How are Real Estate Transactions like Playing Poker

In this video Pittsboro Real Estate Broker Eric Andrews shares an interesting story and discusses the similarities between playing a hand of poker and conducting a real estate transaction. Just like poker, you need to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em and when to walk away.

 

Speaker 1:           How is real estate like poker?

Speaker 2:           Well, you have to know when to hold them.

Speaker 1:           Know when to fold them?

Speaker 2:           Know when to fold them, know when to walk away, and you do need to know when to run. I mean, one the expressions we have is, “Don’t show your cards.” We had a woman one time that she was represented by another agent. My client had this home for sale, who is a client that I actually play poker with, and the woman made an offer on the home. Then she got on Facebook and said, “Oh my gosh, I hope they take my offer. I’d pay anything for this home.” So he goes onto Facebook, he sees this and he’s like, “Here,” countered back at full price. Well, she was showing her cards. That’s one thing you didn’t want to do in poker.

There’s some bluffing that goes on. I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a buyer say, “Offer this and I’m not going up a penny,” and then I’ll have a seller say, “Counter at this and I’m not going down a penny.” Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. It’s not good to bluff in those situations. If you’re going to throw down the gauntlet, make sure that really is, but there’s give and take. There’s give and take, but then if that’s really your walk-away price, you do have to be willing to walk away.

There are situations where if you’re at a poker table and everybody’s hitting it hard and everybody’s betting, that probably means there’s some good hands out there. Well, guess what? If there’s a listing out there and everybody’s hitting it hard and everybody’s making them offers, it might go for a price higher than you expect, so maybe that’s something that you don’t want to be involved in. There are some gambling strategies as far as houses are concerned. There’s bluffing, there’s betting. I don’t have a whole lot of lying or cheating or whatever, I don’t see any of that in my poker deals. I have good clients, but there’s some analogies.