2021 will be a milestone year for Michael Jones. He’s turning 50, building his own home, and making history as he takes his seat as Columbus REALTORS®’ first black President. His chosen theme for the year: “A Vision Beyond.”
Michael Jones was born on the East Side of Columbus, where he lives to this day. “Everywhere where I’ve lived since I came home from the hospital has probably been within a 2-mile radius of Bexley and Berwick,” he says. After returning home from Howard University, Michael worked at his family’s grocery store and then in insurance sales until he decided to pursue real estate part-time. It didn’t take him long to realize his true calling as a REALTOR®.
“Real estate is really about being a people person, not a house person,” says Michael, “It’s about people, it’s about community, it’s about connecting… Every transaction has its own unique dynamic, and I gravitate towards that.” According to Michael, a successful realtor is highly organized and a good communicator with excellent listening skills. A successful leader? The same, but with an added focus on connection, understanding, and being visionary and aspirational – all while consensus building. “I’m able to focus on what’s important to the person across the table,” he says.
After over a decade of working with Century 21 Realty, Michael took on his first real estate-related leadership role. In 2008, he was elected President of the Bexley-Eastmoor-Berwick Realty Association, the first black REALTOR® to hold that position.
“Barack Obama and I became president at the same time,” he says, and similar to the first black U.S. President, Michael has grown into his role as a leader in the intervening years. He joined Coldwell Banker Realty in 2009 and was elected to the Board of Directors for both Ohio REALTORS® and Columbus REALTORS® in 2011.
After so many years as a leader, “you just become better at what you do,” says Michael. “It doesn’t mean that it becomes any easier, but some things become second nature… The last twelve years have just allowed me to become more comfortable, more in tune with connecting with people, more in tune with being able to do interviews, public speaking, and focusing on what matters.”
Michael feels confident about his year as President, a feeling he credits to his decade of experience on the Board of Directors. “You see other people go before you,” he says, “you get to see what they do and don’t do and you think ‘I want to do that’ or ‘That’s not the way I want to go.” But there are some things a leader can’t learn from others’ experiences, especially when they’re paving the way for something new.
When asked how it feels to be the first black President of Columbus REALTORS®, Michael says, “It’s an evolving feeling, quite frankly. When I first was elected as an officer [to the Board of Directors], during the interview and nomination process, that was a question that was asked of me. ‘How do you feel, are you okay with this, are you comfortable with it?’ And I said, as this confident young man, ‘yeah, I am.’”
These days, Michael has reason to reconsider the question in light of his new role. “I am a black man, but I’m not here because of that,” Michael says. “It’s an important part of who you are, but it’s not the whole of who you are.” But he believes that in a world where black real estate agents were excluded from the National Association of REALTORS® until the 1960s, representation at the leadership level is critical. “I’m going to be under a spotlight, which I’m up for,” he says. “But the gravity of that first question, several years ago, has really come to a head today.”
“We’re Columbus REALTORS®. We are perhaps one of the more admired, more successful, and generally more forward-thinking leaders in the REALTOR® association world,” says Michael. “Yet we’re behind when it comes to people in a leadership capacity of various cultures and ethnicities…. So you have this very forward-thinking organization, but never has someone advanced to this level.” And while Michael didn’t go looking for the spotlight, he’s ready to accept the importance of his position, and the position of Columbus REALTORS® within the wider world.
“I’m not used to talking about myself,” he says. “I’m not this guy that really likes to focus on myself, because I’m the guy who really likes to talk about the work, the goal, the mission. But I’m acknowledging that right now, because of my role, I may need to be the focus – the spokesperson of Columbus REALTORS®. I’m going to have to take ownership of that and allow myself to operate beyond my unassuming persona.”
Michael plans to use his presidential year to advocate for inclusivity and diversity throughout the Central Ohio real estate industry. “We need to let everybody know that whoever they are, wherever they are, there’s an area of inclusion that embraces them,” he says. “And by fostering self-respect and creating dignity for everybody – everybody – I think we’ll all be better off. That’s where we begin a lot of healing.”
But who is Michael Jones when he’s not being the face of an association? “I have a grandson now,” Michael says, “so I enjoy spending time with him, he’s a real delight for me. He’ll be two in January. So time with him is really important to me… and my daughter, my mother. I enjoy playing tennis, I enjoy swimming. I love traveling from coast to coast, or around the globe whether it’s California or Florida- Saint Lucia or South America. My family has a home in Florida and good friends and family in California, so I get to those as often as my schedule will permit.”
