Glenn Crellin, who until recently was the director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research, at Washington State University, has accepted a staff position at the University of Washington and has moved his research operations to the West Side.

As a result, the WSU program is being discontinued.

Crellin now is filling the newly created position of associate director of research at the 10-year-old Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies, on the University of Washington campus.

"I will be doing what I do from Seattle rather than Pullman," he says.

Crellin had headed the WCRER in Pullman for 18 years.

He says the move to Seattle will allow him greater access to resources.

"I was alone in real estate in Pullman," Crellin says.

The Runstad center has three staff employees, four full-time faculty members, and student research assistants.

"Students here will be more specialized in the kinds of things in which my research is involved," he says. "The difference is that students here are graduate students in the field of real estate. In Pullman, assistants were undergrads with basic finance majors."

He says, though, that at least one research project will continue to use WSU students.

Crellin says the transfer of his work was amicable between the universities.

"It was initiated by UW, but WSU didn't have any problems with it," he says.

The only other former staff member at WCRER—an administrative assistant—has been transferred to another position within the WSU College of Business and is providing interim support, he says.

The WCRER had an annual budget of $250,000 to $300,000, most of which was funded through grants, contracts, and a state real estate research account, Crellin says.

He says he doesn't know the Runstad Center's budget. Its funding comes from additional sources, such as endowments, and faculty is paid by the state.

Crellin says he plans to remain active on the Spokane-Kootenai Real Estate Research Committee, which publishes a semiannual real estate market report.

The WCRER website, which provides public access to some of the center's real estate market surveys and studies, will remain active until it is switched to a UW website, and then people who attempt to call up the WCRER website will be redirected to the new site, he says.

WSU created the WCRER in 1989 to enhance the university's mission of education, research, and service in real estate, the center's website says.