Seasoned Realtors tackle technology
The new year, as usual, will bring technological innovation, and some seasoned Realtors, as usual, will meet it with decades of experience.
Here, from the Oklahoma City Metro Association of Realtors, are snapshots of three Realtors, well into their golden years, and their takes on technological change.
Zane Shelton,
82, with Coldwell Banker Select, 7101 Northwest Expressway, Suite 750, started her real estate career in 1967 as a commercial property manager. She added residential real estate in the 1970s.
She shows no signs of stopping. Along with being a full-time Realtor, she is a substitute Sunday school teacher and is learning Hebrew online.
Shelton’s tenacious spirit and love of learning have helped her keep up with the industry’s technological advancements. She was an early adopter of software to access the Multiple Listing Service from her home office.
She also remembers a time when Realtors had to qualify their buyers.
“We had to fill out the prequalification application with a client’s Social Security number and call the bank to find out what interest rate they had,” she recalled. “We had to find out how much more a client owed on a car or if they bought a TV set, put in account numbers, take the documents to a lender and introduce them to a lender. Sometimes it took several days.
“Computer checks to qualify people nowadays take 15 minutes. But now we don’t even qualify the buyer. We set them up with a lender.”
John Mosley,
82, with Century 21 Mosley Real Estate in Chickasha, followed his father into the real estate business in 1961 after finishing his service with the U.S. Air Force. Mosley has seen many changes during his six decades in the industry. When he started, there was no uniform contract used throughout the state, and computers were not used to draft them. As former chairman of the Oklahoma Real Estate Commission’s contract committee, he helped institute the state’s uniform contract in the 1990s.
“When I started, we were typing on a typewriter or writing contracts by hand,” he said. “Back then, forms were not provided by the Oklahoma Real Estate Commission as they are now. The forms were all different. There were more local boards, and they each had their own contract. We just learned to read them. “The single best invention was the invention of the common contract. Now you don’t have to worry about forms you don’t recognize.”
Alan Davis,
77, with RE/ MAX Preferred Properties, 3705 W Memorial Road, Suite 1310, went into real estate nearly 20 years ago after more than two decades in banking. When Davis started in the business, pagers were more common than cellphones and contracts had to be driven across town and hand-delivered.
“Of all the technological advancements, the internet has affected our business the most,” he said. “Now we transmit contracts through email and sign them electronically. Years ago, fax machines lessened our need to be on the streets, but they were still cumbersome and not always available. There were lots of mistakes and errors because of fax machines. The paper was flimsy, hard to read and deteriorated after a few years.”