To be fair I don't think the devs expected players to click placards for hours on end. They probably expected you to go to the placard, find out it's not available yet, and come back later after doing some other stuff and maybe visiting other placards. It's clear they didn't understand just how badly some players want houses and also underestimated the impact of bots. They should have just implemented it as a straight up lottery which I feel the timer system is intended to be.