It
is hard
for me to
believe that I have been in real estate for more than half a century.
My
journey began in 1950, a time I describe as being halfway between the
Great
Depression and the Great Agency Debate. This journey is especially
surprising
because, like almost everyone else I know in this business, real estate
was
never my idea of a career I wanted to pursue. I had been chasing fame
and
fortune in show business and was just beginning to play with that
wonderful
new innovation called "television" when my husband, who was a builder
and subdivider,
persuaded me to try marketing his merchandise. I
agreed—possibly
because both fame
and fortune were proving to be exceedingly elusive—to give it
a try.
One did
need a license to practice real estate even then, but no course of
study
was required, and one could choose to take the exam for either the
salesperson'
license or the broker' so of course I chose to be a broker. Neither
exam
was designed to challenge anyone who had better than a fifth grade
education.
This explains why it happened that within 30 days of making the
decision
to try this, I had a broker' license and a company. Also three
salespeople
and a receptionist, all of whom undoubtedly knew more about the
business
than I did. Our office was equipped with all of the latest
state-ofthe-art
equipment, which is to say wehad dial phones and an electric
typewriter. There
were no computers, fax machines, copiers, cell phones or voice mail. We
computed
with pencil and paper, made copies with carbon paper, and relied on
human
beings (who were not always reliable) to take messages.
Most of the homes
we sold then were priced in the teens; $35,000 bought a luxury
property.
Open listings were common — sellers being convinced that if
one broker
was
good, three would be better, and I suppose we really didn' know enough
to
argue that point. Earnings ranged somewhere between poor and pitiful.
It
was a great blessing when the NAR® (then known as the National
Association
of Real Estate Brokers - NAREB) started to push exclusive-right-to-sell
listings.
I do recall, however, that at that time many were heard to say,
"Sellers will never
stand for this." Did anyone hear a variation on that theme when
contracting with buyers surfaced?
There was no Fair Housing law, no RESPA, no Truth-in-Lending,
no ADA, no Interstate Land Sales Act, no time share law, no Equal
Credit
Opportunity Act and no private mortgage insurance. This was the heyday
of
caveat emptor (buyer beware) and a buyer who turned out to be
disappointed with some aspect of the purchase would blame himself
instead of heading for
a law office. The first time my company was threatened with a lawsuit
occurred
after we had been in business for 20 years. Federal anti-trust laws did
exist
back then as did the common law of agency, but we were all blissfully
unaware
of their existence. I had no clue as to whether the prospect I had in
tow
was a client or a customer and couldn' have cared less.
Most of the conventional
loans were made by the local S&L, and the lender probably knew
the
borrower
personally and his daddy before him. Since the loan was almost
certainly
NOT destined for any secondary buyer, the qualification process was
sort
of personal, and the 30-year fully amortized loan, only recently
introduced
by the FHA, was probably the only choice given.
Many of our buyers, however,
had recently served in World War II and opted for the VA loans (then
called
GI loans). These were ugly. The interest rate did not float but was
fixed
by the bureaucrats, and usually lagged behind the market rate. The
lender,
then, was inclined to charge plenty of points to equalize the yield,
and
points could NOT be charged to the borrower. Then too, the supply of
qualified appraisers fell far short of meeting the needs of this
mushrooming market,
so we were often faced with a VA appraiser who would have been hard
pressed to evaluate a can of peas. Also, the paperwork had to be sent
to Washington for approval before the loan was funded, so closings
could take 60 days or
more, and, would you believe, sometimes got lost and we had to start
all over
again.
The builders in my early days were local men who had hammers in their
back pockets and who built eight or ten houses a year, mostly custom
jobs,
and who supervised every phase of every building, taking great pride in
their
craftsmanship. Many of these homes are still standing and occupied. The
floor
plans were simpler but not otherwise very different. Closets were much
smaller,
bathrooms much fewer (one-and-a-half was luxury). The heating plant
burned
coal or oil, and air conditioning was virtually unheard of.
In our town we
built the first home that featured an amazing innovation—
living room
plus
a family room. When my mother-in-law saw this, she said, "Why that's
exactly
like the farm house I grew up in— we called those rooms the
sitting
room
and the parlor. " Then she went on to say, "Actually we only used the
parlor for
wakes and funerals." Was that somewhat prophetic?
Yes, there was a Board
of Realtors in my earliest days, and the members were mainly the
brokers
and owners, who happened to be in most cases—I don' think I
was the
first
woman to join but possibly the third or fourth. They accepted my
membership
graciously, but went on to say that I might be wise to avoid the social
occasions since they were traditionally stag parties and hardly
suitable
for the weaker sex.
Since title insurance was not yet available, proving
title was a laborious process. As broker I ordered an abstract of title
(a long and weighty document) from a title company and delivered it to
the
buyer' attorney who was to search it and render an "" It seemed to me,
though
I certainly didn' say so, that in the event a title problem turned up,
the
buyer' only recourse would be the unhappy one of suing his own lawyer!
Worse
still, it was theoretically possible for a laundry basket full of new
liens
to develop in the two or three-week period between the preparation of
the
abstract and the recording of the buyer' new deed. It was a good thing
that
title problems were extremely rare!
The broker had the responsibility for
preparing the closing statement and the necessary documents, including
the
deed (!) for the closing, although I do believe most of us hired an
attorney
for this chore. On closing day, in my conference room or the lender' we
gathered together the buyers and their attorney, the sellers and their
attorney,
the lender' attorney and me. It often turned out to be a very long
process,
and perhaps it was irreverent of me to think that the legal talent were
raising issues only to justify the bills they were going to submit.
The magnitude
of change is obvious if you compare how things were then and how they
are
now. Changes were sometimes occurring so gradually that we hardly
noticed
and sometimes came on quite suddenly as with the passage of a new piece
of legislation. Some changes were welcome but others were greeted with
far
less than wild enthusiasm. Every aspect of the transaction is
infinitely
more complex now than it was in the " days," and real estate agents
have
had to become ever more knowledgeable to be of service to clients. We
work
much harder now and we also earn more money. Some changes have proved
to
be for the best, but some others do make me wistfully yearn year for
the
"good old days."
Even now, one often hears real estate people complain about
their status in the ranks of public opinion. But in 1950 being compared
to used car salesmen was a reach. Back then, when you told your mother
you
were going into real estate, she would probably cry, "Oh Lord, did you
HAVE
TO DO THAT? Whatever will I tell my friends?" We have moved in the
general
direction of becoming professionals but have some miles yet to travel.
I
do believe the road is paved with learning.
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