Tarter expands in Jay County

A technology-oriented company is beginning to focus its services on Jay County, starting with the opening of an office in Portland. 
Tarter Realty Auction and Appraisal opened its Portland location for full-time office hours, holding a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday. The company’s flagship office is in Winchester. 
Father and son co-owners Dave and Matt Tarter see the new office as a way to better invest in Jay County, with two realty agents and an office assistant working out of the Portland location.
“We’ve focused a lot on Winchester and Randolph County over the past several years,” said Matt Tarter, who joined the business in 1999 and went full-time in real estate after leaving his position as a Jay County Sheriff’s Office deputy in 2010. “Now we’re focusing on Jay County, and we really want to make a presence here and we have great people up here.”
Tarter Realty has had a representative in Jay County for the past five years through realtor Matt Glentzer, now the managing broker of the Portland office. Glentzer, who also owns NAPA Auto Parts in Portland, said the company prides itself on its technological advances, from virtual meetings to its cloud storage system for documents.  
“Real estate’s still a heavy paper form, but we’re almost a paperless company,” Glentzer said. “Documents can be generated, signatures made, without even printing off a piece of paper.” 
Technology has been important from the start, Tarter said, and is crucial now that the business operates in eight counties, doing appraisals, selling houses and managing properties. The appraisal department is now using a mobile office — a minivan equipped with a full desk, wireless capability, computers and access to all the office documents.  
“I think technology allows you to do more better with less,” said Tarter.  “It gives us the ability to be more efficient, to do more with less resources and ultimately to serve our clients and customers better.” 
Technology is what customers ask for, Glentzer said. It’s opened up new doors for the company, such as during transactions when both the buyer and seller live out of state. Virtual meetings and video software allow for face-to-face interactions, and buyers can view houses via video walkthroughs without leaving their homes. 
“It just kind of comes back to, you provide good service and what the clients want,” Glentzer said. “To just get one document signed, somebody doesn’t want to take time out of their day when you could send it right to their phone, they touch it, it’s signed, they’re done, so not only has it been a convenience for the customer but for the realtor to get more things done.” 
Being a second-generation business has allowed Tarter Realty to grow while still remaining customer-oriented, Tarter said. His father, founded the company in 1996, instilled in him the importance of treating people right and interacting with them face-to-face. 
“We’ve always been technology driven, we have a group of people that are very forward thinking, and a group of people that are always looking for ways to do things better,” Tarter said.  “That coupled with a lot of the things my dad started us on … We’ve kept those good qualities and then leveraged that against the technology, and we’re always trying to do things better.”