Top of the Deck

The Real Estate Poker Game So Far

This is C.M. Coolidge’s most famous work of commercial art, “A Friend in Need”, painted just after the turn of the 20^th Century.  He painted nine of dogs playing poker and another seven of them performing other manly pursuits like playing pool.  His images became so iconic that 50 years later another commercial artist named Arthur Sarnoff became popular doing paintings of dogs playing not only poker and pool but golf, and since then several others have gotten into this meme.

I couldn’t have guessed at the complexities that would occur in the behaviors of the buyers competing to purchase our CA house, so your guesses were certainly as good as mine.  The second offer, which had been above asking, was accepted but it fell off after the buyer revealed that he was writing multiple offers and that ours was not his favorite.

Meanwhile, the first offer which had been easily revealed to be a low-ball bluff (priced under asking and with a deadline) also came back with an offer above asking and no deadline – same quick escrow as before.  We accepted that offer, but we are still going to hold another Open House next weekend to get back-up offers in case some unresolved deal-breaker might occur during the 30-day escrow period.

Cassius Marcellus Coolidge was an interesting specimen of an early American “go-getter” type.  He was born in 1844 and in his long and varied career he superintended a school district, owned drug stores, founded a bank, wrote various kinds of humor and travel pieces for newspapers and even wrote a comic opera that was produced and performed.  He also invented those “comic foregrounds”, the things where you stick your head through to become part of a picture of a muscle-man or a lady trick-riding a horse.  He patented that idea.

Coolidge got the contract to create 16 paintings of dogs doing things when he was 59.  When he was 64, he married (for the first time) a woman 35 years his junior and they had a child the next year.  When Coolidge was in his seventies, interest in his art and writing dropped, so his wife went to work and he became a house-husband, a highly unusual thing in 1916.  He died in 1934 a few months shy of his 90^th birthday.  I couldn’t have met him, but he sounds like my kind of guy.

If our CA house closes successfully, we might be in Casa DeLuxe in time for the Fourth of July fireworks, viewable from our new front windows.  However, you never know with poker or real estate while the hand is still being played.  You could have four aces and still lose to a well-hidden straight flush.

Wish me luck!