Transcript of interview with Elizabeth "Betty" Krolak by Irene Rostine, September 26, 1995

An Interview with Elizabeth “Betty” Krolak An Oral History Conducted by Irene Rostine, M.A. ______________________________________________ Las Vegas Women Oral History Project University of Nevada, Las Vegas 1995 ii ? NSHE, Women’s Research Institute of Nevada, 1995 Produced by: Las Vegas Women Oral History Project Women’s Research Institute of Nevada, UNLV Dr. Joanne L. Goodwin, Director Irene Rostine, M.A., Interviewer Tamara Marino, Transcription iii iv This interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of donors to the Women’s Research Institute of Nevada. The College of Liberal Arts provides a home for the Women’s Research Institute of Nevada, as well as a wide variety of in-kind services. The History Department provided necessary reassignment for the director, as well as graduate assistants for the project. The department, as well as the college and university administration, enabled students and faculty to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank the university for its support that gave an idea the chance to flourish. The text has received minimal editing. These measures include the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader’s understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases, photographic sources (housed separately) accompany the collection as slides or black and white photographs. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Las Vegas Women Oral History Project. Additional transcripts may be found under that series title. Dr. Joanne Goodwin, Project Director Associate Professor, Department of History Women’s Research Institute of Nevada, Director University of Nevada Las Vegas v Preface In 1962, Elizabeth “Betty” Krolak moved from the Midwest to Las Vegas with her husband and six children. Not only would the drier desert climate benefit her youngest daughter’s health due to asthma, but the family hoped the Las Vegas economy would be beneficial for their future. Prior to her arrival in Las Vegas, Betty worked briefly as a secretary for the New York Central Railroad before becoming a stay-at-home mom and active member of the PTA. Upon their arrival in Las Vegas, Betty’s husband enrolled in a real estate class, but was unable to complete the program. Betty, not wanting to waste the $80 they had spent on the class, decided to attend in his place. This decision led to life changing events for Betty and her family over the next four decades. After taking the real estate class and passing the test, Betty became a licensed Nevada real estate broker in October of 1963. She initially went to work for Pyramid Realty and, in 1964, she opened her own office, Clark County Realty. After her divorce in 1967, Betty was left with “six hungry children” to feed and no child support or health insurance. She recalls how the benefits of being in real estate really became apparent during this period of her life. While real estate required long hours seven days a week, it also afforded a single mother flexibility that other careers would not have offered. Likewise, a woman could make more money in real estate in the 1960s and 1970s than most other careers provided, which was particularly important for Betty who was committed to raising her children without public assistance. Betty’s oral history chronicles the growth of the Las Vegas Board of Realtors which has grown into what today is the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors (GLVAR). She recalls how, in the 1960s, meetings took place in bowling allies and the vi primary role of the GLVAR was to provide networking opportunities and represent the Code of Ethics for realtors. However, the Board was dominated by males, with the role of women members confined to planning social events and arranging for refreshments. In 1968, Betty and several other women realtors set out to change this by initially establishing a local Women’s Council within the Board. In the years following, Betty became the first women to be an Executive Board Member. Today, more than half the members of the Executive Board are women. Betty’s oral history also speaks to many changes within the real estate industry over the past four decades, some positive and some not so positive. She recounts the 1960s to the 1980s, when casino workers’ main source of income came from tips which were often unreported, creating challenges in getting casino workers qualified for home loans because they did not have the ability to document their source of income. Likewise, single women had a hard time qualifying for home loans because they only had one income and, in those days, it rarely was enough to qualify for a mortgage on their own. Also during this period, realtors primarily focused on the resale market because builders wanted to work directly with buyers, but changes in the real estate market eventually led builders to realize the benefits of allowing realtors to sell new houses, too. During her career, Betty also experienced the rise of real estate franchises, beginning with Century 21’s arrival in Nevada, the development of Multiple Listing Service (MLS), changes to educational requirements, approaches to settling disputes, and new approaches to ethics violations. Perhaps the biggest change Betty’s oral history speaks to is the personal approach