Our first TEN years
Chapter 1 - Our names above the door
When we decided to start our own agency, we never set out to be the best agent in Cambridge or England, Scotland & Wales (2023), just saying ;-) but to do a good job, better than other agents, earn a reasonable living and enjoy what we do. But we are not complaining!
Our first ten years have exceeded all of our expectations. What is most gratifying is that despite our growth and our awards - and we are not going to be disingenuous and not mention - our profits - we still love what we do, and our clients whether renters, letters, buyers or sellers (or to use the appropriate jargon, vendors) do too.
Originally there were three; Cooke, Curtis and A.N.Other, but it's a big thing to leave the comfort of a well paid job working for a then leading Cambridge estate agent. And it wasn't quite the right time for Mr. Other, but when is it!? It takes quite a leap of faith particularly when you have families to support - Sam had three young children and the Curtis's had a two month old baby! This new family planned for little or no short term future income by building a big shed and filling it with dry foods, tins and nappies! Enough to see them through the first six months.
Chapter 2 - The antidote to corporate
It's not always been plain sailing - what is, that's worth having? One particularly notable letter we received from what we thought was a well wisher, described us as 'cock wombles'. Quite cute we thought, and lacking in any particular analytical integrity, so we weren't put off. We wombled on.
As we sat on boxes in our new office full of excitement and trepidation, we agreed we would do things differently. Not in a gratuitous way, rather in a way that would add value to our clients. But also make the journey a fun one for them and us. We got to work on creating a space that we would enjoy working in - the antidote to corporate. Full of plants - real ones - and unique pieces of mid century furniture. We even hung the old sign from a previous tenant, an iconic Cambridge model shop - respect the past we said. But look forward - shake things up.
This began with our striking black and white brand identity created by local creatives and subsequently friends, The District. We resisted the temptation to have that cliched punchy accent colour (well it was the perfect balance of resisting temptation and belligerent but quite correct designers) It ended with the last piece of our interior design jigsaw, the bold and beautiful vinyl that adorned our office wall and read 'Trust us we are Estate Agents'. This was our flag in the ground and it stands firmly to this day ten years on.
After getting everything in place from brand to biscuits (for our clients, mainly), we set sail, life jackets firmly stowed. We were confident but naturally there was a slight sense of fear. We remember like it was yesterday, those first few clients/properties. From day one our portfolio was diverse - I remember the first group of homes included a traditional 1930's semi on Perne Road, a detached farmhouse in Bourn and some recently built apartments on Addenbrooke’s Road. It felt wonderful to serve clients on our own terms, in our own way, with no nonsense. Just with significant experience of the property market and the city, and with honesty. It went very well, better than we ever expected, and we were soon up and running as a genuine competitor to established agents in the city. We had our first sale within two months and 17 under offer in our first 6 months. And we immediately became embedded in our local community by supporting the Stapleford Fun Run (An oxymoron to me) and the Trumpington Fate in our first summer.
Chapter 3 - Our first award
We turned 6 months, and you bet we celebrated it. We were tired but happy. And we had seen success we could only have dreamt of. We worked our socks off and it was gratifying that our local knowledge and skills were clearly working but we also had to thank our friends, families and partners who had faith in us and gave their all to help us. We were now determined to make the next 6 months even better. We had a load of fresh marketing ideas, numerous new properties and most excitingly in October 2015 our first team member - Julia Bailey - who we knew would be awesome and is with us to this day,
Stroll gently forward to December 2015 and we won our first award - that didn't take long we thought. The ceremony was set in the beautiful surroundings of Ely Cathedral. We were thrilled to win the Cambridge News Property Innovation award. I think of all of them this was the one we wanted - innovation has always been part of our DNA.
It wasn't the goal, or even one of them, but as occasional watchers of the Gogglebox we were thrilled to be warmly (and metaphorically) embraced by Kirstie and Phil (Phil's later hunting faux pas temporarily shelved). Kirstie and Phil were in Cambridge filming and viewed houses in a few locations round town including one off Coleridge Road and another in Trumpington.
The trademark pub scene takes place in The Green Man on Trumpington High Street (our local) and there were even some shots of Kirstie looking through the window of our perfectly curated office (we gave it an extra polish that day). Our Kirstie (we can now legitimately say that) was even filmed on a scooter. Not a cool Italian teenager on a scooter. Or a 6-year-old on their way to school on a scooter. A well heeled grown woman on a scooter. To be fair to Kirsty was trailblazing - we now often scoot to valuations as we will go on to discuss.
Chapter 4 - Lettings is launched
So, we'd had strong and consistent success with sales. That's not the only way to live, we noted, in our end of the week catchup over a cup of tea (or maybe a beer, I can't remember). Here Cooke, Curtis and Co lettings began. Different process, in some ways very different, but same ideology and commitment. A commitment to serve letters and lettees with equity, and with fairness and transparency. Things grew quickly. We put in place a team of wonderful hard working people who shared our philosophy, and as with sales, people liked this fresh approach to lettings. Suffice to say our lettings team is now as decorated as our sales team. We are very proud of their ongoing achievements.
