchase.