This patch was just an alternative to the housing timers. We have an entire city state housing area (Ishargd) of people backed up, and even those go fast. It's obvious this was going to be especially bad since all those players would funnel on a few wards. Especially after they oppenned housing access to personals.
It isn't something you can use to represent what the situation is. A lot of things led to the funneling of players today that wouldn't ordinarily be a thing in the lifecycle of the game.

With that said, I feel for those that were disapointed today. SE will hopefully take note. Good luck on the remaining timers, hopfully those aren't clogged full of people. And there's always next time with ishgard and the potential days they open housing timers again. It'll come soon enough. Housing is something to play over long periods. I ignored housing 99% of my playtime, just had an appartment, only spending time on it at key points (ward releases, enabling of housing timers, new city states, etc. etc). Getting a house was a smooth process for me since I dispersed my efforts over 2 years (but it took 2 years), it might be a worthwhile approach for someone reading this.
Also keep in mind that you can placard camp for an hour at a time. You don't need to do the entire duration. The only difference is that statistically you'll take about 10% more time on average to get a house compared to usual. And on average it takes as many hours to get a house (camping time) as it does to clear an ultimate with a midtier+ group. Obviously it's dreadfully teadious compared and way more subject to variance in "clear time", but keep a healthy pace of an 30mn- hour a day or something while you wait for extra cities/wards/timers. You should get there eventualy.