It was May 18, 1971. Seated at his desk, Gov. Preston Smith was flanked by a who’s who of the Texas real estate industry. They had come to Austin to witness the historic signing of Senate Bill 338.

The ceremony was the culmination of an effort by Texas REALTORS® to put the state at the forefront of the nation’s real estate research.  This year, the product of that legislation — the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University — celebrates its 35th anniversary.

Texas REALTORS® should be proud of their creation. The Center is the largest publicly funded real estate research entity in the United States. Because they are willing to set aside a portion of their license fee for the betterment of their industry, Texas REALTORS® are the envy of the nation.

I often receive e-mail from residents of other states inquiring where they can find a comparable organization outside Texas. Alas, I tell them, there are none.

Although the Center is physically located at Texas A&M, it has a statewide mission. That’s why we refer to ourselves as the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University rather than as the Texas A&M Real Estate Center. It’s a small, but important, distinction.

A nine-member advisory committee appointed by the governor reviews the Center’s operating budget, staffing and activities before they are sent to the Texas A&M board of regents for approval. The public and various segments of the real estate industry are represented on the advisory committee.

It’s quite likely the Center’s founders were unsure what they were creating. The Center that exists today may be quite different from what was first envisioned.  To their credit, however, our founders kept the Center’s objectives and duties sufficiently broad to endure three and a half decades.

The document that Gov. Smith signed into law says the Real Estate Center is to conduct studies in all areas related “directly or indirectly” to real estate.  The big difference between our research and real estate research at other universities is that we do applied research.  In other words, the solutions we find have some practical application in everyday life. You won’t find any ivory-tower, egg-headed mumbo-jumbo among the 1,776 documents we’ve produced to date.

But don’t take my word for it. See for yourself. We have more than 25,000 pages of news, information and data on the Real Estate Center’s Web site www.recenter.tamu.edu. If you find something useful there, tell a Texas REALTOR® thanks for supporting such a worthwhile endeavor.