Part of our DNA has always been a commitment to sustainability. In 2017 it was time to walk the walk (metaphorically and literally). Over two years since we started, our first cars were VW Golfs (a timeless classic), but we recruited a couple of lovely electric gems to our fleet, in the form of a Renalt Zoe. Perfect for nipping in and around town whilst reducing our impact on the local and global environment. The climate crisis is real. And we care. From then on we had more ways to get to appointments without the use of the internal combustion engine than we do with one. Our bicycles are electric too. If you see a flash of navy gilet and brown brogue, it may well be us!
There is no point in doing these wonderful things for the environment with a bit of good old fashioned virtue signalling. To the end we made our film piece of moving image marketing in the form of this https://fb.watch/x8IP7O8AIf/. Simple and effective. We notice the proliferation of film in more recent times from our competitors. It would however be arrogant for us to suggest that this was because of us. It's just become a significant tool. And good moving image engages audiences. It's become something we do regularly.
Chapter 5 - Move or improve
In February 2018 we asked that classic property question of ourselves - move or improve? After much discussion, we decided to improve. Our hearts were, and still are, embedded in the local community, we are in a building with character, not a brand new glass box, and we have great access (in our electric cars) to the city and surrounding area. So rather than packing up and moving on, we expanded upstairs. This gave us a rather lovely boardroom / break out area and meant the lettings team had their own home. Oh and no more sitting on each other's laps or 'shotgun'. Bravo!
Hop, skip, and if you have the energy, jump into 2019. Now we were firmly established as a real presence in the Cambridge property market, and a decorated one at that (please forgive us pride!) we felt it was time to give back. In the early summer (always the best in this country in my opinion) we launched the 'Cooke, Curtis and Co. Annual Fund'. Essentially the idea was to give a percentage of our annual profit away (this became a permanent thing) to local charitable and artistic organisations and initiatives. As you might imagine the response was huge! Some very worthy, some fun, all very deserving. We sifted through the applicants and awarded those closest to our heart or in the most need donations in line with their requirements. It was life affirming to hear what the lovely people of this city were doing for others. It was tough to decide but we got there, and I think we managed to distribute widely, and fairly. Oh, and we met some people that would become friends for life.
Later that year in September, again for charity (evidentially we do like to talk about it!), we competed in the annual Dragon Boat Race on the Cam. We all know what a dragon is, and I suspect most people know what a boat is. The clue is in the name. We thrashed and sweated along the river against teams from other wonderful companies across the city. New friends were made, but as excitingly as it was surprising. It was great fun, and to work as a team, with very little, in fact, no skill, but lashings of steely determination and go on to win the final, felt amazing. We popped champagne, cheered, and hugged. Gosh even recounting this is almost bringing a tear to my eye.
Chapter 6 - Happy sixth birthday
Then February 2021 rolled around, and we celebrated our 6th birthday. We spent the first 6 years of our life, well new life, ensuring Cooke Curtis and Co were the best agents in Cambridge. And thanks to good old fashioned statistics this is a fact rather than a grandiose assertion. According to Rightmove stats in the Local area (CB1 - 5 and CB21 - 25 postcodes) from June 2020 to December 2020 we agreed 20% more sales than any other estate agency office who covers these postcodes. In the vernacular, we smashed it. We achieved this not by being the cheapest or the most ruthless in town, just by providing experienced, honest advice, working hard and continually improving what we do.
And this wasn't done out of vanity or egotism. It was done for our customers. What this meant and continues to mean for them is that we have more experience of the recent local market than anyone else and quite probably know more buyers by name who are looking for properties locally (all the ones that we’ve gathered details of through all of our recent activity). So that’s good news for anyone who chooses us in the future. Tell your friends. Oh and please tell people that you don't like, about another agent in the city. You are welcome to choose which.
The bad news, for our staff at least, is that it’s not really in our nature to rest on our laurels. And do Google the origins of that expression - it hails from Ancient Greece and is quite interesting. We have always taken personal pride in everything we do (it’s our names over the door and all that) and once we had a title to defend, we weren't going to let things slip. It was strange to no longer be the underdogs!
Chapter 7 - Biggie and the bible.
We’ve always been big believers that the best quality businesses in all sectors set out to do nothing more than provide the very best service and that success is a mere by-product of that. That’s what we’ve continued doing, even though we could probably kick back now and bask in our cleverness.
We’ll continue to push the ‘considerate capitalist‘ vibe along too, knocking about on bikes and in electric cars and nagging local builders to at least Google air-tight barriers and MVHR. We even had the gas disconnected from our office. Vive la future electrique. Or something.
At this point we had a decision to make. Another office was considered. But we decided against it. One of the things we’d learned over our first 6 years is that we loved being estate agents, not business people. We had no growth strategy, no 5 year business plan, no plans to move our tax affairs off-shore. We weren't going to be IPOing or crowd funding anything. Sadly, for the people of the rest of the world it’s just the people of Cambridge that we wanted to proudly serve. We can make a good living like that and, like Biggie and the Bible said, no one ever found true fulfilment through the love of mo money. Our only plan was to concentrate on doing the very best job for each and every person that chooses to use us.
