The PowerTools column that will be appearing in this space each week will focus on the tools of the trade for professionals in the Real Estate Segment. This theme allows for a great deal of latitude, and we welcome your input, whether it’s feedback regarding your take on a recently published installment from this series or recommendations for PowerTools profile content, we’d love to hear from you.

It seems logical to begin the PowerTools series with an introduction to the pre-history of tools in the real estate segment. Looking backward, most of us can remember the days of dial-up and 300-baud modems, some of us can recall of International Graphics Corporation (IGC – the forefather of Moore Data Management) and PRC, both of whom who hung nine-track assessment files up for MLS users’ access, well before the advent of the World Wide Web. Preceding this first step into the evolution of high technology, the grey-haired elders among us recall the days of microfiche, which followed the hardcopy printout and ungainly plat map books. This takes us back to 1958 and the birth of Real Estate Data, Inc (RED) which later merged to become TRW-REDI, then Experian, and, finally, as it stands today, First American RES. The few survivors whose longevity in the real estate business predates this beginning certainly have some stories to tell around the campfire.

But, to go way back, into prehistoric time, let’s look at an American family dynasty. In 1872, Willard Warren, the patriarch of the Warren Family, who had been publishing The Commercial Record in Connecticut, acquired the Banker & Tradesmen, a 10-year-old Massachusetts real estate publication. An early entrepreneur, Willard acquired as many as 30 publications, including Granite & Marble, and Modern Shoemaker. He turned a family business into a publishing empire that he ruled for over 45 years, until his passing just before the Crash of ’29.

Great-Grandfather Warren was followed by his son Keith, who entered the family publishing business in 1918, after returning from the Great War. He took the reins of the family business upon his father’s death, eleven years later. His legacy is one that many of the “dot-com” survivors know all too well – preserve the core business by spinning off the pieces that would otherwise sap the company’s strength.

Grandfather Keith succeeded, solidifying the Warren family enterprise, which, like his father before him, he ruled for 45 years.

Next came Timothy Warren, Sr., who entered the family business in 1946, upon his return from World War II. The father of the modern publishing era worked alongside his father until 1975, when he ascended to the throne of the Warren Family Empire. He concentrated on the organization’s real estate reporting in three of the original colonies -- Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, Timothy, Sr. reigned over a market territory that included 500 assessment offices. You see, in New England, as opposed to the western states, property assessment is conducted at the town rather than the county level. To cover the Boston market alone, the staff of Bankers & Tradesmen deals with approximately 160 assessment jurisdictions. The complexity of this coverage area makes reporting such a formidable challenge that competition has steered clear over the generations.

Timothy Warren, Jr.

This brings us to the modern era and Timothy Warren, Jr. Tim joined the company ranks upon graduation from college in 1973. After a fifteen-year apprenticeship, he took his place at the head of the Warren Publishing Corporation in 1988. Computerization, which began in 1986, has been the hallmark of Tim’s reign. “We are focused on web-based products,” said Tim. “We see that as our growth area, but we have no plans to abandon our print products.” Tim concluded, “As it has been since the beginning, our publishing business remains focused on the needs of the professional. With the advent of web-based products, we now have the ability to assist the consumers who want the same professional tools.”

On its own merit, this lineage of a family dynasty would be interesting since it may be the last one of its kind. Gone are the likes of the Lusks in Washington and the Greens in Philadelphia, both swallowed up in the Great Consolidation of the 90’s. But what makes this even more interesting is the fact that the Warrens have built a truly magnificent array of offerings, delivering services to a broad cross-section of the professionals using real estate information, including real estate brokers, appraisers, mortgage lenders and community bankers, developers and builders, the legal community, and homeowner service providers.

The Warrens publish over 20 titles in addition to offering electronic access to an extensive database of comprehensive, detailed real estate information for Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Peers and competitors alike would be well advised to take a careful look at the products and services of a truly professional Real Estate Information Service Provider.

If Tim, Jr. is anything like his forefathers, his 45 year reign will end around 2030, give or take. By that time, either his son Keith, who is just beginning high school, or his daughter, Eliza, soon starting the sixth grade, should be ready to take their rightful places in the Warren Publishing Corporation as leaders of an American Family Dynasty.

Those of you who are interested in further information about the Warren family and the products and services of the Warren Group can visit the operation’s website at http://www.thewarrengroup.com

Published: July 29, 2002

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W. B. Freeman II is widely recognized as the foremost expert in the collection, enhancement and distribution of real estate related information. The diversity and depth of his experience in the five principal data applications of the real property transaction set (brokerage, MLS, mortgage, title insurance and appraisal) has solidified his unique, broad-based understanding of the industry that few others enjoy. In an information servicing career spanning twenty two years, he has tirelessly shared his knowledge and love of the business with a vast, almost legendary network of contacts, connections, confidantes, and competitors. His selection as founding chairman of the property information industry trade association is a fitting tribute to the leadership role he has earned as "the marquee name in the REIServicing business".