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. Century 21 Real Estate, like many other real estate companies in the 1980s became the target of financial companies wanting to add additional services to their lines of products.
Eventually, Century 21 Real Estate was acquired by the conglomerate HFS, a company that had varied interests in other franchised companies. Subsequently, HFS and Cendant merged and the real estate division, was spun off. Century 21 Real Estate joined Coldwell Banker and ERA under Realogy, and currently is involved in one out of every four residential real estate transactions in the USA.
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 utilizes in an effort to pair buyers and sellers through their web sites and internet presence Makes it easier for anyone, anywhere in the world to find property and deal with a local agent. This process has greatly improved the worldwide real estate market over the way business was conducted 4 decades ago.
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 added protection for the consumer means that you have the backing of the corporate offices of Century 21 Real Estate.
The corporate offices are located in Parsippany, NJ in the United States. 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. Further expansion into the Albanian and Hispanic markets also shows their forward-looking progress in the global markets.