Real estate broker guide
The Century 21 Real Estate company was founded by Art Bartlett and Marsh Fisher in California in 1971. The pair took their company public in 1977, in an effort to expand and franchise across the USA. It was eventually purchased through a buyout orchestrated by The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in 1984. Like a lot of other companies of the 1980s, Century 21 Real Estate was the mark of big financial companies looking to expand their product lines to customers.
Eventually, Century 21 Real Estate was acquired by the conglomerate HFS, a company that had varied interests in other franchised companies. HFS merged with Cendant, and spun off all of their real estate companies under the trade name Realogy. The new parent company, Realogy, would also control Coldwell Banker and ERA, as well as Century 21 Real Estate. This put Realogy in 25% of every residential real estate transaction conducted in the United States.
Worldwide, Century 21 Real Estate has over eight thousand offices and more than 140,000 independent agents, in more than 40 countries. Century 21 Real Estate is represented in every major city with at least one office and has a presence in all 50 states.
Each office is independently owned by the real estate agent, whom is licensed by their department of state to sell real estate. The Century 21 Real Estate franchisor provides company support along with the MLS (Multi-List Service) to help bring clients to the individual office in their location.
The advanced technology and state-of-the art system the Century 21 Real Estate corporate office uses to bring buyer and seller together through use of their website makes the global challenge of buying or selling property much simpler than it did nearly 40 years ago when the Century 21 Real Estate company began.
Although every office is independently owned and operated, the Century 21 Real Estate corporate office has the right to terminate a franchisee if they should be involved in illegal activities or break the franchise agreement. This measure adds security to protecting consumers against unscrupulous agents and further gives customers the backing of a large corporation like Century 21 Real Estate in the case of a dispute regarding a real estate transaction.
The main corporate office is in Parsippany, NJ, USA. In a recent press release, Century 21 Real Estate has informed they added over 1500 new agents and 11 offices last quarter. Although many would argue the home buying market is in a slump, the recent activity at many of these realtors would suggest otherwise. A further release has indicated the Albanian and Hispanic markets are expanded with Century 21 Real Estate offices.
