Sounds like a dumb question doesn’t it?  For the first part of my life I didn’t know there was anything else but real estate!

I grew up in a family of builders – my grandfather was a builder, my father was a builder, and my brother became a builder.  My mother was the Realtor who sold my father’s new homes.  Our family get-together’s revolved around new homes and discussions at the dinner table were often about the real estate business.

During my high school summers, I worked on the new home construction site and often found myself putting down the hammer to talk to the consumers looking to buy the houses.  A natural love of helping people get into a home started by the time I was 16 or 17 years old.  I attended the University of NC at Chapel Hill, and during those summers I started working in my mother’s real estate office.  By the time I graduated college, I knew real estate was the industry I would make my career; however, I tried other professions – mainly bartending and selling health insurance – which lasted one year. My parents asked me to come back and run the real estate firm so by the time I was 23, I was a Broker-in-Charge for them.

A lot has changed since my first position.

I remember getting our first fax machine, thinking it was the coolest technology I had ever seen.  I thought then things would never be the same once we installed that fax machine, but I had no idea what was coming around the corner with technology.  We had no e-mail, no cell-phones, no internet website postings, no electronic calendars, no MLS, etc., so you get the picture.  That makes me feel like the grandfather who told you he walked 2 miles in the snow to school!  We have come a long way since then and real estate has changed so much since those days.  It has changed because consumers want more & expect more, technology has evolved, access to information has changed, and ultimately the economy has created new challenges and evolutions.

No matter what the challenge has been for us in the real estate industry, buying a house is the biggest financial purchase most of us will make in our life.  Having an expert guide you step-by-step through that financial purchase is critical.  I’m proud of the value we bring to people’s lives and to this financial process; after all, it’s where people live most of their life, raise their family, feel secure, and make their home.  I wouldn’t do anything else, not that I’m aware of any other professions….

By Tony Jarrett