Century 21 Real Estate - History

History

Century 21 was founded in 1971 by two real estate agents, Art Bartlett and Marsh Fisher, in Orange County, California.

Here Bartlett revealed how they decided on the name:

We were brainstorming at lunch one day - my former VP and I - and I said the name had to sound like it had been around for a long time. My former VP suggested 20th Century Realty. I thought it would be impossible to get the name registered. He said 21st Realty, but I didn't like that. He then said, "How about Century 21?" I liked it, though it sounded futuristic. I called Marsh and told him, but he thought it was too futuristic. He wanted Green Valley. Well, we finally agreed on Century 21, and we incorporated the company.

Art Bartlett

The company went public in 1977, and was bought out by Metropolitan Life Insurance in 1984. In 1995, the company became part of HFS, the precursor of Cendant, under the leadership of Robert W. Pittman, creator of MTV. Cendant spun off in 2006, and Century 21 Real Estate LLC now operates under its real estate franchise branch, Realogy.

In 2009 Century 21 Real Estate LLC announced its decision to transition its television advertising to additional online advertising, including media spend in the following categories in 2009: display, search engine marketing and partnerships with real estate listing Web sites.

Read more about this topic:  Century 21 Real Estate

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.
    Albert Camus (1913–1960)

    History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.
    Karl Marx (1818–1883)

    Throughout the history of commercial life nobody has ever quite liked the commission man. His function is too vague, his presence always seems one too many, his profit looks too easy, and even when you admit that he has a necessary function, you feel that this function is, as it were, a personification of something that in an ethical society would not need to exist. If people could deal with one another honestly, they would not need agents.
    Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)