Feb. 5—A prominent real estate company merged with an affiliate based out of Dallas.

Century 21 Goodyear Green is now Century 21 Judge Fite Company. The merger took place last week.

Jim Fite, president and CEO of Century 21, Judge Fite Company, said he had been eyeing the Norman-based company for a while.

“About 10 years ago, Jan Goodyear and his partner Dan Marcus came to Dallas-Fort Worth(DFW) and took a look at our operations,” Fite said.

He said the company started actively pursuing the merger last May after Goodyear referred a large development of land on the border of Texas and Oklahoma near the Red River north of Paris, Texas.

Goodyear Green holds offices in Norman, Guthrie, Harrah, Midwest City and Edmond with 77 agents.

“Now we have 28 offices in two states going from Central Texas all the way up to Guthrie, Oklahoma,” Fite said. “We concluded and decided that we wanted to open our umbrella.”

He said moving from the DFW area to Oklahoma was a natural progression of the company.

“Of course, we aren’t through. We are a strategic planning company, and we will continue to grow,” Fite said. “I believe you’re either growing a business or you’re dying. Dying is not an option for us.”

He said to date, the company has merged over 60 real estate companies.

“We quit counting at 60,” he said. “We’ve done four in the last five months.”

Amy Bladow, broker at 21st Century Goodyear Green, said she looks forward to the new company.

“They are the largest Century 21 in the South/South Central,” Bladow said.

With the new merger, service will expand as far north as Guthrie, as far south as Waco, as far east as Longview Texas, and as far west as Weatherford, Texas.

Judge Fite Company has been in business since 1937. Judge’s children, Jim and Jan Fite Miller, bought the company from him. The company joined Century 21 International in 1997.

“I have been so excited about this,” Bladow said. “And honest to God, I have been praying for Judge Fite to come to Oklahoma for the last couple of years. They are well known throughout the industry, not just within Century 21.”

She said customers will expect to see better customer services because of the merger.

“They’re going to hold us accountable to learn their services and their techniques, their sales force, and they’re only going to bring us up and make us better than what we are already,” Bladow said.

Eric Fite, chief operating officer of Judge Fite, said the response from real estate professionals has been overwhelmingly positive.

“They are so excited about what we bring to the table and how we can work together to grow their business in the future,” he said. “We’ve been a Dallas-Fort Worth company and Texas company for 87 years, and this is our first venture across a state line into a new area.”

Jennifer Grimes, Judge Fite district sales manager, said she recently moved to Oklahoma from Texas.

“A lot of folks within our Judge Fite family are Oklahomans by nature, so we have several people within our leadership organization who are coming back to Oklahoma,” Grimes said. “At first glance, one might think we’re a Texas company moving into Oklahoma. We are here because of the decision of our customers. Many folks moving into Oklahoma are coming from out-of-state, and a large portion of those are from Texas.”

Jim Fite said the Goodyear Green name will be phased out, and that the community shouldn’t expect signage to be changed out immediately.

Brian King covers education and politics for The Transcript. Reach him at bking@normantranscript.com.