Real estate firm’s link to Mercury goes back to 1880s
Blacks Real Estate director Greg Lewis reflects on how advertising has changed with technology
Mackay
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BLACKS Real Estate director Greg Lewis recalls a time when it was a frantic rush to place property ads in the paper before deadline.
"We had to take (a photo) with one of those Kodak cameras, race over to the chemists, wait for it to be developed, jump in the car and take it to the Mercury," Mr Lewis said.
The real estate firm has advertised with the Daily Mercury since 1881 when Henry Lindesay Black and Henry James Wallace joined forces as public auctioneers.
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Back then, classified ads appeared on the front pages of the Mercury.
There were no property photographs but the ads were nonetheless visually striking - think exclamation marks, capital letters and theauctioneer's name printed proudly in bold.
Fast forward to 1979, the real estate business became Blacks Real Estate Pty Ltd with R.M. Griffin then at the helm.
Mr Lewis recalled that by the '90s, when he joined the team, typewriters were still being used.
However, property advertising was starting to cross over from the basic four to five lines of text to featuring pictures, he said.
"We used to get a lot of inquiries over a four-line classified ad," he said.
But he recalled it was a "real flash" moment when they saw their logo in colour in the Mercury for the first time.
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Now, as the Daily Mercury transitions to digital news delivery, Mr Lewis said real estate advertising would follow as customers turned to browsing properties via websites such as realestate.com.au.
"The agent itself will still be needed for negotiation," he said.
"A lot of things have changed but our principles are still the same.
"We've still got to sell the land or the house."
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