Coldwell Banker

Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC
Subsidiary of Realogy
Industry Real estate
Founded San Francisco, California (August 27, 1906)
Headquarters Madison, New Jersey, United States
Key people
 Budge Huskey, CEO
Benjamin Arthur Banker, partner
Colbert Coldwell, founder
Website www.coldwellbanker.com

Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC is an American real estate franchise owned by Realogy with headquarters in Madison, New Jersey. It was founded in 1906 in San Francisco,[1] and has approximately 3,000 offices in 43 countries and territories.[2]

History

After the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fires, Colbert Coldwell and two partners formed Tucker, Lynch and Coldwell on August 27, 1906. Benjamin Arthur Banker joined the firm as a salesman in 1913, and became a partner in 1914. The company was renamed Coldwell Banker in the same year. Banker and Coldwell remained active in the company throughout their lives.[3][4]

In 1920 Coldwell Banker moved to a three-story building in San Francisco. It opened an office in Phoenix, Arizona, its first outside California, in 1952.[4] In the 1970s the company expanded by acquiring firms in Atlanta, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. The first international Coldwell Banker office opened in Toronto, Canada in 1996.[4]

Coldwell Banker became a corporation in 1961, and went public in 1968. In 1981 it was bought by Sears, Roebuck, and became part of the Sears Financial Network.[4][5] Sears sold it to the Fremont Group, a California investment company, for $230 million in 1993.[6] It was sold to HFS Inc., later Cendant, in 1996.[7][8] When Cendant broke up in 2006, the real estate businesses were spun off as Realogy, which was sold to Apollo Management for about $7.75 billion.[9]

In November 2005 the company, one of its agents and one of its lawyers were defendants in a lawsuit filed in Middlesex Superior Court, which alleged that Coldwell Banker and the agent hid information from a buyer on serious defects in a property. On December 13, 2011, the Appeals Court affirmed the whole fee award and ordered Coldwell Banker to pay a total of $872,000 in damages and costs.[10]

Home Listing Report

Coldwell Banker analyzes data from more than 81,000 similar-sized four-bedroom, two-bedroom homes in over 2,700 real estate markets nationwide and publishes the findings in its annual Home Listing Report. The report serves as a guide for determining most affordable and most expensive housing markets.[11][12]

Awards & Recognition

Philanthropy

In 2006, Coldwell Banker started a "100 Homes" initiative to raise $5 million to support 100 Habitat for Humanity homes around the nation prior to the Coldwell Banker 100th anniversary. More than 130 homes had been committed, and more than $6.1 million had been raised for the year.[18] The company was named as a finalists for the PRNews Corporate Social Responsibility award for the initiative.[19] More recently, Coldwell Banker worked with Habitat for Humanity to help replace thousands of dollars worth of tools and other equipment that were stolen from an Evergreen, Calgary construction site.[20]

In February 2015, Coldwell Banker joined forces with Adopt-a-Pet.com, to help find homes for more than 20,000 dogs.[21]

References

  1. ↑ "2011 Franchise Report" (PDF). Realtor.org. Retrieved October 22, 2015.
  2. ↑ Shayne Heffernan. "US Real Estate: High Demand for $10+ Million Homes". Live Trading News. Retrieved October 22, 2015.
  3. ↑ George Raine (February 18, 2006). "Up from the ashes / Coldwell Banker began in the 1906 rubble of San Francisco". SF Gate. Retrieved October 22, 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "A Brief History of Coldwell Banker". The Playa Times. April 16, 2015. Retrieved October 22, 2015.
  5. ↑ Robert J. Cole (October 9, 1981). "Sears Will Purchase Dean Witter In Plan To Offer Financial Services". New York Times. Retrieved October 22, 2015.
  6. ↑ James S. Granelli (October 6, 1993). "Sears Completes Sale of Coldwell to Fremont Group". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 22, 2015.
  7. ↑ "Company Overview of HFS Incorporated". Bloomberg Business. Retrieved October 22, 2015.
  8. ↑ Edwin McDowell (May 3, 1996). "HFS Agrees to Acquire Coldwell Banker for $640 Million". New York Times. Retrieved October 22, 2015.
  9. ↑ Stefan Swanepoel (2008). Swanepoel Trends Report 2008. RealSure, Inc. ISBN 9780970452375. p. 4.
  10. ↑ "Coldwell Banker Pays Homeowners $872,000 Over Deceptive Condominium Sale". Sally & Fitch LLP. Retrieved November 27, 2014.
  11. ↑ Madeline Stone (2015-11-10). "Here's what a four-bedroom home looks like in America's most expensive markets". Business Insider. Retrieved 2015-11-24.
  12. ↑ Denver Nicks. "The 8 Most Expensive Cities to Buy a House Are All in This State". Time. Retrieved 2015-11-24.
  13. ↑ Jakob Nielsen (2008-01-07). "10 Best Intranets of 2008". Nielsen Norman Group. Retrieved 2015-12-16.
  14. ↑ "2008 Stevie Award winners and Finalists". American Business Awards. Retrieved 2015-12-16.
  15. ↑ "Training magazine Names 2011 Training Top 125 Winners". Training. 2010-11-19. Retrieved 2015-12-16.
  16. ↑ Lorri Freifeld (2011-11-18). "2012 TRAINING TOP 125 WINNERS ANNOUNCED". Training. Retrieved 2015-12-16.
  17. ↑ Lorri Freifeld (2013-02-18). "TRAINING MAGAZINE RANKS 2013 TOP 125 ORGANIZATIONS". Training. Retrieved 2015-12-16.
  18. ↑ "Coldwell Banker marks 100 years NYSE bell ringing part of anniversary celebration". The Times-Union. 2006-08-26. Retrieved 2015-11-14.
  19. ↑ "CSR Awards - Previous Winners". PR News. 2008-01-07. Retrieved 2015-12-16.
  20. ↑ Justin Runquist (2015-07-24). "Community helps Habitat for Humanity after break-in". The Columbian. Retrieved 2015-11-24.
  21. ↑ Kristina Lotz (2006-02-18). "Up from the ashes / Coldwell Banker began in the 1906 rubble of San Francisco". I heart dogs. Retrieved 2015-11-14.
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