The first day I worked as a Realtor was April 1 1978. Don't bother telling me that was April Fools day...I know.
The Arlington Board of Realtors had been formed about 29 years before that and I know it has been almost 29 years since I joined, so I guess I could tell you about half the history of Realtors in Arlington.
In 1978 we mainly used a book that was published every week to keep Realtors up to date with all the homes for sale. A lady named Cathy drove around and delivered the new books to each office, each week. We would jump on them right away and look at the new listings and the changes in the old listings.
The Board of Realtors did have a Multiple Listing mainframe computer. We could connect with it via a terminal that did not have a screen, simply a keyboard and thermal printer. No pictures. It was useful for some research but not real helpful yet at describing a home, so the book was kept in publication until the very early 1990's when almost everyone had faster connections and the ability to see detailed photos over web connections.
Still Brothers & Associates posted our first website in about 1994. It was not a very interesting website, very similar to our yellow pages display ad, but we were one of the first three real estate companies in Arlington and one of the first few in the country that had a website at all....so we did not have much of anyone to copy from. We have changed it up quite a bit over the last dozen or so years. For the last several years a customer has been able to use a link at our website and search for homes thru out the whole of north Texas listed by any of hundreds of companies. The way the multiple listing system downloads the property listings into our website (and all other real estate websites) has a few shortcomings, but it is a wonderful system just the same. It gives people the ability to spend hours or days to glance thru at their own pace and see what they might like to actually call us and walk thru. It does, however, continue to show some houses that are already under contract as if they are still available. This is partially the fault of an agent not updating as fast as they should, it is also partially the way the multiple listing system is set up (until a home buyer has done the inspection and decided the house condition is acceptable to them, the house still shows as available on the public web pages even though it can not be bought by anyone else). Like almost everything else (except my hair), I am sure the system will improve as time goes on.
This is an exciting time to be a Realtor and an exciting time to buy a house (Charlie and I have bought two in the last twelve months ourselves). Still Brothers & Associates is constantly looking at the great new opportunities that are all around us and we love the excitement of being a part of making all the changes come to pass. I have been looking at the possibility of a blog about real estate for a few years now. I just could not figure out if it would be interesting for people to read. I guess I will shortly find out.
