On Friday night my dad received recognition for 45 years of service from the Realtors association of Edmonton. When he started the real estate industry was very different in Edmonton, for one thing there was no Royal Lepage, Remax or Coldwell Banker. When he started there were companies like H R Kellough and Buxton real estate among others. The Brokers at the time had certain boundaries, that agents could not cross to list or sell properties. They used CB radios to communicate with the office to get messages, there were no electronic keysafe boxes for storing keys at the properties and the contracts were only one page long with very little changes for almost 2 decades.
The first major award my dad achieved was membership to the MLS million dollar club, so named because you had to sell at least $1million in property. With average prices around $13,000 it took him almost 3 years to achieve the award – he was the 7th member of the Edmonton Real Estate Board to achieve this recognition. His long time friend whom he worked with at Buxton real estate Alec Fedynek was the 6th member. Coincidently, Alex received recognition for 50 years of service on Friday night.
I can still remember my parents having company over many times with Carole and Alec among the guests. Ususally these festivities took place in the wood panelled finished basement of our 60's era bungalow. Usually there was a haze of smoke thicker than L.A. smog (and my parents didn’t smoke). Ah the good old days when second hand smoke was as common as Texas mickies.
In comparision, I qualified for the MLS million dollar club in the early 90’s and at the time the qualifying level was around $3 million in property value (you only get credit for half the value of the home unless you represent both parties in a transaction). The award was changed to the Medallion club in the mid 90's to recognize the top 5% of the association.
Alec and my dad were the only 2 Edmonton REALTORS recognized in the 45 and 50 year category but there were a number of people who were recognized in the 25 – 35 year range. All of these people have had a hand in shaping the real estate industry in Edmonton, some of them helping to create to two of the most active charitable organizations in Alberta – The Alberta Real Estate Foundation, and the Edmonton REALTORS charitable foundation. These builders also helped create the regulatory model (the first in Canada) that was soon followed by almost every province in the country. Many of these builders helped create the best public protection in Canada for the public by creating a strong assurance fund and the model for Errors and omissions insurance in the real estate industry. All these builders have recognized something my father drilled into me. "Make sure your client is taken care of and the rest will take care of itself".
Btw Congrats Dad, and to my team who received recognition for being one of the top teams in Edmonton.
p.s. some of the best advice that my dad ever gave me, came while I was showing my first clients a home… I would walk them into the kitchen and say "here's the kitchen", then into the living room, and I'd tell them "this is the living room." He finally took me aside and said to me that "if they can't figure out what room it is they probably shouldn't be buying the home."
