Stewart retires after 50 years in real estate

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

There are no strangers in Larry Stewart’s world. If he doesn’t know you, he probably will soon.

“If you’re going to be helpful in a community, you’ve got to know everybody,” Stewart said.

After about 50 years of helping people find places to live, Stewart is retiring. Stewart Realty Co. — the Charles City business Stewart founded — will celebrate his career with an open house on Saturday. The public is welcome to stop by the office at 503 Kelly St. and congratulate Larry from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Stewart let his real estate license expire at the end of last year, and although he is retiring from his job, his work in the community will likely continue.

Among many other local endeavors, Stewart has been on the Charles City Chamber of Commerce, the United Way Board and the University of Northern Iowa Real Estate Advisory Committee. He is also a member of the Elks Lodge, the Moose Lodge and St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church.

The gathering Saturday is billed as a “Retirement Open House,” but Stewart said that it doesn’t really feel like he’s retiring, because what he’s done has never really felt like work.

“Why would you ever want to resign or quit a job that doesn’t require any work?” Stewart asked. “This isn’t working. You’re helping people. That’s all.”

Stewart became a Realtor in the early 1970s and started his real estate career locally at Bill Harrold Realty in 1975, but that was just the start of the third path in his adult life.

Before that, there was Larry Stewart the young man from Floyd, a 1949 graduate of Floyd High School, who enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and served during the Korean War. That Larry Stewart married his high school sweetheart, Donna, while on Christmas leave in 1952 and went on to train on single engine T-6 aircraft and achieve the rank of Senior Airman.

“I was a kid from Floyd, and if you grow up in Floyd, you can live anywhere,” Stewart said.

Then there was Larry Stewart the teacher and guidance counselor, who earned his bachelor’s degree at Iowa State Teacher’s College in 1957, then his master’s degree in counseling at the University of Minnesota. He held several different positions at schools in Iowa and Minnesota as a teacher, coach and counselor — including a guidance counselor position at Richfield, Minnesota, at the time the largest school in the state.

Stewart said that he was one of 10 counselors at Richfield, serving 2,700 students in grades 10-12.

Then, at the age of 40, he decided he needed a change.

“I got to the point, in that school, with 900 kids in a class, it was very impersonal,” Stewart said. “That school was as good as it gets, but 900 kids in a class? It was one of the best high schools ever, but I didn’t want to do that for 30 more years.”

Stewart already had some experience selling homes, so it seemed a natural move when he began his career as a real estate agent with Edina Realty in Bloomington, Minnesota. It also seemed natural, Stewart said, to return home to work in 1975. In the fall of 1987, Stewart opened his own firm, Larry Stewart Realty, at 205 N. Main St. in Charles City. The business moved to its current location in 1992.

“When Larry came back, Charles City was booming,” said Stewart’s youngest son, Dean, who joined the Larry Stewart Realty team in 1988, and later acquired the business in 2008 and incorporated it as Stewart Realty. “By the mid-80s, there was the farm crisis. Things were changing, global change was occurring.”

Stewart changed the way real estate agents did business in the Charles City area. Stewart was the first in the region to practice what became known as cooperative real estate, which is now the standard practice. Before then, each office only handled its own listings.

“What was amazing, when I came here, you could not talk to any other broker,” Larry said. “Nobody cooperated. They had their own listing and they sold it.”

Stewart Realty was also the first to bring in computers, the first to have colored data sheets, the first to produce monthly real estate guides and the first to have a website.

“We’ve been innovative,” Dean said. “We’ve moved with what the market and industry trends were.”

Dean was quick to point out that real estate is still client-driven, and all about the personal relationship with the buyer and seller, although the structure of the business is very different. Dean said his father taught him by example that experience and integrity are the two keys to success.

“When somebody showed up, you felt welcome, you felt invited you felt assisted,” Dean said. “Those good feelings carry on — all the things we’re involved in, if you do good and treat people with respect, the business takes care of itself.”

In about 50 years, Larry Stewart guesses that he has been a part of brokering deals for thousands of homes and nearly half a billion dollars of real estate.

“The numbers are nice, but we don’t remember the numbers, we remember the people and how they fit into the house,” Larry said. “We remember the people more than the business.”

Larry said that a real estate agent is also an ambassador for the community, and oftentimes the first person someone meets when they come to a community is a real estate agent.

“It’s very gratifying, and you get close to families,” he said. “They rely on you, and if you don’t give them help, they’re going to go somewhere else.”

Larry and Donna have six children, 13 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. It’s always been a family business, as Donna, and Lori — the couple’s oldest child — also work as agents at Stewart Realty.

“It’s been two careers, and both of them have been fine,” Larry said. “I’ve never regretted a minute of it.”