Dallas' most renowned name in the real estate industry, Ebby Halliday-Acer, died peacefully in her sleep last Sept. 8. She was 104.
Mrs. Acer is the founder of Ebby Halliday in 1945. She turned the one woman real estate office to one of the largest and most respected residential real estate company in the United States. At present, the Ebby Halliday Real Estate Company based in Dallas is the largest independently owned residential real estate company in Texas, and is tenth in rank in the United States. The 70-year-old company employs 1,700 sales associates and has participated in approximately 19,200 property transactions in 2014 with a sales volume of $6.64 billion.
Ebby Halliday was born Vera Lucille Koch in the small town of Leslie, Arkansas on March 9, 1911.
The name Ebby Halliday was given to her by her supervisor in the department store she used to work for.
In her interview with NBC 5, Ebby recalled what her supervisor told her, "She said, 'You will never progress in this world with that name,'" Halliday recalled. "And she said, 'I have a new name for you.'"
The Dallas Morning News reports that she was then transferred to Dallas in 1938 where she was the hat department manager at the W.A. Green Store.
She eventually opened her own boutique, where well-known Dallas businessman Clint Murchison would soon spot Ebby's knack in selling and sent a message to her through his wife.
The message states, "If you can sell those crazy hats to my wife, maybe you can sell my crazy houses,"
Ebby sold all of them and soon changed her product from hats to houses, and the rest was history.
Mary Frances Burleson, president and CEO of The Ebby Halliday Companies remembered Ebby as a giving and compassionate woman. "While we grieve the loss of Ebby, our legendary founder and my friend and mentor for over 50 years, we celebrate a long life well lived," "Each of us who had the good fortune of knowing Ebby has been touched by the grace, fortitude and compassion with which she lived her life. Ebby had a very simple saying that she lived by: 'Do something for someone every day.' "