And though he may seem like a “city slicker,” Michael has some unexpected skills. “As a youngster, my paternal grandparents had a farm that I grew up on. And so I enjoyed things like milking cows, riding my horse, slopping hogs, getting eggs from the chickens, you know… I have very fond memories. I actually remember birthing calves by hand, and it was pretty amazing, my first time doing it.”
Interestingly, Michael is also not the first person in his family to make history. “My great-great-grandfather was one of the founding members and the president of a black college in the late 1800s,” he says. “He was an educator, and at that time that was not very common.” Byrd Prillerman, B.S., M.A., Litt.D, helped to found the black college that would eventually become West Virginia State University, teaching in the company of notable historical figures like Booker T. Washington, Kelly Miller, and W.E.B. Du Bois. During Prillerman’s 10-year presidency, the school came to be known as West Virginia’s center of black intellectual life.
“He was one of seventeen children and I think he was one of only two that was not born a slave,” says Michael. Prillerman also owned land and his own home, a rarity for a black man at that time.
Over a century later, Michael Jones will be building his own home in 2021, “which is kind of exciting,” he says. “I never imagined that I would ever do anything like that.” Michael has lived in his eastside Berwick area condo for nearly 17 years, but he’s getting older – “soon three floors won’t work for me anymore,” he says. Michael also wants to be able to take care of his mother, but her current home wasn’t quite right either, so finally Michael thought, “Why don’t I just build it?”
Michael is also hoping to build something less tangible in the next year: a legacy of progress.
“The last thing I want to do is create a year that’s just ‘my’ year,” he says. “It’s so critical that there’s buy-in or consensus from those that will follow behind me. Because the important work that we’ll do and the mission behind it needs to go on.” Michael wants to help plant seeds of change that will continue to grow and flourish beyond his year as 2021 president.
“The strength of those leaders that we’ve chosen, the mission, the impact that we’re going to have, is going to send ripples through our REALTOR® community and in the respective communities in which we live,” says Michael. “And I’m super excited about that, I’m super excited that I have the opportunity to be a part of that.”
One of President Michael’s goals in 2021 is to create stronger ties with organizations like the Columbus Realtist® Association and the Women’s Council of REALTORS®. He also hopes to help establish Central Ohio chapters of the Asian Real Estate Association (AREA), and the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP). “My goal is to see how we can weave all of those groups together,” says Michael, “and then we figure out how to work together and walk arm in arm.”
He also plans to establish a presidential advisory group, “a collection of thought leaders that will be in the trenches and figuring things out for us and giving me some counsel.” This group will be able to collaborate with their counterparts across the country and potentially even across the globe to examine industry trends. “This will hopefully position us to define how we can change things, not just react to how things are changed for us,” says Michael. “They will be able to research and advise me on the future of organized real estate.”
In 2021, the REALTOR® community will face down legal battles, big-name marketing companies working to change the way people think about and conduct real estate, and more. In the face of these challenges, Michael hopes his advisory group will help Columbus REALTORS® to not just stay ahead of the curve, but to define it. “Change is not a bad thing,” he says.
He’s also thinking about how to establish a new “new normal” as vaccine releases begin to herald a potential end to the COVID-19 pandemic. “We want to go into recovery mode without being too careless,” says Michael. “We can’t get too comfortable… because there will still be vulnerable populations and we still have to act with good judgement and caution wherever possible.”
“We need to make sure we’re implementing our strategic plan – when are the dominoes going to start falling?” he says. “We need to strive to have measurable progress points, and I know Sue – President-Elect Sue Van Woerkom – is going to help keep us on track. And then we’ll start to see those results.”
Michael Jones has seen a lot over his 25 years in the real estate industry, but 2020 – marked by everything from nationwide racial justice protests to a global pandemic – was a game-changer. Michael says the past year “has altered, yet again, my viewpoint of what type of president I will be for Columbus REALTORS®. And it’s an important decision because there’s a historical perspective here. I know that I will never be the president that everybody wants me to be, but I’m hopeful that I’ll be the president that our association needs me to be. And I’m confident that I will.”
So why did Michael choose the theme “A Vision Beyond” for 2021?
“It’s not limited to just beyond the pandemic, beyond the social injustices and strife that we’ve encountered,” he says. “It’s a vision beyond’ in just about everything – it’s your own personal journey. And it’s whatever vision you see beyond wherever you are today. It’s not put in a box… only one thing… only three things. It’s infinite.”