to selling real estate that has been lost over time. In the early days, brokers sold houses vii right alongside the sales agents. Today, however, regulations have placed brokers in a position where their primary role is to manage sales people, not sell houses. Also, realtors used to interact with other realtors, title company personnel, and mortgage lenders before technology, such as fax machines and computers, came along. In the early days, documents were transferred in person allowing people in the industry to get to know one another through these personal interactions. Today, everything is done electronically and it is rare to actually know the person on the other end. Selling real estate has lost a lot of its personal touch, according to Betty. In addition to being the mother of six children and running one of the largest real estate offices in the area, Betty also found time to give back to the community through her volunteer work with the Salvation Army. She was instrumental in establishing Southern Nevada’s Angel Tree project, which provides Christmas presents to children who otherwise would not receive them. She was also appointed by Governor Michael O’Callahan to the State of Nevada’s Real Estate Commission, making her the first woman to serve on the Commission. Betty’s career in real estate allowed her to witness and implement many changes that still impact the industry today. When Betty began her career, Las Vegas’ population was just over 45 thousand. By the mid-1990s Green Valley, Spring Valley, North Las Vegas, Summerlin, and Sun City had been developed and the Valley’s population exceeded 1 million people. Betty Krolak’s career merged with the real estate boom as she helped find homes for those who wanted to make Las Vegas their home. She made sure the real estate industry’s growth included women, training mechanisms, and ethics which continue to benefit realtors, home buyers, and home sellers to this day. viii An Interview with Elizabeth “Betty” Krolak An Oral History Conducted by Irene Rostine, M.A. ix 1 This is an oral interview with Betty Krolak of Las Vegas, Nevada on November the 25th, 1995 at 1:00 p.m. by Irene Rostine. [Tape 1, Side A] Good afternoon, Betty. Before we start our interview, I am going to read you the Deed of Gift Agreement and it states that [agreement read]. Is that understood? Yes. And you agree to it? Yes. Thank you. Betty, when you first moved here, what were the circumstances? Did you come here looking for work or was there some other reason that brought you here? No. I was a housewife and my husband had quit a job in the Midwest where we were from. We decided we would move here. We looked at Phoenix. We looked at Las Vegas. Las Vegas’ economy seemed to be better and my husband had an uncle and aunt who lived here. They thought things were very good in Las Vegas. We moved because one of my daughters had asthma and it kept getting worse each year and she was a little girl at that time. We decided to move to a desert climate. That was how we moved here from the Midwest. Did he have a job waiting for him or did he have to look for employment when he got here? No. He didn’t have a confirmed job because if a company told you they would hire you, then they were obligated to pay your moving expenses. So, he had had a letter in response to a letter he had sent to Nevada Beverage. It was as a truck route driver and 2 when we got here, he went to work the next day. He went out to their place of employment. They hired him on the spot and he went to work. This was in April of 1962. You came here April the 10th, 1962. How many years does that make you a resident of this community? Thirty-three and a half years. Do you mind telling how old you were when you first came here? Oh, well, [laughing] I have to think, here. I was forty-eight. You mentioned one of your daughters had allergies and asthma very badly and you had to come to a dry climate. How many children did you have at that time? I had six children. The youngest was almost three and the oldest was thirteen. We came in April so that the children would be able to start school and get to know some of the other children. They would have some friends and then not feel that they were without friends for the summer. That seemed to work pretty well. Before you came here, did you have previous work experience at something? Where did you come from back east? I was raised in Hammond, Indiana, and I lived there until I was about 19. Then I lived in Chicago for ten years. After marriage and a couple of children, we moved back to the Calumet Region and we lived in Hammond, again, for a year. Then we had a home of our own in Lansing, Illinois, which is right across the state line from Hammond, but it was in the area I had been raised in. With these six children, did you work outside the home or were you strictly a homemaker and a mother? 