Coldwell Banker ONE history

Arthur Hastings, who had been with the firm since 1907, was sent to Los Angeles to open the first Coldwell, Cornwell & Banker office outside of San Francisco.

By 1912, much of San Francisco had been rebuilt and the city was again flourishing, as was the firm of Tucker, Lynch & Coldwell.

Seeing a need for honest, empowering, and knowledgeable real estate professionals, Coldwell formed his own company, titled “Tucker, Lynch & Coldwell.” In 1913, as the company grew, Coldwell invited salesman, Benjamin Arthur Banker, to accompany him on his mission.

Banker became a partner in 1914, and the two remained active in the company throughout their lives.

Louis Pfau, another fraternity brother from UC-Berkeley who had joined the firm in 1915, was also made a partner, bringing the number to five.

When the United States entered the conflict in 1917, the firm, still known as Tucker, Lynch & Coldwell, embarked on its first non-real estate business venture--growing rice for the war effort on land it purchased in the Sacramento Valley.

The rice farm was a failure, and in 1919, the partners, which then included Albert E. Kerns, vowed never again to invest in a venture outside real estate.

But by 1920, Kern had resigned and was replaced by Bruce Cornwall, the son of a respected San Francisco industrialist and financier, Pierre Barlow Cornwall.

In 1922, Marshall Hale, a San Francisco businessman, purchased the Spring Arcade Building in Los Angeles.

The firm also continued to expand in the San Francisco Bay area, including the company's first office in Oakland, which opened in 1925.

By 1927, the Spring Arcade office was doing so well that Hastings, who had been Coldwell's college fraternity brother at the University of California at Berkeley, was invited to buy into the partnership for $90,000.

By 1928, Coldwell, Cornwell & Banker had opened a second office in Los Angeles.

When the stock market crashed in 1929, plunging the nation into the Great Depression, three of the partners, Coldwell, Cornwall, and Banker, were wealthy men and relatively unaffected.

In 1933, Coldwell, Cornwall & Banker also formed a subsidiary, Home Properties Co., Inc., and purchased 60 acres in the Rancho Santa Anita area of Los Angeles County for $18,000.

In 1939, Coldwell, Cornwall & Banker signed an exclusive agreement to originate and service mortgage loans in California for Aetna Life Insurance Company.

In 1940, Cornwall, then 63, sold his share of the company to the other partners and the name of the firm was shortened to Coldwell, Banker & Co.

As the firm grew, so did the number of partners, to an even dozen by 1952, when one of the latest, Dan Duggan, finally convinced the others, who ranged in age from 38 to 70, that they needed a written partnership agreement.

Wes Poulson, a graduate of the Harvard Business School who had joined Coldwell Banker in 1960, also introduced the company's first-ever organizational chart, based on decentralized, regional management, a concept that would eventually develop into the Coldwell Banker companies.

In 1961, the Los Angeles partners asked a long-time client, Al Steffey, of Butler Bros. stores, to review the firm's books.

You're nice idiots, but you're idiots." Coldwell Banker was incorporated on July 1, 1963.

Banker died two years later, at the age of 80, followed by the passing of Pfau, also 80, and Coldwell, 84, in 1967.

In 1968, Coldwell Banker issued its first publicly traded stock, selling 503,000 shares (about 29 percent of the company) at $25 per share.

After Coldwell's death, the company formed its first executive committee, but it was not until 1969 that the committee's powers were fully expanded to "manage the business and affairs of the corporation." By then, Coldwell Banker had also expanded to Nevada and Texas.

Coldwell Banker began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 1971.

Owned by John & Lori Arnold, the family owned business was started in 1973 by Millie Hendricks, Lori’s mother.

By 1980, Coldwell Banker had also acquired a national referral service (now Coldwell Banker Referral Network), and Previews Inc., an international luxury real estate marketing organization (which has evolved into the present-day Coldwell Banker Previews International®).

The company’s share of the residential real estate market grew from 1.3 in 1981 to over 10% by the end of the decade.

1987 saw Coldwell Banker affiliates become the first in the industry to offer comprehensive guarantees to sellers.

Sears sold its Coldwell Banker commercial real estate operations in 1989 to a management group and outside investors, led by the Washington, D.C.-based Carlyle Group, for $305 million, including the largest amount of cash--$44 million--ever raised from employees in a leveraged buyout.

Becoming owners in 1990, the company was a one office operation with no national affiliation.

The name was changed to CB Commercial Real Estate Group in 1991, after Sears sold the residential real estate operations to the Fremont Group, a San Francisco-based investment firm, which took the name Coldwell Banker Corp.

In 1992, Coldwell Banker affiliates became the first to advocate and practice Seller Disclosure well before it was required by law in some states.

Another milestone in 1993 was the substantial increase of Coldwell Banker® presence in Canada.

By 1994, CB Commercial had revenues of $452 million and a net profit of barely $4 million.

In 1995, Coldwell Banker became the first national, first-service real estate brand to have a presence online with the launch of www.coldwellbanker.com.

1996 proved to be another banner year for the Coldwell Banker Real Estate Corporation.

1997 saw parent company HFS merge with CUC International, forming the new Cendant Corporation.

Coldwell Banker started 1998 by continuing to provide unparalleled service to its affiliates, with added benefits and expanded preferred alliances.

In 2002, Coldwell Banker became the first national real estate company selected by the National Concierge Association to receive prestigious membership affiliation for Coldwell Banker Concierge.

In 2005, Coldwell Banker became the first full-service national real estate brand to launch a stand-alone Web site for upscale properties with www.coldwellbankerpreviews.com.

Coldwell Banker would now be part of a stand-alone real estate company named Realogy in late 2006.

Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC was named the 2007 Inman Innovator Award winner in the brokerage/franchisor category.

The Coldwell Banker brand continued on its path of innovating in the real estate industry in March 2009 with the debut of an application for Microsoft Surface.

With the end of the federal tax credit for homebuyers, in May 2010, Coldwell Banker launched its first Buyer Bonus Sales Event.

In January 2011, for the second straight year, Coldwell Banker Real Estate earned a spot of the prestigious Training Magazine Top 125 honoring the brand’s learning platform.