Don Jacques, owner/broker, The Jacques Co.

I’ve been a broker since 1976. In 1980, I started my own company, and have gone through different kinds of phases. Initially, we recruited a lot of agents, and I had as many as 60 agents at one time. Then, we ended up closing all that down to my wife Jan and I.

Why did you scale back?

Just due to the economic times. In 1988, in Springfield, we started with 1,300 agents (in the city), and we ended the year with 700. It was just a blowout year. It hurt lots of companies. Lots of builders left town and so on. It devastated my company as far as agents, and I just burned out on having agents. I just said, ‘We’re either going to go back and fall in love with real estate, or I’m getting out of it.’ We fell right back in love with it and just have done it ever since ourselves, basically.

Was 1988 a bad year nationwide, statewide or just locally?

It was kind of a real estate thing right here in Springfield. It was a localized problem, and I can only give you my take on it. I don’t know that anybody’s got a firm answer. My take was, we had gone through the horrible years of late 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982. It was just horrible. You couldn’t get a loan, and if you did, it was 18 percent interest. We came out of that, and the thing got rolling, and I really think that it got rolling and particularly the lenders got a little bit too loose. By 1988, it was kind of a correction – all of a sudden, they clamped back down, probably appropriately, but it kind of stifled stuff at that point. We had a lot of agents get out of the business that year.

Do you have any apprehension about the fact that interest rates have begun to increase?

I started in the business when 8 percent was great, and I never thought that I would ever see it below that. We went way above that, and then came back down to that, and then we’re talking about 7 (percent), 6 (percent), and 5 percent.

The hard part will probably be that the public’s memory is fairly short. Right now, we’re still below 6 percent, but when (rates) go up above 6 percent and stay very long, it may slow it down. To me, anything below 8 percent looks like a miracle. Yet, to the general public, it’s ‘What was it last week, last month?’ Economically, it will work. People will still be able to buy their homes if it does go up, but it will slow it because of the initial reaction of the public. I’m very surprised that it hasn’t gone higher than it has already.

What have been some of the major changes in the real estate business?

None of them have been Earth-shattering to me. It’s all been slow change. Technology has been the biggest single change that has made our business much easier. Information is ready for us. I can get on any computer and look up any house, and it’s current (on the Multilist). More than half of my rental applications, I receive on my Web site.

When I started, my listing form was a 5 1/2 by 8 1/2 piece of paper – half a sheet.

Now I have a whole drawer full of different forms that we use.

Yet, I’d have to say … in essence, in taking care of the real estate public, being honest and doing a good job for my clients really hasn’t changed. There is just a lot more paperwork.

How does property management fit into your business?

What really got me into property management was my clients who were missionaries. Probably 75 percent of the homes that I manage belong to missionaries. I never really set out to establish a property management business, but because of that client base, I did it for them. I’ve got 120 or so missionary houses that I keep rented.

Tell us about your family and your spare-time interests.

My wife, Jan, and I have three children. They’re all married now. Our oldest son, Michael, lives and works with missionaries and is now the administrator and principal of a school on the island of Guam. Our daughter Janeé is married, and her husband is a youth pastor in Tulsa, Okla. They have two children. Our youngest son, Jason, is married and lives here in Springfield. They have one child and another one on the way. Since 1973, I’ve been a member of a group of laymen with the Assemblies of God, Light for the Lost. We run fund-raising efforts for missionaries for literature. All the extra things I do are geared around that.