Texas Leads Real Estate Research Last 30 Years
College Station, Texas — Can a homeowner trim a neighbor's tree when the limbs cross the property line? How do you get a Texas real estate license? What's the median price of an existing Midland home? Why are water rights being bought and sold? My landlord won't install a smoke detector. What can I do?
Everyone has a real estate question. That includes renters and owners, buyers and sellers, builders and remodelers, agents and investors, reporters and professors. For the last three decades, the answers have often come from the  Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University.
In the early 1970s, the Texas real estate industry looked for a way to find dependable, unbiased, practical answers to the many unanswered questions being asked by professionals and the public.
In response, the state legislature established what was then called the Texas Real Estate Research Center. Because of Texas A&M's research reputation, the university seemed a logical home for the new organization.
Today, the Center is the nation's largest publicly funded organization devoted solely to finding solutions to everyday real estate questions. Most of the $2 million in annual funding comes from real estate license fees paid by more than 100,000 professionals.
As the Real Estate Center prepares to celebrate its 30th anniversary this year, the answers to countless questions are chronicled in many forms, including some 1,500 reports, books, monographs, articles and audiovisual presentations.
Answers can also be found among the nearly 23,000 pages of free information, data, news and publications on the Center's website at http://recenter.tamu.edu. More than 40,000 users visit the site monthly. Building permit, population and employment data are the most visited areas.
Twice a week the Center disseminates a free e-mail newsletter. Real Estate Center Online News (RECON) highlights current Center research results, Texas real estate news and national headlines with implications for the Lone Star State.
Market overviews for each of Texas' 27 metropolitan statistical areas are updated annually. Specialized reports cover topics ranging from writing an oil and gas lease to landlord-tenant rights and responsibilities. More than 25,000 copies of the Center's English-Spanish Real Estate Glossary have been distributed nationwide. The National Association of Realtors uses a Center-produced video to educate its members on selling to homebuyers of various ethnic groups.
Ongoing research produces regular reports on Texas housing affordability, real estate professionals' confidence levels and rural land values in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona.
One of the state's biggest real estate problems was attacked head-on by the Center recently with the release of a videotape on "Affordable Housing: The Crisis in Texas." Several Public Broadcast Stations statewide plan to air the 26-minute program.
"We focus on Texas," says Dr. R. Malcolm Richards, director. "Our research leads to better real estate decisions. If licensees and consumers are well informed, they will make the best possible real estate decisions. Every Texan benefits when that happens."
Answers to current Texas real estate problems also can be found in Tierra Grande magazine, the Center's award-winning quarterly flagship periodical. The magazine is free to Texas real estate licensees and is available to others by subscription.
The most recent Tierra Grande looked at why the Austin office market is so tight and why it is likely to remain so. Another article focuses on the unique problems landlords have when leasing to dot.com companies. Other recent articles covered telecom hotels, water pollution woes, light rail in big cities, common homebuyer complaints and the validity of electronic signatures. Upcoming issues will cover trends in medical construction, a recent homebuyer's survey, brownfields redevelopment and the status of proposed Interstate 69.
A nonprofit agency, the Real Estate Center is part of the Mays Business School at Texas A&M. A nine-member advisory committee appointed by the governor provides research guidance and approves the budget. Texas Gov. Rick Perry is a former chairman of the committee as is White House legal counsel Alberto Gonzalez. Former Texas A&M University Regent Fred McClure worked for the Center as a student and later chaired the advisory committee.
"While we are located at Texas A&M, we have a statewide mission to serve all Texans," Richards said. "Over the last three decades, we have provided research grants and scholarships to faculty and students at many Texas colleges and universities."
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