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'Heck of an idea''Heck of an idea'David S. JonesJones, D.
2016-01-07T06:00:00ZCenter News

This isn't just another year at the Real Estate Center. It's our 45th anniversary.

Over the decades, other states have asked how Texas created the world's largest publicly funded real estate research entity. The answer has a lot to do with timing, persistence, leadership and plain old luck.

In a few posts this year, we'll recall the decision-makers and pivotal events that made "The Center" possible. This one explores why Texas real estate leaders wanted research so much they were willing to tax themselves to get it.

While writing the Center's history five years ago, I had the opportunity to interview Texas real estate legend Julio Laguarta. If anyone can be called the founder of the Center, it's him.

By 1970, Laguarta had already been president of the Houston Association of Realtors and was moving up the ranks that would lead to the presidency of the Texas Association (TAR) in 1975 and the National Association in 1982. He was crisscrossing America asking questions and collecting new ideas.

"I was an instructor for the Realtors National Marketing Institute," said Laguarta. "While teaching a CCIM course in Atlanta, Ga., I met Howard Benedict, a CCIM from Connecticut. I was impressed by the detail in the overhead slides he used. I asked where he got his data."

Laguarta's question would change Texas real estate forever.

"He gave credit to something called the Connecticut real estate research institute," said Laguarta. That evening over dinner Benedict detailed the Connecticut connection. Benedict said the organization was created by the Connecticut legislature to work for the industry and various state agencies and provide an unimpeachable source of data and information. The Center for Real Estate and Urban Economic Studies is in the University of Connecticut business school.

Laguarta thought the concept was "a heck of an idea" and asked to hear more about it. He decided that anything Connecticut could do, Texas could do bigger and better.

TAR leaders went to the Texas Legislature and presented a plan for a research center that licensees themselves would finance by increasing their own state fees. No appropriated money would be used.

It was a gamble. Adequate funding depended on the number of licensees increasing at best and remaining flat at worst. "Whatever the total number was, it would be the funding for the institute," said Laguarta. "So, we didn't have to go and fight people for appropriations and that sort of thing."

The idea seemed to be a win-win for everyone. Programs and products would be produced for licensees and the public, and the state would not have to pay a dime for them. There was another benefit few people discussed outside the halls of TAR.

"We were looking for ways to decrease the number of licensees. We felt that by raising the bar economically we would begin to eliminate people that didn't have any business with a license," said Laguarta. "They didn't use it or didn't use it properly." Real estate leaders were concerned about long-time licensees with grandfathered licenses, people licensed when anybody could get one. "So that was the catalyst for the institute. We had the bill prepared by TAR's general counsel, and then went to meet with the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker of the house. They gave it their blessing, and away we went."

The 1971 vote by the state legislature to establish a "Texas Real Estate Research Center" didn't raise many eyebrows. The decision to put it at Texas A&M University did.

We will explore that in another post.

2016-01-07T06:00:00Zhttps://www.recenter.tamu.edu/info/blog/?Item=16

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