Chapter 8 - Our first novel and second website
Whilst not being keen business people, we do consider ourselves frustrated novelists. Cue our first book - a book about lettings - bear with us, we'll admit it doesn't sound like a natural page turner, but trust us when you have met Denise and Keith you will be hooked. As owners of a home that they let they have been on quite a rollercoaster ride. Put the kettle on, take five minutes and enjoy https://www.cookecurtis.co.uk/blog/blog-view?id=1208.
As we were evolving as an agent, in 2022 we felt it was time to reflect this change, call it adolescence, with an updated website. Something more mature, but still with a sense of playfulness. And importantly something that worked hard for our customers rather than simply being a vehicle for us to sell ourselves.
As such we introduced neat little features like 'book an instant valuation', an interesting section about sustainability called The Green House, and even a library of our significant marketing efforts (okay perhaps this was a bit self indulgent). It had a slightly more muted and clean aesthetic. As I say, slightly more grown up.
After launching our website, we were on the lookout for something else extra curricular. This took the form of us rolling up our sleeves and helping the wonderful people at the Trumpington Foodbank undertake collections of food. We are acutely aware that there are numerous reasons why people need this kind of support, and whilst we actually believe we shouldn't actually have a need for them, as we do, we want to do our bit. We are very proud to be involved.
Chapter 9 - Best Estate Agent in England, Scotland, and Wales
It's not quite our brand essence, but consistency is certainly part of our DNA. As such we were thrilled when in November 2023 we topped the local rankings in the British Property Awards for both sales and lettings, and for the sixth time, we’re recognised among the top 5% of Estate & Letting Agents in the country, as assessed by the Property Academy.
We never get tired of it, winning awards, that is. Or indeed working in this wonderful industry. It's always very satisfying to help people, not overstating it, to change their lives. Since we opened our doors in 2015, we’ve been honoured with numerous accolades, including being named the Best Estate Agent in England, Scotland, and Wales in 2022.
And as we quite often remark, while it’s great to celebrate within the office, winning awards is a reflection of something fundamental we do for our clients. These awards are very rigorous. Data experts at TwentyEA have impressive statistics showing that the Best Agents—thanks to their quality marketing and skilled teams—sell and let more properties, have the lowest fall-through rates, reach exchange or let-agreed status in the shortest time, secure the best prices, and consistently achieve the highest client satisfaction scores.
The Best Estate Agents Guide assessment is a thorough process, evaluating everything from our property marketing and sales outcomes to detailed mystery shopper exercises, ensuring we meet the highest standards. And don't get me wrong, we like the warm fuzzy feeling we get when holding a glass of fizz at a wonderful venue when our names are read out but it's about more than this. From the day we put our names above the door, we have ensured that we meet the highest of standards. It's our obsession.
Chapter 10 - Our best team yet
After we had come down from our awards success, we were back to supporting our local community. We were very happy to support the 2024 Duxford Soap Box Derby. This took place on Sunday 1st September, 11 years after being founded in 2013 to raise money for Cancer Research UK. To date they have raised a staggering £86,350!
Aside from all their good work and impact it is a fantastic day that brings a community together, and the main event is a wonderfully chaotic dash around the village in anything from a wheelbarrow to an old iron bath and is always good fun to watch! If you live in Duxford or nearby, get yourself to the derby and help raise money for this brilliant charity.
Another community project that is close to our hearts is the Arthur Rank Christmas Tree recycling scheme. It is our fifth year of supporting this wonderful scheme. We help to promote it. get involved with tree collections, and naturally we donate. This Christmas was the most successful yet - 4000 trees and donations for trees have been made and over £100,000 raised!
At the beginning of 2024, we took a moment to reflect upon and define our Core Values At Cooke Curtis & Co. These are Trustworthy, Innovative, Accountable, and Consistent. So what? We can all shout words like these from the rooftops (see what we did there?) but what is important is that they are an expression of everything that we do. We live and breathe them if you like. And even more importantly is that these values exist to serve our clients, rather than being self serving. You can find out more about everything we stand for on our website.
Another thing we quite often reflect on is the people behind Cooke, Curtis and Co. Of course we are forever grateful to The District, our creative agency who have really helped put us on the map with the wit and creativity along with a wealth of other suppliers, who'd we'd rather call partners, who help us with all things conveyancing, marketing, and money. But the most important people are those at the coal face, sometimes in the Davey dark (bonus point for identifying this reference). Those working hard, and with vision to serve our clients. Naturally as a business evolves people join, grow, and leave for one of a number of reasons, but we can honestly say that the people we have now are the strongest team we have ever had. Perhaps that's a product of us growing up and understanding ourselves and what we are looking for? Whatever the reason it's clear that across sales and lettings these guys are A1. What is interesting, and perhaps this comes from wisdom, is that yes they are very competent agents, having honed their skills as they grow as individuals, but more - they care. They are kind people. And as trite as it may sound, we have come to realise this is huge. They aren't sales people, they are real people, real people with empathy. People who help our clients navigate the sometimes challenging property market. And we are very proud of each and every one of them.