3 No. I worked until I was about six months pregnant with my first daughter. I worked for the New York Central Railroad as a secretary to the secretary of the Pass Bureau in the Vice-President’s office. I never expected to work again. I worked briefly after the loss of a child for the Railroad again, at that time at night because it was good for me to get out and do something, but I had not worked in those years. When you got here, you hadn’t worked for many, many years. How was it that you happened to go into real estate? What was your motivation? Well, it was an accident. When we came here, we had an unhappy experience buying a house. The broker had taken our money and sold us a house that was not on the market yet. It was a repossession by the FHA. Since we were in a new area and my husband was a salesman and I was a housewife, we agreed that he should take the real estate class and maybe he would go into real estate. He was working. It was summer, or toward fall now, and he was working. It was very hot. He was working long hours and he said, “I just can’t do it,” and I said, “Well, we can’t waste the $80.” So, I finished the course. The cost to take a course in real estate was $80 at that time? Yes. That was the university course. Were there any other educational requirements? If you took the course given by the university. At that time you could become a broker if you passed the brokers exam without any further education. Because I took that course, I took my brokers exam and did not pass it the first time. At that time, they were giving it four times a year. I had to wait until September again to do that. At that time, you could also take a section. There were seven or eight sections to the examination and, if you passed five sections, then you took three sections again. They changed that rule since 4 then. You must pass the entire exam with a certain number of questions answered properly. Are there still eight sections? It’s either seven or eight. I’ll look that up for you. The university that [you] talk about, that you took your exam at, was that the University of Nevada Las Vegas that was on Maryland Parkway? Yes. There were two buildings at the time that I moved here. It was way out. It’s no longer way out and there are many more buildings. [Laughing] What year was that? You came here in ’62? In ’62. My husband started the [class in] the fall or February of ’63. When he couldn’t take it, I finished it and took the next exam. Maybe the exams were every six months. I will question that, too. What were the licensing requirements? You were going to take the examination for the real estate license, but were there any other qualifications? Did you have to do anything else as far as, like maybe being photographed or fingerprinted? Were there any requirements like that? I don’t believe there were. I believe you that you took the course and, actually, home study probably would have worked, too. I think there was only one, other than the university, who was teaching it at that time, one school. I elected to take the university course. [Was that] because with the university course you could qualify for a broker immediately if you passed the brokers test? Yes. 5 If you didn’t pass the brokers test, that made you a sales person or were there two separate tests? I believe there were two separate tests. You had to designate one or the other? Yes. If you passed all sections, except maybe mathematics or law, then you could go back and just take those two sections on the next exam and you would get your license? That’s right. That’s what I did. I missed one section and I took that again later, in September of ’63, and got my license in October of ’63. How long was the test that they gave? It took a good four to four and a half hours. It was pretty concentrated and probably pretty nerve racking for you at the time? Yes. I remember studying in the bedroom and threatening to maim anybody who came near me. We were living in a very small house with six children. My husband was gone a lot because he was working long hours. I can remember the children creeping down the hall so they wouldn’t disturb me. [Laughing] How did you start working in real estate after you had gotten a license? Did you have a sponsor? Did you go out and look for a job or did they come looking for you? Today, there are brokers who contact the schools and there are brokers who come before the examinations and try to solicit for new sales people. That wasn’t really happening at the time. I went to work for Pyramid Realty. Bill Leavitt was the broker and his wife, Betty Leavitt, ran the office. I went to work for Pyramid Realty in October of ’63. 6 You went and applied with them? I went to be interviewed by them. At that time, you took the test and, if you passed it, you were allowed to practice selling real estate. There was no training in the offices. No one had a training program. They kind of gave you a desk and a telephone. I guess you were supposed to listen in and go out and do your thing. There were no state or government sponsored training programs for these people that they were licensing to go out and sell real estate? No. There were no company programs? No. No companies had training programs. You got your license and then went in and sat at a desk with a phone and a pencil and pad and you were a real estate licensee and qualified to do this work? That’s right. There must have been quite a few instances where you were just learning by the school of hard knocks? The brokers had responsibility for the sales people, but what you came to know was what you really learned on your own. There were no setup programs and continuing education was unheard of until in the ‘70s. What happened if you made an error and something did not go right in one of your sales? If you made an error in a land measurement or something of that nature, how did that get