Still a Force 50 Years in, Bob Hale Looks Back, but Mostly Forward

For Bob Hale, who is celebrating and being celebrated for 50 years as a titan in the real estate industry, there’s very little time for looking back, and none at all for lamenting “the good old days.” That’s because he’s hale and hearty, pun intended, and still a full-timer after 35 years as president and CEO of The Houston Association of REALTORS® (HAR). And he’ll take technology and the internet over the antiquated hand-held real estate book of listings any day.

Hale will be providing his unique perspectives this September at RISMedia’s CEO & Leadership Exchange, held at the historic Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.

In a session titled “How Portals Are Changing the Real Estate Playing Field,” Hale will discuss how it’s a different and more dynamic business environment now compared with the snail’s pace pre-internet ways and means.

“Back when I started, you had an MLS book that came out once a week,” he recalls. “The listings were probably two weeks out of date. Each listing had a little black and white picture with a few words below it describing the house. And only the agent had access to the book. So the consumer had to go to the agent and say, ‘I’m looking for this type of a home and this type of area.’ Then the agents had to figure out which listings fit that. So you drove ’em all over the place showing them different listings. And often the consumer would say, ‘I can’t believe we wasted our time looking at this.’

“Today, the consumer finds the home they want online, then they call the agency. It’s been a major shift from the agent deciding what properties to see to the consumer deciding, with the ability to look at everything that’s available.”

As with most tremendously hard workers, “luck” somehow found Hale early on.

“I graduated from the University of Texas Law School in 1969 and was lucky to be hired as the governmental affairs director for the Texas Association of REALTORS® because I had worked for a lobby group through law school,” he says. “I worked there for three years, and one of my prime duties was to create a PAC (Political Action Committee) because we didn’t have a PAC. And now TREPAC (The Texas REALTORS® Political Action Committee) is the largest PAC in Texas. And then in 1973, I was asked by some of the officers of HAR to move to Houston from Austin and become their lobbyist and their legal counsel. I did that for 15 years, and in 1988 became the president and CEO.”

Getting back to the topic he’ll be exploring at the CEO & Leadership Exchange, Hale affirms that both the client and the agent benefit from new technologies.

“The consumer and the REALTOR® used to waste so much time in the old days,” he says. “The agent didn’t get what they wanted and always complained about advertising in the newspaper because you had no way of knowing if that would work. With the internet, you can track everything with the portals. We see exactly how many times on har.com our listings have been looked at, how many times they’ve been bookmarked. I think it’s been really beneficial to both parties.”

As far as competition with the national portals, Hale scoffs at the notion that it’s a cutthroat mentality. He knows from 50 years of experience that at its core, real estate is hyperlocal. Not that he isn’t aware to be on guard at all times.

“We look at Zillow and realtor.com® every day, and I’m sure they look at us,” he says. “And the interesting thing about us and Zillow and realtor.com® is we all get along real well. We’re friends; we’re competitors. I’m never going to let ’em beat us. But that doesn’t mean we have to be enemies. We’re very good friends and friendly advocates. Friendly competitors.”

Another major technological advancement Hale salutes is virtual open houses.

“Back years ago, all we had was that little black and white photo to describe what the house was,” says Hale. “Today we created virtual showing tools, virtual open house tools. Over 26,000 consumers viewed a virtual open house by an HAR member. If you hold an open house in person, typically five people will show up. If you do a virtual, you may have 160, and 80% of those may be in Saudi Arabia or France or somewhere else. With their job, they may be transferred to Houston. If they had to physically go to the open house, they obviously couldn’t. But if it’s a virtual open house, they can see it just like they’re there in person.”

Hale acknowledges that he has been lucky in one regard: the growing popularity of Houston as a destination for Americans to move to has of course impacted the housing market in a tremendously positive way.

“I read an article the other day that Californians are moving to Texas, and the majority are moving to Houston because our prices are better,” he says. “We have a lot of job opportunities here, not that other cities of Texas don’t. But Austin’s prices went way up when Tesla and Google and major companies moved there. That drove the price of homes way up. The demand was there, but the supply was not. Prices here have never gone way up, and never gone way down. A lot of markets that shot way up then shot way down. So I think we’ve been lucky in that regard.”

Now 78, Hale knows there is an end date to his career, but it’s not quite now. “I’ve got a couple more years on my contract,” he notes. “I’ve finally said, ‘That’s gonna be it, guys.’”

But the mindset that has led to his half century of leadership and unparalleled success refuses to acknowledge ever stopping for good. “After that I’ll be a consultant,” he says with a smile.

RISMedia’s 35th annual CEO & Leadership Exchange will gather the industry’s top minds to discuss the most critical trends and issues impacting the year so far, and outline strategies for success in the fourth quarter and into 2024. More than 100 brokerage executives and industry experts featured in over 25 panel discussions and presentations will help you make sense of what’s transpired so far in 2023, and share tangible advice for defining your own destiny moving forward.

For the complete agenda and speaker lineup, please visit our event page. Space is limited, so reserve your spot today.

2023 RISMedia CEO & Leadership Exchange sponsors include:

Title Sponsor
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Master Sponsors
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Bright MLS
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National Association of REALTORS®