ALL PHOENIX REAL ESTATE

Posted on August 30th, 2007 by Jonathan Dalton

A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Kay started a daily Good Vibes post. All of us could use some good vibes from time to time. For me, I managed to find a few at an Omaha Hi-Lo Table last night at Casino Arizona.

We’ll skip past the part where I was one of three players at the nine-person table in the housing industry - two agents and a lender - and go right to the heart of the matter. If you’re looking for the real estate analogy contained within the post, scroll down to the words “Welcome Back” and we’ll see you there. For those who play the game, and I know some of you so, read on …

All I really wanted to do was go home. I was down around $50 or so at a $3-$6 table but had decided enough was enough. I even said out loud that all I wanted were some lousy cards so I could fold and leave. Instead, I received Q-Q-4-3 with two diamonds - one of them the queen.

It was a kill pot so I antied my $6. Then another $6 on a raise. And then there were two more raises. And soon I went from just wanting to leave to calling $24 before the flop with my two queens.

I felt much better when I flopped a third queen as well as the ace of diamonds. That ace and the flopped deuce also gave me a draw for the best low hand. Everyone checked around, which was fine.

Then came another diamond, the seven if memory serves. Now I had a four-card draw to a flush and the best possible low hand at 7-4-3-2-A. Needless to say, I wasn’t going to check through. I bet, three others called.

On the last card, my entire focus was on the board pairing so I could take the full house. I had forgotten about the flush completely. So I had to do a double-take on the river when another diamond fell. And I had to pinch myself when someone else bet $12. I raised, still picked up two callers and then listened to the murmuring as I turned over the cards: the nut low hand, a winning flush and a $260-plus pot.

Yeah, that wasn’t so bad.

(WELCOME BACK!)

When I sat down at the Omaha Hi-Lo table last night, I was supremely confident of my abilities and my chances for success. I’ve played online quite a bit and knew the game as well as anyone could.

Or so I thought. Looking from the outside, such as in an online game, is far different than being on the inside in the casino.

Real estate is much the same way. Realtor-haters will tell you how easy this job is, how there’s no special skill set required to market and sell a home or to assist a buyer through a transaction. Some continue to take pot shots from the outside. Others get their license and discover their ideas aren’t nearly as good as they thought.

A couple of months ago on Housing Doom, a soon-to-be-licensee was explaining that all of these inventory homes should be sold through an auction strategy. Create demand and the home will sell. Great theory - almost as good as my raising with the low hand on the second hand I played yesterday, in that maybe it’ll work but more times than not it’s a mistake destined to lose money.

Auctions don’t always work well. In fact, they’ve been far less useful in our current market than in the past. The bidding doesn’t rise high enough to satisfy the seller and both parties walk away. (Auctions aren’t binding. All the high bidder gains is the right to negotiate to buy the house.)

There’s a substantial difference between doing this for a living and watching from the sidelines. Sometimes you don’t see it until you take that step across. But it’s there.

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