The Century 21 Real Estate company was founded by Art Bartlett and Marsh Fisher in California in 1971. In 1977, the two initiated a public offering on the stock exchange in order to raise capital to expand their company throughout the US. It was eventually purchased through a buyout orchestrated by The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in 1984. Century 21 Real Estate, like many other real estate companies in the 1980s became the target of financial companies wanting to add additional services to their lines of products.

Eventually, Century 21 Real Estate was acquired by the conglomerate HFS, a company that had varied interests in other franchised companies. HFS merged with Cendant, and spun off all of their real estate companies under the trade name Realogy. Century 21 Real Estate joined Coldwell Banker and ERA under Realogy, and currently is involved in one out of every four residential real estate transactions in the USA.

The Century 21 Real Estate system has more than 8,100 independently owned and operated offices that employ in excess of 140,000 real estate sales professionals worldwide. Century 21 Real Estate is represented in every major city with at least one office and has a presence in all 50 states.

Each office is independently owned by the real estate agent, whom is licensed by their department of state to sell real estate. The job of the Century 21 Real Estate home office is to provide support services in the form of the MLS, as well as training materials and sales materials to help bring buyer and seller together.

The progressive systems and technology Century 21 Real Estate corporate office uses to bring buyer and seller together through use of their website makes the global challenge of buying or selling property much simpler than it did nearly 40 years ago when the Century 21 Real Estate company began.

Although every office is independently owned and operated, the Century 21 Real Estate corporate office has the right to terminate a franchisee if they should be involved in illegal activities or break the franchise agreement. This measure adds security to protecting consumers against unscrupulous agents and further gives customers the backing of a large corporation like Century 21 Real Estate in the case of a dispute regarding a real estate transaction.

The main corporate office is in Parsippany, NJ, USA. A recent press release shows the company has added more than 1500 new professional agents as well as 11 new branch offices. Although many would argue the home buying market is in a slump, the recent activity at many of these realtors would suggest otherwise. A further release has indicated the Albanian and Hispanic markets are expanded with Century 21 Real Estate offices.