The booming real estate market in northwest Arkansas is attractive not just to buyers and sellers of properties.
McGraw Realtors of Tulsa, which has offices throughout Oklahoma and one in Fort Smith, is expanding into northwest Arkansas. Whispers is told McGraw, which did $2 billion in business a year ago, plans to open five offices in the next two years.
Stephanie Funk, a longtime entrepreneur and creative consultant, is leading the effort to get the operation up and running in northwest Arkansas. Funk, a member of Arkansas Business’ 40 Under 40 in 2016, founded Acorn: The Influence Co. before starting Funk & Co. in 2016.
Funk said the entire McGraw leadership team in northwest Arkansas will be women. Funk became a real estate agent in recent years after a stint as vice president of creative services at Metova.
Funk worked most recently for Jay Howard, the furniture-making entrepreneur who founded I.O. Metro in 2005 and Howse in 2015. Howard branched out into the real estate development field in 2020 when he brought Funk on board.
Speaking of Howard, he showed some of his real estate acumen recently. Howard sold a 2,824-SF home on Sawgrass Court in the upscale gated Pinnacle community for $605,000 to John D. Mahaffey; just two years ago, Howard paid $460,000 for the home.
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