ELLY GRIMM

   • Leader & Times

Heritage Real Estate has been vital in helping many individuals and families find homes in the community and last week, the business celebrated its 25 anniversary.

Broker Gary Classen said the idea for the business actually took a bit of time to percolate.

“November of 1996 is when I got my license, and I went to work at Re/Max. Around that time is also when I met Lidia [Hook-Gray] and got to know her, and through the years, we developed a good relationship and decided at some point why we needed to branch off and open a different office,” Classen said. “So in 2001 is when we made that move. Lidia was a broker at that time – I did not have my broker’s license yet – and I helped do all of the setup. We found a location for our office, which was actually located behind what’s now The Cozy Corner on Second Street. We were there for for a while, and it was just me and Lidia, and we officially opened July 1, 2001. Then, about six weeks later is when Stephanie Hall joined us, and it was just the three of us for a long time.”

Classen said the desire to be a business owner helped shape the decision.

“My dad had his own construction business, so I grew up knowing self-employed people, that’s all I’ve known all my life,” Classen said. “There’s something to be said about being your own boss and being in control and managing the business. There are some drawbacks in terms of you do work longer hours than you would if you were just working for somebody, and then you have to manage people. I think that desire to just control some things on our own was was a desire to do that.”

After being open for a short time, Classen said some changes were required.

“In 2008, the owner of the H & R Pharmacy – which was where we are right now, at 2 S. Kansas Ave. – shut it down, and we ultiamtely took over the building. Our address changed from 1 S. Kansas Ave. to 2 S. Kansas Ave., and I do remember the nightmare of changing the address and convincing everyone the new address was correct. We also went through and remodeled the entire building, though there are some features we kept. We opened up the suspended ceiling and found there was beautiful tin ceilings up there, and we knew we had to keep that. When we got into the new building, one of the things we tried to do was giving it more of a look with the wide woodwork and how the windows in each of our offices are kind of resemble leaded glass. I ended up getting my broker’s license in 2010 and then in 2019, Lidia decided she wanted to retire, do some other things, and run The Flower Coop, so she handed over the keys and said, ‘Here you go, you’re the boss.’”

In 25 years of business, Classen said he has seen a lot of changes in the community.

“Our demographics have changed, so we have to learn to adapt to that. The way people live has become different, and you adjust to those trends as wee. There’s been a lot of new construction going on. – from the corner where Braums is located and going north, there have been a lot of changes over the years. In terms of new housing prices, I remember when I started selling real estate, the average price was $87,000 and now, I think the average sales price is probably in the $180,000 to $225,000 range, which is a pretty dramatic change. I also remember when we took photos of houses that were going on the market, the cameras we had used a 3.5-inch floppy drive in the camera, so you would slip the disc in there, go take your pictures, and then take the disc out and save everything in the computer, and then you’d have it, and now, we take our pictures of our houses on our phones since phone cameras have gotten so good.”

Even with such advances seen in the past 25 years, Classen said the human element is still as important as ever.

“I still do some of the old school way of doing things, I like to sit down with someone face to face and explain a contract and go over a contract with them, because there’s that personal involvement, and a lot of people need help breaking everything down,” Classen said. “Things like that don’t change, and even though we can do everything electronically, I still like to have that people element in.”

Classen said he is excited to see what the next 25 years could bring.

“I would love to see some more shopping areas since obviously, we always like to have more industry in town,” Classen said. “I think the Seward County Development Corporation has done a really good job of aiding that work. I think it would also be great to see more of what I would consider affordable housing, something that would be easy for someone just coming out of college to buy and super expensive. There are a lot of factors involved with that – the cost of construction is more than $200 a square foot, and it used to be maybe right below $100 per square foot. I think it would be nice to have something that was really, really affordable for young people starting out.”

Classen said it is exciting having reached a full quarter of a century of business.

“It’s exciting to know the public has supported us, it’s truly the people of the community who support us, because we work for the people,” Classen said. “One of our desires is to make a real estate transaction as smooth and easy as possible, treat everybody with honesty and integrity, and help them through that process. It’s not something everybody does every day, so we work to make it easier for people. I think, because we’ve been here for 25 years, that means people do appreciate the job we’ve done, and hopefully we’ve been successful in that regard.”