By Marty Douglas
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, thanks for joining us on this tour of the Canadian Real Estate Museum, located in the instant town of (pick one of Kitsault, Ocean Falls, Dakota Ridge, Inverhuron, Saint-Jérôme), created from the leftover broken promises of (pick one of mining, pulp and paper, recreation, the Zenn), funded by grants from various levels of government but basically from you, the taxpayer.
Our first exhibit is the one-page contract of purchase and sale, AKA the Interim Agreement. Note that the commission agreement formed the bottom paragraph of the document, removing the necessity of listing contracts and the subsequent evils of prospecting, listing contests and the MLS.
Here we have the key security system, consisting of a round cardboard key tag and key file box – total investment in 1970 dollars, $10 for an unlimited supply of listings. It was replaced by the electronic lock box, electronic key and charger plus the office spare for emergencies. Total cost for the whole package including insurance: $200 per listing.
The mechanical lock box, precursor of the electronic model, had a key or combination. It was frequently found on boat houses and sheds of former Realtors who couldn’t figure out a use for it while in real estate.
The Polaroid Land camera and its favourite accessory, the aluminum warming clip, held under the arm for developing one picture in 60 seconds in Canada’s northern climate. Of course, while you stood there with your parka unzipped, you froze to death.
The mortgage calculation tables for Canada where we compound semi-annually. The early editions gave monthly mortgage payments from four per cent to 10 per cent. In the early ’80s when rates burst through 20 per cent, those of us who could afford the updated book were burdened by its weight.
The interest rate factor – a number of about 27 digits following the decimal place, which allowed calculation of the monthly interest only owing based on semi-annual compounding. Of course our calculators couldn’t ingest the whole number so those of us with memories of the times tables and long division were kept busy. Sort of like monks illuminating the King James Bible.
The Hewlett Packard programmable financial calculator. The early versions cost about $1,200 – I saw my first in the late ’70s, and you needed a degree in Fortran to run it – but it did fit in the palm of your hand, if you had big hands – I mean huge. And you know what they say about men with large hands.
The teletype was the coolest future boat anchor in the office. It chunked and clanged as its carriage hammered out the incoming text and was of absolutely no use in my career except for exchanging jokes. Come to think of it, sort of like email today.
The telegram. Widely used for offer and acceptance and surprisingly legal despite the lack of a signature.
Blue laws were designed to enforce observance of religion by prohibiting Sunday shopping or otherwise conducting business on Sunday. They disappeared in Canada – wait for it – in 2010 when PEI joined the rest of Canada in overturning its prohibition. Those of us who broke the law frequently resorted to the false dating of contracts. It didn’t make the contract legal, but we felt better and we were pretty sure God was on our side. What with bingo and all, He was hardly going to quash commercialism as long as we avoided doing it in the temple.
The in/out board – we still have one. Some were peg boards, some electronic, some magnetic. Didn’t seem to matter what you had, the person marked in was usually out and return times were generally forgivable exaggerations.
The Gestetner. When it was cranking out multiple copies, the fumes made Woodstock look like a smoke-free environment. Never mind asbestos and second-hand smoke – what about Gestetner fluid?
Carbon paper, made obsolete by the photocopier.
Correcting tape made obsolete by the IBM Selectric with auto-correcting ribbon.
The pink message slip and the message slip spike. Carbon dating on the spiked messages determined office seniority.
The dumb terminal. Need I say more – it was too dumb to breed.
The daily pages of multiple listings in three-ring binders.
The standard commission page from the daily pages. (If you have one, the Competition Bureau would like to set up an anonymous tip line. But you have to be first!)
We’re running short of time so we’ll rush past the rest of the exhibits just to give a sense of the enormity of change in our business.
The MLS catalogue, buried with its cousins from Sears and Eaton’s.
The branded ashtray and cigarette lighter.
The pyramid Christmas booze letter.
The engineers’ scale and slide rule.
The Beta tape library.
The cassette tape library.
The cassette player.
Toe rubbers – really, that’s what they’re called.
The digital camera, killed by the smart phone.
The suit and tie.
The Christmas party.
The beer fridge.
The flip chart.
The overhead projector.
The gentleman in a fedora holding open a door for a lady.
The fedora.
The lady.
Finally, here are the pedestals for those exhibits expected within a year or so – the fax machine, the CD library and the Blackberry. And by the way, to show change is not always constant, the ball point pen and the QWERTY keyboard have been with us for more than a century and show no signs of fading.
You can find Marty Douglas on Twitter – 41yrsrealestate – Facebook and LinkedIn. He is a managing broker for Coast Realty Group, with offices on Vancouver Island, the Discovery and Gulf Islands and the Sunshine Coast of B.C. Marty is a past chair of the Real Estate Errors and Omissions Corporation of B.C., the Real Estate Council of B.C. , the B.C. Real Estate Association and the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board. [email protected].
