CENTURY 21 Beggins Enterprises officially began in June of 1992, but its foundation runs much longer and deeper. Jim Beggins was the founder of CENTURY 21 Real Estate of Southern Florida, bringing the CENTURY 21 brand to the State of Florida. He purchased the Master Franchise for CENTURY 21 from Orlando down to Key West in 1973. Over the next 10 years, he built the CENTURY 21 name across Florida by creating 320 offices with 4500 salespeople selling billions of dollars in Florida Real Estate. He sold his interest in the region in 1983 and moved his family to the Tampa Bay region where he began developing Real Estate with the crown jewel being an 83 acre waterfront community named Symphony Isles. Everything was a family affair. Jim’s wife, Vicky, was busy designing the model homes. Jim’s oldest son, Craig, got his start on the builder’s construction crew. And Jim’s youngest son, Jeff, was just entering middle school and helped by touring prospective clients around the Symphony Isles community via golf cart on the weekends
Fast forward 5 years to 1988. Craig, after graduating from Berkeley Prep in Tampa, and while attending University of Florida, obtained his real estate license at age 18. He began selling lots and homes in Symphony Isles on summer breaks for Symphony Realty. “I made $7,000 my first summer, I thought I was so cool” says Craig. He became General Manager of Symphony Realty which then was made up of himself, his mom, Vicky, and 1 sales associate. Craig transferred to University of South Florida when his dad made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. The offer was to graduate college, obtain your Broker’s License and he could then have half of the Real Estate Company. Craig graduated from USF with his Business Degree in 1991 and became partners with Jim. With larger aspirations on the horizon, Symphony Realty was relocated from inside of the private gates of Symphony Isles to “downtown” Apollo Beach on Apollo Beach Boulevard. Craig and Vicky began selling properties in Apollo Beach in addition to Symphony Isles.
The company became more active in the community including the Chamber of Commerce and the Apollo Beach Economic Development Council where a young lady named Angelique caught Craig’s eye at a function. Angelique was the daughter of Thomas Corr. The Corr Family, commercial developers from Lansing, Michigan, acquired the undeveloped 6,600 acres of then marsh land in 1958 and proceeded to dredge and fill the 55 miles of canals which would become Apollo Beach. Their company, Frandorson Properties (named for Angelique’s grandparents, Francis, Dorothy and their 4 Sons), was the master developer of Apollo Beach. They also owned the largest real estate company in town, Frandorson Realty. Angelique was the Marketing Director of Andalucia, her family’s upscale waterfront community in Apollo Beach that competed with Symphony Isles. Seldom did a waterfront buyer come to town that neither Angelique nor Craig didn’t know about and compete over. In the spirit of fate and true entrepreneurship, Craig and Angelique were married in 1991 and Angelique was the first recruit of Symphony Realty.
Angelique would prepare the marketing flyers, mailings and the subsequent door knocking schedules and Craig and Vicky would be kicked out of the office to go knock on doors. Things progressed fairly well for the new brokerage as it sold many lots and homes and built great relationships. In 1992, Rick Remke, a local homebuilder and great client of Symphony Realty, who owned the CENTURY 21 office in town (Jim sold Rick’s Dad the franchise in the 1970s), approached Craig, now 23, about buying his office so he could focus on home building. Craig called Jim, who was traveling for consulting work in Canada for a National Franchise, to ask his advice. Jim’s advice … Let’s buy it!
The real estate company’s name was changed from Symphony Realty to CENTURY 21 Beggins Enterprises in 1992, a name that Craig and Jim dreamed up while working on projects together in their garage.
The Beggins Family, already armed with tremendous Real Estate knowledge, learned more about the local Tampa Bay Regional Area in the following years. Beggins acquired CENTURY 21 Preferred Realty in South Hillsborough County in 1996 and further strengthened its foothold in Hillsborough County.
Jeff joined the company shortly after graduating from University of Florida with his Business degree in 1996, after working briefly in sales with Ringhaver Catepillar. Seeing the opportunity in the Real Estate industry, Jeff couldn’t see working for a company with income restraints and became an excellent real estate agent and master prospector. He was named one of the 30 under 30 by Realtor Magazine and a Top Gun of Real Estate by Florida Realtor Magazine. Jeff moved into management to help grow the family business when Beggins expanded into Pinellas County opening 2 offices along the Gulf Beaches in 1998. Jim and Jeff moved to the beaches to further expand into that market with offices in Indian Rocks Beach, Madeira Beach and eventually St. Pete Beach.
Beggins opened CENTURY 21 LIST with Beggins in South Tampa in 2005 with long-time friend John Lum as a partner and quickly became entrenched in the New Home Development market along with focusing on competing in a market with very seasoned competitors and looking forward to the adventure of progressive realization of dominate market share.
