Casey Jones knows a thing or two about real estate. He’s been in the business for more than 35 years, and as a member of the top selling Janet Jones Co. team, he is one of the most well-known real estate agents in Central Arkansas. He became a member of the Million Dollar Club in 1988 at the age of 19, within his first year in the industry, and later became a member of the Multi-Million Dollar Club in its first year, 1992. He’s been a member each year thereafter.
How to succeed in business
If you ask Jones the secret to becoming a great agent, he’ll tell you the key to success in real estate is the same as it is in any profession — “show up.” That doesn’t mean simply walk in the door and bask in success. What he means is something much more demanding. You have to“know what sellers and buyers are looking for, focus on their needs and be willing to do whatever it takes to help them get to where they want to go.”
Jones will tell you it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes years to establish the knowledge and experience needed to be able to serve clients in that capacity.
It took him about five or six years of working in this industry before he considered himself proficient — and the more proficient he became, the more he enjoyed the job. In his opinion, the payoff is well worth the hard work.
“It has been a great experience, and I enjoy it even more today than I did before,” he said. “It’s nice when you’re at a place where you can focus on the very best interest of your clients.”
Jones has been in the game so long he’s gone multigenerational. He’s now selling and buying houses with the children and the grandchildren of his original clients.
Perks of the job
What Jones most enjoys about his work is meeting people from a variety of backgrounds, some who have lived in Little Rock their entire lives and others who are coming to the city for the first time. Helping them find the right house, sharing the highlights of Little Rock and filling them in on the areas’ activities are the best parts of his job.
“I feel like I’m an ambassador for Little Rock,” he said. “I don’t sell Little Rock; it sells itself. I get to show off what a great city we have.”
Of course, working in any industry for this long doesn’t come without its challenges. For Jones, the toughest obstacles have been the ones that come from outside influences. One notably difficult time was right after 9/11.
“We felt like no one would ever buy a home again,” he said. But slowly, life began to normalize, and eventually the housing market got back on track. Then, almost 20 years later, the pandemic hit, and real estate agents were forced again to work through a difficult moment in time, way beyond the scope of their industry.
Dealing with the economic effects of COVID-19 has been tough, but Jones has a unique, positive spin on that. He sees the real estate sector as a “catalyst for moving the country forward, not only economically but emotionally as well.”
As people have had to spend more time at home, the space and amenities of where they live have become more noticeable. Realtors have taken on an important role in helping people reestablish a comfortable home environment.
The housing market
Staying home more also drove the market to a stunningly successful year in 2020, a factor Jones does not take for granted.
“We’ve been fortunate in the real estate industry that our business has been as strong and as healthy as it has been,” he noted. “And I realize that’s not the case for many other businesses.”
While some people may be afraid that the housing market is in a bubble that’s about to burst, Jones is not one of them. He believes the current boom is more of a classic case of supply and demand. He said there currently is less inventory because people were hesitant to put their homes on the market during the height of the pandemic, whether that was because they didn’t want to take the financial risk of buying a new house or the lingering safety concern of letting people into their homes.
“The lack of supply and a strong demand has created some of the energy in the market,” he explained. “I think it will even itself out, probably by the end of summer, but of course it’s like the stock market, and you don’t know for sure.”
Even with talk about interest rates increasing, Jones feels confident about the state of things. He agrees rates will most likely go up soon, but he believes it will not have a negative impact. In his opinion, because the current rates are at a historic low and buyers have “benefited from them for a while,” there’s room for rates to “acclimate a little bit” and still not hurt the market.
Advice for novice agents
Looking back on 35 years in the industry, Jones wouldn’t change a thing.
“It’s been a blast. It’s been the most enjoyable time. A lot of my closest friends have come from the business.”
He dispels the idea that real estate agents are a bunch of sharks. “People think this business is competitive, and it is to some degree, but my greatest assets are the other agents I work with,” he said.
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