Vernon Downtown Realty has been through more peaks and valleys than a Sherpa, but after 35 years it is still going strong.
Riley Twyford, manager of the Vernon Royal LePage franchise, has seen his share of market shifts and corrections, both good and bad, yet through it all he says not a lot has changed. Whether it is a buyers’ or sellers’ market, there is always business to be done.
“The premise of real estate has stayed the same as far as selling,” he said. “There’s always a market out there, it’s just something you work through.”
If there is one thing that has changed since Downtown Realty opened its doors on Dec. 1, 1976 (back then it was on 30th Avenue), it’s technology.
“I remember when they got the first cell phone, and it was like a brick,” chuckled Paulette Webb, an associate broker.
Webb also recalled working with a Gestetner machine (stencil duplicator) when she first started with the firm as a receptionist in the late ‘70s. She now operates Team Webb with her son, Shawn.
“You could actually drive over them (cell phones) and they would still work,” added Twyford.
One of the big differences in today’s market is how potential buyers and sellers access information. MLS, the national property information database, is accessible to the public. And with consumers engaging more and more in social media, Twyford says it is essential for the real estate industry to keep up with the latest advertising trends.
“If you look at social media, that’s a big part of our industry,” he said. “I get excited when a younger, techy person wants to get into real estate. That’s the future.”
From a stable of 12 realtors at the original location, Downtown Realty became a franchise of Canada Permanent Trust in the early 1980s, and shifted later that decade to a new building on 32nd Street (currently the Talking Donkey).
In 1990, it re-branded yet again under the Realty World banner (which was eventually acquired by Royal LePage in 1998).
To better accommodate its growing staff (there are now nearly 70 realtors and office workers), Downtown Realty expanded again by moving into its current building in 1994, just up the road from the Talking Donkey. With smaller offices already in Armstrong and Lumby, the organization added another outlet in Enderby that year as well.
Despite a bumpy introduction to real estate in the turbulent early ‘80s, Webb is happy with her chosen profession.
“The market crashed in ‘82 and I just plugged my way through, and the rest has been peaks and valleys,” she said. “There’s not a lot of jobs that give you the flexibility and freedom. Never a dull moment, and you never knew what was going to happen in a day. You still don’t.”
Added Twyford: “I’m sort of a lifer. I started when I was 21 and have never done anything else.”
Twyford wasn’t overly surprised to see the Okanagan housing bubble pop along with the stock market crash in 2008.
“We went through about seven years of really strong growth and double-digit appreciation of prices, and that’s unsustainable. It’s not healthy, really,” he said.
Regarding current market conditions, he added: “A lot of it boils down to consumer confidence. You look what’s happening in Europe and in the States, and it affects people’s confidence in the market. We’re dealing in big-ticket purchases.”
Twyford believes it will be a few years before the market starts to come around, but adds historically low interest rates help stimulate the industry.
“If you’re selling in a marketplace like this, you have to bear in mind you’re buying in the same marketplace,” he said.
“It is the higher price points that have come down the most, so if you’re selling at an average price range and moving up, it’s probably good timing.
“In our lifetimes, nobody has hurt owning real estate long term.”