Century 21 Hometown Realty is a humble company by nature. Like all people and companies we enjoy accolades, and we appreciate the opportunity to express our gratitude to the customers, managers, staff, and our sales associates that all contribute to our business success. As every homeowner knows all too well, the past three years have been brutal to housing. Families have lost homes. Real Estate brokerages have failed. Lenders have faced government intervention. Everyone has felt economic woe in some way and it is heart wrenching.
When the housing market crashed, our company recognized that to stay vibrant, we needed to accomplish two key strategic goals. The first goal was expansion. We recognized that we needed to diversify our market service areas. Through acquisition and new offices, we now offer 13 locations along the central coast and in Bakersfield. Our agent count expanded from 100 to 300. The second goal was to focus on delivering a wider range of home services to our customers. Hometown Realty is more than a residential real estate company today. We offer our customers access to world class services in commercial real estate, relocation, property management, and have established joint ventures to mortgage and housing related financial services. We are blessed to have so much support from our community in reaching these goals.
Hometown Realty is a Century 21 franchise. Century 21 is largest real estate franchise in the world and is operated by REALOGY, a company that operates franchises for Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Sotheby’s, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, and ERA. This year, Century 21 recognized our company as the fastest growing real estate company in the world out of 7500 brokerages. In the past 3 years, the company has become one of the 500 largest brokerages in America across all franchise and independent brands.
We sincerely appreciate the San Luis Obsipo Tribunes’ article about our company which follows below.
A local Century 21 franchise has grown to 13 offices from two in less than three years, earning an award from its parent company for being the fastest growing franchise in the firm’s nationwide system.
Because Century 21 Hometown Realty was a break-even company in 2008, said CEO and Grover Beach resident Jack Hardy, “what we needed to do to survive was attack the market.”
So Hometown Realty, which at the time had offices in Arroyo Grande and Pismo Beach, approached other distressed real estate companies with offers to buy them, pare down the operations and take advantage of economies of scale, Hardy said.
In the process, Hometown Realty acquired Re/Max Ocean West with offices in Pismo Beach and Santa Maria, and South County Realty with two offices in Arroyo Grande.
It also bought other Century 21 franchises, including San Luis Properties in San Luis Obispo and Los Osos; Advantage with an office in Lompoc and two in Santa Maria; and Your Professional Choice in Atascadero.
In 2011, it opened an office in Paso Robles.
Hometown Realty has grown revenue 100 percent and earnings by 200 percent since beginning acquisitions, and is looking at buying realty companies in Ventura and Bakersfield.
Hometown Realty is owned by five partners on the Central Coast and Bakersfield, and has 300 real estate agents.
Century 21 is an international company with more than 7,500 independently owned and operated franchised brokerages in 71 countries and territories.