Things were rocking and rolling on a tremendous growth path until the Real Estate market crashed. The family literally lost almost everything that had been built over the past 15 years, selling assets so they could reinvest to keep the business alive and to keep people employed. No matter how hard it became, they didn’t give up. They did what they had to do to stay in business and to live up to their obligations as tough as they were. The family pushed through and emerged, a bit bruised, yet stronger and wiser, with more drive, passion, focus and clarity.
Beggins remained the #1 CENTURY 21 in the Region and consistently ranked in the Top 5 in the State (out of hundreds of offices) but with optimistic DNA, their eyes started to focus on loftier goals even with the market in the doldrums.
Jeff and Craig were out of town at a family event which gave them some “pause and reflect” time together at a time when the market was still declining. That’s exactly when the evolution SPARK hit. That’s when the shift to a “life betterment company” began. “If we are going to keep doing this … let’s do this BIG! It’s time to HAVE FUN and MAKE MONEY! We’re too good not to grow this thing; we have too much to offer; too many people to stay the size that we are. Someone is the #1 CENTURY 21 Company in the WORLD and it might as well be us! Nobody will outwork us.” And with a cheers and brotherly smiles … the mission was set.
CENTURY 21 Beggins will become the #1 CENTURY 21 Company in the WORLD. How to get there?
With Craig at the helm as President/CEO, his wife Angelique managing the Inventory and Back Office systems, brother Jeff delivering World Class Training and Motivation, Father Jim providing invaluable coaching and sage advice, Mother Vicky performing as a Top Sales Person and Ben DeBrocke as our Long Term CFO and CTO, we’ve got all the necessary components to become the #1 CENTURY 21 Firm in the World.
One of many lessons instilled by Jim is “You can have everything you want in life if you just help enough people get what they want. Find more great agents and help them find more great sellers and buyers to help. It’s that simple.”
The Beggins Brothers began to re-tool the systems for attracting and on-boarding new associates staying true to offering their objective of offering clients with their “Finest Real Estate Experience … GUARANTEED” along with a money back guarantee. Beggins focuses on their mantra which is to “EMPOWER. EDUCATE. ENCOURAGE”. CENTURY 21 Beggins has moved to a powerful on-line document storage platform, beefed up its technology, established impressive BEST IN CLASS partnerships to offer a one stop experience for clients when it comes to real estate, title insurance, home warranties, home loans, property and casualty insurance as well as home repair and maintenance, development and construction. All of the things that one would expect from the #1 CENTURY 21 Company in the WORLD! It’s the old adage …”Build it and they will come.”
CENTURY 21 Beggins expanded into Sarasota and Manatee counties in 2013 with 5 locations along Longboat Key and Downtown Sarasota. “How exciting to start fresh with the CENTURY 21 brand in those counties. It’s going to be a fun journey gaining market share with awesome agents joining us along the way”, says Jeff.
The growth efforts continue at an intense level to find more great people who want to HAVE FUN and MAKE MONEY. New and/or experienced agents, smaller and larger offices that want to merge into the culture and systems or acquiring new locations, CENTURY 21 Beggins is always on the lookout for new opportunities for growth and development. Beggins offers FREE career seminars EVERY Tuesday for those looking to see what it would be like to join in on the fun.
CENTURY 21 Beggins has a burning desire to help their agents deliver on the promise of providing their customers with her or his “Finest Real Estate Experience”… GUARANTEED! They accomplish this through ongoing support and training for their sales associates so that the sales associates can spend their time looking for and servicing their customers.
CENTURY 21 Beggins continues to attract and retain the best in the industry and has tremendous participation in its Daily Training Meetings, called Team Huddles, weekly coaching, quarterly team meetings and annual celebrations. As of the beginning of 2015, Beggins has 300+ sales associates that they connect with daily with tips, advice and strategies on how to deliver on their Service Guarantee making sure that their agents are doing what they need to do to live the life they deserve to be living for themselves and their families.
Please know, we’re nowhere near done. As 2014 closed, we ranked #20 in the World, #15 in the U.S. and #1 in the Southeast United States. We consistently are a top contributor to Easter Seals, CENTURY 21’s Corporate Charity. If we can help you Buy a home, Sell a home, start a new Career, invigorate an existing career, help with Mortgages, Title Insurance, Property and Casualty Insurance or simply home maintenance and renovation, we’re just a phone call or e-mail away. We’re here to serve and we have lots of room to help a lot more people and we’d love to have you be one of them.
With over 4 decades of deep roots in the Real Estate Business, the Beggins Family name has become synonymous with Real Estate. The Beggins Family is involved EVERY day in this business and would be honored to have the opportunity to help you next and welcome you into our family. Thank you for reading our story. Feel free to reach out to any of us with any questions you may have.
With sincere gratitude,
Craig, Angelique, Jim, Vicky and Jeff Beggins
