Rowynn Ricks
Woodward News
Woodward, Okla. —
The top two real estate agencies in Woodward have merged.
Brian Cook, of Advanced Real Estate, said he “just moved across the street” into the offices of Coldwell Banker “a week ago Wednesday.”
Cook noted that “according to the Woodward MLS, multi-list system,” which he described as an online database where all the realtors in Woodward combine all their listings together, “they were number one, then we were number two . . . so it just made sense to join up into one team.”
Gary Whitcomb, from Coldwell Banker, went a step further to note, “it just makes economical sense.”
He explained that with the merger, “we can now pool our advertising dollars” as well as save on costs by consolidating offices and websites.
Whitcomb and Cook are two of four owners of the new combined agency the Coldwell Banker Advanced Real Estate Center, along with Bill Wilcoxen and Cathy Brown.
Both Whitcomb and Cook said that the transition has been going well so far, but not completely without a hitch. Whitcomb joked, “it’s always a pain to move furniture,” and Cook noted, “if it wasn’t for all the fun paperwork, it would be a lot easier.”
While Cook said a few of their customers had been surprised by the merger, Whitcomb said their response has “all been very, very positive; they’re kind of like we are and excited about it too.”
Both men noted that the purpose of the merger “is for our customers.”
“We’re in a position to serve our customers better,” he said, noting that now with a total of 17 agents, “we have more people to help people find houses to buy and help find sellers people to buy their houses.”
“As a bigger team we could better manage and diversify our efforts,” Cook said, adding that by “having this many associates, there’s always going to be somebody there that’s going to have the answer to any problem.”
Cook and Whitcomb both noted that the merger had been “discussed off and on” for a while before an opportunity presented itself to make it a reality. That opportunity was the retirement of Vicky Johnson from Coldwell Banker, at which time “Bill (Wilcoxen) bought her stocks,” Cook said.
Both men said the merger then “just kind of fell together.”
And now they are “ready to move forward,” Whitcomb said.
“We were successful on our own, both companies were,” Cook said. “Put us together and I think we’ll be a dominant force in the market.”
