Steven Jones is a Renaissance Man with a million-dollar smile and a million-dollar listing.
He founded a theater company, went to dental school, and got a marketing degree at Baylor University, but his passion lies in selling homes.
“You’ve got to give real estate your all,” Jones said. “You’re not going to be able to give your client what they need if you’re doing something else. I didn’t appreciate the value of a good Realtor until I became one.”
Jones, 61, hasn’t pulled a tooth since 1988. He says he can’t emphasize enough that a good Realtor has to be serving clients all the time. He even believes it’s a good time to buy and a good time to sell.
“Sellers get really nervous if they don’t have multiple offers after one day on the market,” Jones said. “A buyer can come in with a good offer and get the house. I had a client recently who put in 10 offers. On the 10th offer, we got a great house. A good Realtor is going to be able to structure a good offer. It’s not just about the price. The seller is going to be looking at the offer as a whole. There are ways to sweeten the offer without raising your price. Don’t sit on the sidelines and wait. It’s time to jump in. You’re buying the house, so you’re going to marry the house and date your interest rate. You can always refinance later.”
The World’s a Stage
Jones grew up in Irving and completed Baylor dental school nine hours short of an undergraduate degree. He went back to Waco and finished his BBA in marketing.
“In fourth grade, I decided I wanted to be a dentist,” Jones said. “Pre-registering at Baylor, they asked me what I wanted to be. I loved biology. I either wanted to be a dentist or a news anchor.”
Dentistry prevailed — temporarily.
Jones then chased an acting dream in New York for a few years. He loved the stage and got to produce an off-Broadway show. That led to another show and another show.
Returning to the Dallas area in the early 1990s, Jones founded Lyric Stage, a professional theater company at the Majestic, where he served for 28 years. He moved to Fort Worth four years ago and, with an active real estate license, tried to find a brokerage to call home. He set his sights on Williams Trew in Fort Worth, owned by Ebby Halliday Companies. He reached out to Merry Schuck, director of market expansion, who told him Williams Trew didn’t take new agents.
After further discussion, Schuck recognized something about Jones that seemed familiar. Maybe it was that sparkle in his smile that comes from being a doctor of dental surgery.
“She said, ‘I know you,’” Jones recalled.
He was skeptical. There are plenty of Steven Joneses in the world, he thought.
“You’re the guy from Lyric,” Schuck told him. In fact, he was the guy from Lyric.
“She’d been to the theater. Without the theater, I wouldn’t have gotten that job. I’m really thankful for that,” Jones said.
Schuck called Elizabeth McCoy, sales leader at Williams Trew, and the rest was history.
“She was really excited after she met with him,” said McCoy, who manages 100 agents in Fort Worth and 150 in Parker County. “He lives right behind the office. He has a dynamic personality. Most real estate agents come from a previous career. A dentist is one of the most interesting ones I’ve encountered — a dentist who had a theater background.”
Jones is in the perfect career because he puts people before himself, McCoy added.
“That is the absolute No. 1 focus, getting a true understanding of what they want,” she said. “He’s good at thinking out of the box. I’ve worked with Steven since he walked in the door. He’s got a great eye for design, and he’s very well-rounded. He’s a great part of our office and our culture.”
Home Buying in Cowtown
Jones acknowledges that inventory is lower than it was last summer, but there’s plenty of good stock in the Fort Worth area. The trick, he says, is pricing.
“We have some buyers who are like, ‘Let’s just see what we can get.’ If you’ve got a property, you need to price it correctly and let [potential buyers] get into a bidding war rather than pricing it too high and scaring them off. Pricing is really, really key.”
So what’s that got to do with dentistry? Or producing an off-Broadway play?
“How they tie together is the drive, the dedication, and the determination. Those are the most important things in the real estate industry, and those are the things that got me through dental school,” Jones said. “I have to negotiate constantly and work well with people. Like theater production or treating a patient, every real estate transaction is different. There’s the artist side of it, with set design and my love for architecture. You can’t be a part-time Realtor. It’s a full-time job, and it’s a great one.”
When Jones isn’t visiting his second home in the West Texas mountains of Marathon, he’s up early checking out the Multiple Listing Service, trying to locate properties for clients in Fort Worth, Las Colinas, Irving, Stephenville, and McKinney.
“Williams Trew has a lot of office-exclusive listings,” he explained. “We are privy to properties that don’t hit the MLS. A good agent is going to bring you properties you wouldn’t be able to find on your own. That’s one advantage I bring to the client. It’s a great time to be on either side of the transaction. I’ll find a property for you. My job is to help my client not get discouraged. That’s another thing I really love about real estate. I don’t ever see myself retiring. As long as you can see and hear, you can sell real estate — and it never gets old.”
The number of people wanting to move to North Texas will keep good agents in business, Jones added.
“I don’t think it’s a time to sit on the sidelines and say, ‘I’ll wait until the prices go down.’ Should we wait? Absolutely not. The house is going to move,” he said.
Fort Worth has variety and great neighborhoods, Jones explained.
“If you want historic, traditional, modern, a new luxury estate in a gated community, or a beautiful neighborhood downtown, we’ve got all that,” he said. “It really is a big city with a small-town feel. You can get around the city really easily and quickly.”
McCoy agrees that the Fort Worth market is diverse, and so is Jones’s skill set.
“He’s very unique. He’s sold ranch properties, condos, and luxury. He works so hard with first-time homebuyers,” she said. “We’re seeing a little bit of a slower pace with a little more time on the market. There are more options for buyers to choose from. All of those things are definite positives. People who haven’t been able to get a property are getting under contract.
And there’s more.
“He’s got the best laugh,” McCoy added. “I truly admire him. We’re like a family here, and he’s a big part of it.”
Jones said he’s grateful to have found a family at Williams Trew.
“You wouldn’t want me to work as a dentist,” he said. “Real estate is terrific. It allows me to combine different aspects of all the things I’ve done. God has really blessed me.”
