David Parry wrote this article in 2004 as part of a San Francisco Museum and Historical Society issue of the Argonaut that he produced to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the San Francisco Association of REALTORS®, or San Francisco Real Estate Board, as it was first named, back in 1905.
It provides a fascinating look back at the development of organized real estate, not just in San Francisco, but within California and nationally. View the first San Francisco Purchase Contract, developed as a standard form in 1907. Read the first Code of Ethics for the profession, adopted nationally in 1913. Find out who coined the term REALTOR®, how to pronounce it and use it correctly. [Tip - if you can replace it with the phrase "real estate agent", you probably should, because that means you are about to use it incorrectly.]
David Parry was President of the San Francisco Association of REALTORS® in 2002 and continues today as a Director of the California Association of REALTORS® (C.A.R.). He represented San Francisco's 5,000 REALTOR® members for 4 years as a Director of the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR). For 16 years he was a Director of C.A.R's Business Technology subsidiary, zipLogix, which produced and maintains the zipForms product that every agent in California uses.
David was the only person who was a board member of both the San Francisco Historical Society and the Museum of the City and County of San Francisco prior to the merger of those two organizations in November 2001.
