Charlotte John’s career path did not lead her to real estate right away, though one could be forgiven for thinking the Little Rock home-selling icon was born into the business.
Necessity being the mother of invention, John reinvented herself as a real estate agent in the mid-1970s after a brief run as an IBM engineer. Today, the company that bears John’s name is one of the top-selling residential real estate firms in the state and one of central Arkansas’ most recognized brands.
John grew up in North Little Rock and went to school at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, where she majored in English. After graduation, she spent 12 years out of state as a military wife then as a teacher in Atlanta. Before she could realize her destiny in real estate, though, she needed to come home and find out what she did not want to do.
“After answering a newspaper ad in 1974, I was hired by IBM to be a systems engineer in data processing and was asked to move back to Little Rock,” John said. “When I realized I was in over my head with engineering, I asked to sell office equipment for them instead. They nixed that idea, and I found myself without a job.”
With sales, however, John was on the right track. She credits her entry into the Little Rock real estate market to a surprising source.
“Although straight commission sales sounded scary to me, I was encouraged to get into either insurance or real estate sales,” she said. “There were very few women in either of those areas of business. I chose real estate after talking to an old college friend of mine, Janet Morley Stover — now my friendly competitor Janet Jones. She assured me that if I worked hard, I would be able to make more money than if I taught school. I did work hard — very hard.”
Fifty years ago, of course, hard work took on a more analog disposition.
“There was no multiple listing service, no computers, no internet, no cell phones, no fax machines,” John said. “We did have typewriters and copy machines. We used carbon paper and ball point pens to write offers when we were out of the office. We went to Western Union downtown to receive acceptances/rejections from out-of-town buyers and sellers. One of our hardest jobs was finding houses that were for sale with other companies.
“In that era, real estate companies ran blind ads without addresses or prices. We agents had to drive through neighborhoods to find for-sale signs. Then we had to call each agent to get basic information of price and square footage. And finally, we had to go to each real estate office to borrow their particular key fob in order to show their listings.”
John’s hard work paid off. Her first year in the business, she listed and sold 30 houses. The next year, that number increased to 50.
“I never looked back,” she said.
Since her start in 1975, John said she has seen interest rates for home mortgages range from a low of less than 3 percent to a high of 21 percent. Through it all, John said she came to realize an essential truth — real estate endures. People will need to buy and sell homes regardless of the economy.
“When the rates reached 21 percent, most banks and mortgage companies completely stopped making home loans,” she said. “Most of us agents wondered how we could ever sell another house. However, many loans were assumable at that time. If a seller had to sell, they were usually agreeable to carry a second mortgage for potential buyers. That is when I realized that real estate sales go on regardless of the interest rates or the financial markets. Some people have to move for a job in a new location. Others get married and need to sell their current homes and buy one together. Others divorce and need to sell and buy. Some need a larger home for their growing family. Others need to scale down after their children are grown, and still others may simply want a change in size, style or location.”
As for trends, John said she would like to see fewer “mega-houses” built for an average size family and more units that are smaller and less expensive.
Today, the Charlotte John Co. is one of the largest residential firms in Arkansas at more than 40 agents including her son, David. Real estate has been good to John and John to it, but her biggest reward from an almost 50-year run does not boil down to a sold sign.
“That would be the many friends I’ve made along the way: buyers and sellers, inspectors, insurance reps, mortgage officers, title company people, repairmen,” she said. “The list goes on and on, and I’m not done yet.”