resolved? I think there were far fewer people in Las Vegas. It was up to us to learn. You always had the advice of your broker or you could always ask someone else. I don’t remember 7 there were any particular problems at that time. The Board of Realtors, when I joined it right after I got my license, was the only education around and there was really no set program for educating. Why did you join the Board of Realtors? Explain a little bit about the Board of Realtors? At the time that I got into real estate, the Board of Realtors was active. It was just the organization to belong to. I had been acquainted with the organization from my previous experience in Indiana and Illinois, knowing that there was a Board of Realtors organization and that it was a benefit to join or to belong to it. Did they have “multiple listing” at that time through the Board of Realtors? When I joined it, there were nine offices in multiple listing. I can’t tell you exactly how many people. I could research that for you, but I would have to call the Board and ask if they had any records. There were nine offices and we car pooled when we went around. Three or four people, or five, to a car and we would see everything that had been listed in the previous week. After our multiple listing meeting, which was usually just coffee and something, then we would go out and car pool and visit all of these listings that had occurred in the week. It was rather simple. What would the timeframe be that it would take you to tour the new listings? Compare the size of Las Vegas territory in the ‘60s that you would cover compared to later on. We covered the whole town. Whatever was listed that week, if the broker or the sales person wanted it shown, we would go out and tour it. We usually stopped for lunch and then we would be finished shortly after lunch. It took the better part of the day, but you 8 saw every listing. The parameters of the town at that time then were not what they are today. You could cover the territory in a relatively short period? Oh, yes, we could. Sahara was literally the end of the town in both directions. Some of our meetings were held, when we grew a little bigger, we had meetings at the bowling alley on Charleston, which is now Arizona Charlie’s and we would start out from there. Today, there is touring. Offices will hold their own tours and tour all their own listings. There is a group of people who do a networking. One week, they tour on the west side of town and the next week they tour on the east side. If you are going to have a listing on that tour, you as the sales person or broker must be present. You can’t just list it and expect other people to go look at it. I did one of those tours recently and there were about fifteen people. Some of them just went for the ride to see the new listings that people were bringing in, but we had about seven houses on the tour which was a very small number compared to the number that are listed each week. The tours have progressed from the period where the entire Board of Realtors would car pool and go and tour these listings in maybe half a day to where now, instead of the entire Board going, each office does its own? It’s broken down to these smaller units because they can’t cover the whole thing at once? That’s right. It would be impossible, I think, Irene. When I moved here, there were like 45 thousand people in the town and now we have over a million. We have maybe two or three hundred listings a week. This is how the listings were promoted and publicized amongst the licensees, by going out? You would have the meetings and talk about them and then go out and 9 look them over and you could decide which were appropriate for the customers or clients that you had? Right. Another interesting thing is that, when we used to tour, we would take open listings very often because sellers were not really educated to the advantages of a multiple listing service. So, there was a lot of education that we had to do to get an exclusive listing. So we used open listings very much of the time. Now, of course, if you take an open listing, I am not sure you will get the action on it that you need because multiple listing is really the way to get the coverage today because things are done by computer. You can pick up every day the new things that have come on the market. Which is quite a difference from when you first started because they didn’t have computers? Did they have the little books that they put out at the time that you started or is that something that came later? It came later. When I was active in the multiple listing and on the multiple listing committee, there were several of us who went to Phoenix to see what they were using in a multiple listing book. At that point, we went to using the same kind of setup. A photographer would go out and take a picture. First it was black and white and then it was colored pictures. You took the new ones and fit them in your book every week in a loose leaf notebook every week. It wasn’t until maybe the last ten years or so that we have had any kind of computer, maybe ten years or six years. Did the computer make the book obsolete? It has now. We were putting out two books a month in the last several years. Every other week they would put out a new book. Now, the book is really obsolete and you have to buy it. The computer company that runs our program puts