Technology Meets Tradition in Fayetteville Partnership

Bassett Mix & Associates Inc. in Fayetteville has announced that two of its agents have formed a partnership.

Realtors Karon Reese and Anthony Clark both focus on historic and unique properties in downtown Fayetteville as well as the historic Wilson Park and Washington Willows neighborhoods.

Together, they hope to provide greater customer service to their clients.

“Our philosophies just meshed so well and our marketing and business plans fall in line with each other,” Clark said. “I needed a change and she needed some help as her business grows. That’s the basis.”

In a former life, Reese was a literature professor at the University of Arkansas, working on a PhD. A friend, Fayetteville businessman Richard Alexander, nudged her into the real estate industry.

“It really was on a whim,” she said. “I was licensed in September 2004 and made my first sale the following May and it just sort of took off from there. In 2006, I got into it full time and stopped working on my dissertation and quit teaching.”

Reese, who commutes to her second home with her husband in New Orleans, is one of Northwest Arkansas’s top-producing realtors. In the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal list published in March, she ranked No. 20 with a 2010 sales volume of $7.9 million. Her best year was in 2009, when she had a volume of $11.7 million.

Reese said the philosophy of living in a downtown area, in a historic home or older neighborhood is becoming more appealing, especially to those relocating from larger areas to work for or with the world’s largest retailer.

“The secret is out; there are a lot of Wal-Mart people living in downtown Fayetteville,” she said. “It’s a sophisticated town and it meets a lot of those urban desires. It makes a lot of sense.”

She hopes the karon&anthony partnership, as it’s called, gives her more freedom and expands the customer base.

“Anthony reaches a younger crowd with technology than I do through my more traditional methods,” she said. “He will really bring another dimension with his knowledge. He is a technology whiz and on the cutting edge and I’m sort of old-fashioned.”

Clark, like Reese a UA graduate, began his real estate career in 2002 in Tulsa.

There, he honed his specialty in the homes of the city’s 14 historic neighborhoods and its downtown area.

He began his local career in 2008, and joined Bassett Mix in August.

“Our customers and clients use us because of our individualism and trust they’ve had in the past,” he said. “I expect that to continue. If anything, this should improve service. Hopefully people see that as well.”

Bassett Mix had a 2010 sales volume of $55.8 million.