After 47 years as a real estate agent, Vern Morton found himself seated in front of a pile of forms. He was just about to sign off on a long and unbroken career and enter a new chapter of his life, one that did not require he get up each morning to show homes or put together deals. But at the age of 73 with his long-time employer about to shut off the lights, he realized he was nowhere near ready for gardening or euchre games at the clubhouse.
He thought about past friends who had taken their retirement packages from places like General Motors, but did not (in his words) “last very long afterwards”. Without anything meaningful to be involved with, Morton says, “I determined really quickly that I wasn’t going to quit,” he says.
Instead, he approached a local brokerage and asked for a job. His new boss, Rafael Roberto of Coldwell Banker RMR in Durham, Ont., gladly took him on.
That was four years ago. Morton, now 77, has just reached his 50-year anniversary as a member of the Durham Region Association of Realtors and was recently awarded a rare gold ring in recognition of this accomplishment. He wears it proudly as a symbol of his dedication to a business he describes as “stimulating” in which each deal is as different as the people seated across the table from him.
Ralph Roberto, Vern Morton
The secret to his longevity is a simple formula that puts customers before profit. He attributes his people skills to some early lessons learned while growing up on a 200-acre farm without hydro or running water. Each morning until the age of 13, he would be responsible for fetching water from a cold spring well for the family’s cleaning and cooking activities. It taught him about integrity and the primacy of relationships over money.
At 17 he left the farm to study at a trade school, and later took a job in Peterborough with Ruddy Electric, a wholesaler of electrical products. He stayed there for nine years.
The company transferred him to Oshawa where he happened to meet Paul Ristow, who owned a real estate brokerage. The year was 1964 and Ristow had just created The Financial Trade Building in Oshawa. Morton was intrigued by the well-heeled location and the fact that Ristow always wore a suit and a tie to work.
“I thought, now this is an interesting way to make a livelihood,” Morton says. “He didn’t have to make a deal every day. He could do one every two weeks. He seemed to be doing quite well. That lured me into the business.”
Soon after, Bud Fleming partnered with Ristow to form Ristow and Fleming Limited. The company remained small but productive and became known for developing commercial and residential properties that were unique and quality-built. Morton speaks especially highly of two deluxe condominiums which are known as Plaza 700 and 900 Wilson Road North. “Thirty years later those two buildings are still the best in the area,” he says.
Spending 47 years with one company was not a difficult feat considering how much Morton respected the integrity of the operation and its culture of teamwork.
He is also proud of having been a part of building stable communities in his hub of Oshawa, Whitby and Clarington, Ont., at a time when people bought homes for the long haul and not as a means of making a profit, as is often the case today, he says.
Vern Morton, Jane Hurst
Over half a century, he has watched Oshawa transform from a once self-sufficient one-industry town, to its present day status as a “commuter haven” thanks to the extension of the GO Train and the Highway 407. These shifts have brought challenges – everything from higher population density, to smaller lot sizes in new developments and sometimes-painful cultural assimilation.
He says he has seen too many people enter the real estate industry with profit as their prime motivator or a reliance on flashy cars and other pretensions to build their client bases. “A lot of people are attracted to our industry strictly for money and unfortunately they do not have the legs to stay with it for a long period of time,” he says.
From a client perspective, he waxes nostalgic about the days when door knocking and phone calls were a legal way to prospect, and when the most tech-savvy advertisement was a front lawn sign or an ad in a newspaper.
He doesn’t see technology as a magic bullet to the business and thinks that sometimes it can even be a hindrance. “In the early days we would pick up data sheets in person from the real estate board office. That was our inventory. Buyers would depend on the agents for the source of all listings information versus today when everyone has access to the information online. This serves to drive up the pricing with multiple offers. No one knows what anything is worth in this frothy market,” he says.
But you don’t last for 50 years without adapting to change. He has had to learn how to use technology to keep pace with the industry but he remains skeptical about the promise of social media as a business tool. (His version of Facebook, he jokes, is walking onto the street and meeting people face to face.)
“Really what it comes down to is that the actual sale is a one-to-one person relationship and that has not changed and that is not going to change,” he says.
Now he mostly works as a sellers’ agent, dealing with past clients and friends, helping them get the top price for their homes, which, in many cases, he sold to them initially.
His advice to young sales reps: “Be prepared to work hard. It doesn’t come overnight. There are a lot of hours that go into making a sale. Gaining the confidence of the buyer takes time; it may even take a lifetime.”
Carrie Brodi is a contributing writer for REM.