together a book, but I 10 don’t know if there would be any advantage to having it other than you get an updated roster on all of the people in the Board and multiple listing. What was the price of your first multiple listing book? Oh, wow! I’ll have to look that up. Maybe it was about $9 a month. Do you know what they sold for later? I know that I paid $45 twice. I paid one as an office fee and I paid another $45 for the multiple listing service and that does not include a book. What a difference. What a jump. I want to ask you another question about the Board of Realtors before we go on. What was the role that they played in the activities of the licensees? When you joined the Board, was there something you agreed to abide by as far as their code of ethics? There was a code of ethics. The Realtors is a local organization, a state organization, and a national organization. We were furnished with what was going on in the market place. We were given much information about how brokers were dealing with certain problems or certain aspects of real estate in other areas of the country. When you joined, you automatically became a member of the local, the state, and the national Association. They also held meetings in January, May, and a national meeting in November. These were of interest to us. I remember attending my first meeting I think within two years of the time that I joined. I was amazed because there was no, as I said before, education locally and it was wonderful to go to a meeting where they had seminars. You could sit there and listen and say, ‘Oh, I do that right,” or “I can learn from that.” That was really nice. When the licensees joined the Board of Realtors, they agreed to abide by this Code 11 of Ethics? Yes, they did. They had a grievance committee that would handle problems between brokers. They had an arbitration committee and they settled some of the little kind of things that went on as best they could in Board of Realtors. When you joined and agreed to abide by the code of ethics, you also agreed that if you had a problem you would submit it first to the Board of Realtors before you took any kind of legal action against anyone. This was also open to the public. The public could come in and complain, although generally, the public was referred to the state real estate division for their complaints. If the public complained to the state real estate division, how was that handled? That was handled with an investigator. They had investigators in addition to people in charge and secretaries and all to handle all the licensing. The investigator would go out and investigate. If he felt it had any merit, then they would hold a hearing. The panel was the real estate advisory commission. It was a panel of members from the north, south, east, and west. In the State of Nevada, there were five commissioners. They represented each region? Yes. Did the Board of Realtors have any role in controlling the activities of the licensees or monitoring them in any way? The code of ethics was the way of monitoring. When complaints were received, it would be taken up with the brokers or the sales people. Brokers have always been responsible for their sales people. So, it really fell on their shoulders if someone had done something wrong. This, I think, was one of the basis for the start of education in the offices. I think 12 one of the first offices that really got behind the educational programs was Sahara Realty which is no longer in business. They were the first? Yes. I believe they were the first to give an actual educational program. The broker there was Gil[bert] Schwartz. He did not come into business until about the time that I did. He also ended up with one of the largest offices at that time. They were one of the first big offices. Do you think their success maybe had to do with their educational programs? I think it did. It’s easier sometimes to go to a seminar and learn and feel that you have management that is behind you and will educate you than just to learn on your own. What would be the difference, then, between a broker and a realtor? You hear those terms quite frequently used interchangeably. Is there a difference there? A licensee is licensed by the state to sell real estate based upon the examination they take and the course that they take, etc. When you join the Board of Realtors, you hold yourself to a higher standard because you have obligated yourself to abide by the code of ethics. A realtor denotes that your behavior will be above a licensee. The Board of Realtors, in turn, also had education and seminars for you to attend to better yourself? On a national level, they did. On a local level, they did not. I attended my first national seminar, national convention, in Los Angeles in 1966. I had only been in the business a couple of years. I was fascinated by what I saw there. It seemed to me the best educational seminars given at that convention were given by the Women’s Council of Realtors. The women were more on the ball as far as the teaching was concerned. My 13 plan, when I came back, was to start a Women’s Council. During that next year or year and a half, I got together with other realtor women and we decided to form the Las Vegas Women’s Council of Realtors and we also formed the one for the state at that time. That was in 1968. That was our first year and our second year was 1969. I