Editorial
Front Page - Friday, July 31, 2009
Realtor looks forward to bright future in real estate
Samara Litvack
Born and raised in Chattanooga, Jack Webb headed north after graduating from McCallie School. He attended the University of Kentucky, where he met his wife, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business.
“I really didn’t know what I wanted to do,” he says. “My father and grandfather had both worked for the old Provident Life and Accident Insurance Company, which is now Unum. So I started out there.”
After a few years, he headed east. Working in sales for Dixie Orange, he was transferred to New York. Two years and the first of two children later, he decided to make another major change.
“I had met a really neat guy, great man named Hugh Huffaker, Jr., who had a company at that time called Huffaker Realtors,” he says. “I had actually gotten to meet him out working on some committees and stuff at McCallie School.”
Webb had always thought he would enjoy the real estate business. He loved sales; he loved helping people. It seemed like a natural progression from where he’d been. So he contacted Huffaker and expressed his interest. He was welcomed into the company with open arms. Soon after, he, his wife and their baby girl moved once more – this time, back to his hometown of Chattanooga.
That was in October of 1986, and he has been selling real estate ever since. Webb began as in sales and worked his way up through the ranks of the company – first to sales manager, then to president. During that time, Huffaker Realtors grew from one office to four, and from a dozen agents to 95.
“Hugh was kind of looking for a way to settle down and go into semi-retirement and asked me if I wanted to buy the company,” says Webb. But rather than take that step alone, Webb recalled a man by the name of Harold Crye who was running successful firms in Memphis and Nashville. He suggested having Crye come to Chattanooga so the three men could talk business, and Huffaker was open to the idea.
“I called Harold Crye and he kind of came in under the radar and met with me and Hugh and started looking at what we had to offer here, and looking at the Chattanooga market,” says Webb. “He liked our company a lot and he liked what he saw about the future of Chattanooga, so he bought us out.”
Huffaker Realtors became Crye-Leike Realtors in 1997. Within a few short years, the four-office, 95-agent staff grew to nine offices and 350 agents.
“I’ve been very blessed to have had two great mentors in the real estate brokerage business,” he says. “Hugh Huffaker, with Huffaker Realtors, and then Harold Crye, with Crye-Leike Realtors. Both great men to work with. Learned a lot from both of them and really enjoyed working with both of them.”
Webb became the vice president and general manager, acting as a sort of regional manager for Crye-Leike of Southeast Tennessee and Northwest Georgia. He served in that role for close to six “really good years,” he says, but when he was presented with an opportunity to take a new path, he did not turn it down.
Webb teamed up with three friends – Ed Smith, Mike Moon and Don Moon – and got into the development business. He kept his license with Crye-Leike active, but focused the majority of his time and effort into new developments.
The group developed 25 houses at Cummings Cove, 40 patio homes at Greenbriar Cove in Collegedale and a farm in Rock Spring, Ga., called Fieldstone Farms.
“(We) developed part of that farm and developed 127 lots and had about 20 builders that came in and bought the lots from us,” he says. “That first phase of Fieldstone Farms that we developed was very successful and the market was really strong at that point.”
The market was fairly strong the entire time he developed, actually, and Webb considers himself and his partners lucky, as far as timing goes. They sold every property they developed and, when they recognized a coming downshift in the market, they quit developing. He went back to Crye-Leike, where his active license awaited him, and went right back to selling real estate.
“I’m just focused on selling any type of real estate I can, whether it be commercial or residential or investment property or raw land,” he says.
“We’re very fortunate that we finished up everything we had going.”
If the market picks up in the next couple of years, Webb says he and his partners might do more development in the future. Either way, he definitely plans to keep
selling.
“That’s one of the beauties of being in real estate,” he says. “I’ve sold before. I’ve been a manger. I’ve been an owner. I’ve been a developer. And now I’m back to focusing on the sales side. So there’s a lot of flexibility in real estate and I’ve been fortunate to be in several different aspects of the real estate business.”
And despite the current market, Webb is confident Chattanooga will soon bounce back and see profitable returns very soon.
“I’m optimistic about the future,” he says. “We’re well positioned. We have a lot of strong companies that are in Chattanooga right now that have a very strong history. I think we have a very strong base from which to work.
“I just think Chattanooga really has a lot to offer. I’m just happy to be in the real estate business and, even though it’s a little slower right now, I think, incrementally, things will improve both in the overall economy and also the local
economy.
“I think the future is bright in Chattanooga. I think the real estate opportunities are right in Chattanooga, but the same thing in the real estate business. I think people, whether they own residential real estate or commercial real estate, they have to be realistic in their expectations. It is Chattanooga, Tenn., and we’re a mid-sized market and we are in a little bit of a pullback or a slowdown right now. But I think things will be fine here. I
really do.”
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