Coldwell Banker Celebrates 91st Birthday - Offers a Look Back at Turn-Of-The-Century Real Estate Costs & Trends.PARSIPPANY, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--September 9, 1997--COLDWELL BANKER(R) Real Estate Corporation announced today its 91st year in the real estate industry, making it the world's oldest and most established national real estate entity. The company was born at the end of August in 1906 - only a few months after the devastating dev·as·tate tr.v. dev·as·tat·ed, dev·as·tat·ing, dev·as·tates 1. To lay waste; destroy. 2. To overwhelm; confound; stun: was devastated by the rude remark. earthquake and fire had leveled San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden , CA - by a 23-year-old real estate agent named Colbert Coldwell. A few years later, salesman and agent Benjamin Arthur Banker joined the firm as a partner and the rest, as they say, is real estate history. In honor of its long standing foundation in the real estate industry, COLDWELL BANKER has today released figures from the turn of the century - when Theodore Roosevelt was president, the Panama Canal Panama Canal, waterway across the Isthmus of Panama, connecting the Atlantic (by way of the Caribbean Sea) and Pacific oceans, built by the United States (1904–14) on territory leased from the republic of Panama. was only in its second year of construction and the very first record player, the Victrola was introduced and retailed for $200: Lifestyle Costs and Real Estate Figures in 1906... & Today: Then... ...& Now. National average price for a 3- Today - $157,800 bedroom home in 1906 - $2,400 The average annual income per Today - $43,400 family in 1906 - $486 per year To "rent a furnished apartment Today - rent for a studio is in San Francisco's Nobb Hill approx. $2,000/month; for a 2- including gas range, sink & bedroom apartment in the area, closets" in 1906 - $17.50/month approx. $4,500 To "buy farm land 124 acres, 16 Today - 1 acre, 16 miles miles from Atlanta" in 1906 - outside of Atlanta costs $20.00/acre approx. $250,000 To "buy a 10-room home near Today - Peachtree Road consists Peachtree Road in Atlanta" in of high-rise apartment 1906 - $4,500 buildings where a 10-room condominium can cost approx. $2.5 million And Also in 1906. -- To "buy a 12-story apartment building with 47 apartments on a 100' x 150' lot located at Central Park West and 86th Street in Manhattan" - $1.2 million -- Emerging style-of-house trend in 1906 - the California bungalow. The bungalow was described as a `house that looks as if it had been built for less money that it actually cost.' -- The most desired additional room - and luxury item at the time - a sewing room. -- Price of a new Ford automobile - $750 -- Price of 1 gallon of gasoline - $.28 -- Price of Bread, 1 pound - $.05 -- Price of Milk, 1 gallon - $.28 -- Price of a New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times newspaper - $.01 Home Buying Practice Pre-Coldwell Banker: Just prior to Colbert Coldwell's entrance into the real estate business, common practice among real estate solicitors was to grab-up good buys themselves. Later, they would peddle the house to a customer at a profit. Many simply optioned the property and sold it at a profit with little or no cash invested. Net contracts were common and, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. their terms, a seller could claim only that sum for which he had contracted the broker to sell his property. Unscrupulous operators would tie up the property of an uninformed owner under a net contract and then extract a tremendous profit by selling it to a buyer who had already agreed to pay two or three times the contract price. Loan Practices: At the turn of the century, the purchase money loan, common in real estate today, had not yet been introduced. The standard then was the take-back loan under which the borrower in the event of foreclosure, stood not only to lose his real estate but was also obligated ob·li·gate tr.v. ob·li·gat·ed, ob·li·gat·ing, ob·li·gates 1. To bind, compel, or constrain by a social, legal, or moral tie. See Synonyms at force. 2. To cause to be grateful or indebted; oblige. to pay the full loan balance. To avoid that liability, purchasers often hired a "dummy" buyer to sign the loan papers and then deed the property to the real owner in the same escrow. Some professional dummy buyers made their living at the trade. Colbert Coldwell and Benjamin Arthur Banker witnessed these unethical business practices and with one office in San Francisco, set out to build and provide honest real estate services to their customers. Today, Coldwell Banker Real Estate Corporation, a subsidiary of HFS (Hierarchical File System) The file system used in the Macintosh. The first version, known as "Mac OS Standard," was introduced in 1985. HFS+, an enhanced version, came out in 1998 in preparation for the upcoming Mac OS X operating system. Incorporated (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :HFS), franchises more than 2,600 independently owned and operated real estate offices with over 56,000 sales associates throughout North America North America, third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. . COLDWELL BANKER Online(TM), one of the most comprehensive real estate industry web sites, is located at http://www.coldwellbanker.com.For more than 90 years COLDWELL BANKER has been North America's premier full-service provider of real estate services. -0- Sources: Behind the Western Skyline, Coldwell Banker the First 75 Years; The New York Times, The New York Times, The Morning daily newspaper, long the U.S. newspaper of record. From its establishment in 1851 it has aimed to avoid sensationalism and to appeal to cultured, intellectual readers. San Francisco Examiner The San Francisco Examiner is a U.S. daily newspaper. It has been published continuously in San Francisco, California, since the late 19th Century. History 19th century The beginning of the Examiner is a topic of some controversy. , Atlanta Journal Constitution, Remember the Times; The American Heritage, History of Notable American Houses; Ladies Homes Journal; National Association of Realtors The National Association of Realtors (NAR) is made up of residential and commercial realtors who are brokers, salespeople, property managers, appraisers, and counselors, and others working in the real estate industry. CONTACT: Coldwell Banker Real Estate Corp. Gabrielle Sertich Manager, Public Relations public relations, activities and policies used to create public interest in a person, idea, product, institution, or business establishment. By its nature, public relations is devoted to serving particular interests by presenting them to the public in the most 973-496-7199 |
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