was president that year and vice-president the first year. We started, then, being far more interested in teaching. We could have people come into town and teach or we were given the calendars then for courses that were out of town. It made it possible for us to travel to different [places, cities???] to take courses. Some of them were two days, three days, five days. These Women’s Council members also taught, as well as arranging for seminars to be held and bringing in speakers? Yes. Were there any other duties that they performed as an aid to the real estate industry? At the time that I joined the Board of Realtors in 1963, there were no women on the Board of Directors in the Association. We were given committee jobs and most of them were to setup banquets and setup meetings and furnish the coffee. The same kind of things we did at home. The social hostess? The social hostess, but you were not considered a valuable enough asset to be on the Board of Directors. Did that change? Oh, yes, it changed. Before too long, once we got the Women’s Council organized, then 14 we fought very hard to get the president of the Women’s Council on the Executive Board and we were able to accomplish that. I was on that Board the year that I was president. We did make some inroads and, now, I think half or three quarters of the Board are women. [End Tape 1, Side A] [Begin Tape 1, Side B] Before we changed the tape, we were talking about getting members of the Women’s Council on the Board of Directors for the Board of Realtors? Yes. You had become successful in getting one of them on? I was on the Board in ’69, I think. My job on the Board at that time was treasurer. I served as treasurer, I think, two terms. From then on, we were able to get at least one woman on the Board and it wasn’t too many years before we could get others. I know I served as secretary and as treasurer several different times. I also served as a member a couple of times. I was vice president one year. You were actually, then, the first woman that became a member of the Executive Board? I believe I was. Do you remember who the first woman President of the Board [was]? Yes. That was Jessie Emmett. Jessie and I were the two that spearheaded the forming of the Women’s Council. We kind of tossed for the job of being first president. She was first president and then I was the president the second year. It took off. The women really were anxious to learn. It was also a networking kind of thing, although at that time 15 we were not familiar with the term “networking.” This is something that came much later. It was a networking thing and an educational thing. We got speakers to come to our meetings and tried to make it and educational meeting as well as a fun meeting. Let’s get back to your first job in real estate. How large was your office? How many agents did they have working there? There were probably about nine agents. A couple of them only came in once in a while. I remember a couple of really nice fellows. Jack Richardson and Bob Rein would come in once in a while. It was not nine full-time people. I just happened to think of another fellow. Bob, well, I can’t think of that. A couple of these fellows are deceased, but I still see some of the other people that were in that office at the time. What were your duties? What was your day like when you went to work there? Did you have set hours? Did you go to work 8:00 to 5:00? You were given floor time. That’s how you got your leads. You took them until you could build up a good referral base. You were given floor time and if someone called on your floor time, that would be your customer. I remember the first person who called. Her name was Cora Hoogamund. She was the first person I sold a house to. She was a Dutch immigrant. She and her husband and the son came here to help her daughter who had been widowed with her two children. Cora and I are still friends. It worked out really well. I sold them a house. That’s thirty some years ago and you remained friends all those years? Yes. What does the term “floor time” mean? You were expected to be at the office, say from 2:00 to 5:00, and any calls that came in 16 from 2:00 to 5:00, you were the first person on call. You took the call and you tried to get a customer. You tried to answer the questions. They would either call from a sign or an ad in the paper and that was your lead. When you were working for the real estate office, were there any unions or anything like that connected to real estate? Did anybody try to ever unionize them? I don’t think anyone has ever tried to organize the real estate people. Joining the Board of Realtors was probably the only thing you did. That was probably the closest to a union? Yes, and it isn’t a union. It’s illegal to set any kind of commissions. It is? Oh, yes. That’s not cast in stone? Oh, it is cast in stone. You do not work together to set commissions. It’s against the law, federal law. Federal law, that’s right. That’s price fixing? Right. Commission structure is an individual thing, by office, correct? By office and, today, we have so many people who are in the sales people business because there are so many sales people in the office. Many of them pay their own expenses into the office and they get the advantage of working with a larger office. They are independent contractors. I can’t see a union ever trying to come in