Generations in real estate
á William H. Bosley was born in 1889 in Somerset, England. He came to Toronto at 23 and worked in the CP Railway yards for $40 a month. In 1920, he helped set up the Toronto Real Estate Board and, later, the Ontario Real Estate Association. His company, founded in 1928, was for decades based at 27 Wellesley St. E. In the Second World War, he was a special adviser on land acquisitions for the Defence Department. He also chaired the Toronto Harbour Commissioners (now PortsToronto). He died while visiting family in England in 1965.
á Murray Bosley, William’s eldest son, was born in 1915. A story in the Toronto Daily Star called him the “youngest realtor in Canada” when, at 14, the Toronto Real Estate Board made him a member. He was an executive with Wartime Housing Ltd., a Crown corporation that built affordable housingbefore servingfor war as workersan artillery and officer veterans,in Europe. He and his brother, Raymond, bought his father’s real estate company in 1953. In the early 1970s, he campaigned to save Union Station. He died in 2013.
á Raymond Bosley was born in 1921. He served as a lieutenant in the Second World War, became president of the Toronto Real Estate Board in 1958 and, later, president of the family firm. “He taught me compassion and ethical dealing,” says his son, Thomas. Raymond died in 2013.
á Thomas Bosley, 68, won’t say how big the debt was when he took over the family firm in 1985. He turned it around by switching its focus from commercial to residential properties. He bought his first home in 1976 for $56,000, with a $1,000 down payment, then renovated it himself and sold it nine months later for $65,000. He bought and sold eight more homes for a profit before marrying and settling into a the same North Toronto home for 26 years.
á Ann Bosley, 65, began at Bosley Real Estate as a receptionist. She married Thomas in 1983, went on to build the company’s most successful branch and set up the training course for new realtors. She has been president of both the Toronto Real Estate Board and the Canadian Real Estate Association. “The better the sales agent, the easier they make it look,” she says. “So you are constantly fighting clients who think your job is a piece of cake.”
á Christan Bosley, 30, is the mother of a 14-month-old boy. Her husband is an appraiser of commercial properties at a different firm. She got her first taste of real estate during her final year at Western. “I was lucky enough to have an inheritance and I figured I could be immature and go to Europe and blow it and have the time of my life, or I could save my sanity and move out,” she says, laughing. “So I bought a condo.” Three properties later, she lives near her parents in North Toronto.
“The better the sales agent, the easier they make it look. So you are constantly fighting clients who think your job is a piece of cake.”
ANN BOSLEY PICTURED ABOVE WITH HER HUSBAND, TOM, AND DAUGHTER, CHRISTAN