Staff Reports
After 20 years serving the North Texas real estate community, multiple sources have confirmed that Virginia Cook Realtors will close for business on April 15. The brokerage, which has five offices throughout the region, is helmed by its eponymous founder and executive officer Sheila Rice. David Griffin & Company Realtors, formerly a brand of Virginia Cook, separated more than a week ago.
According to one source, the brokerage has just 67 homes on market priced between $3 million to $7 million, with only one sold since the beginning of 2019. We have reached out to multiple representatives with Virginia Cook for an official statement and have not received a call back. There’s no word on where exiting agents with the brokerage will land.
The news of the firm’s closure comes after several top-producing agents from the brand have moved to other brokerages, including Jennifer Ackerman. Ackerman, a perennial top-of-the-list agent, bolted for Compass last April.
“It definitely wasn’t a decision that I took lightly,” Ackerman said last year. “After weeks of back and forth, I decided to make the leap. I think it’s a very exciting transition.”
Earlier this year, agents Kimberly Cocotos and Kristen Scott moved to Allie Beth Allman and Associates.
“We have nothing but great things to say about Virginia Cook,” Cocotos said in January. “It took us a long time to decide but we eventually just felt this was the best move for us.”
Top agents with the brand have quietly migrated, including Shelby Fuqua, who is now an Ebby Halliday Realtor despite being listed as an agent on the Virginia Cook Realtors website.
According to sources, agents with David Griffin and Company Realtors and Virginia Cook have met with other brokerages since the beginning of the year. This is the first independent brokerage in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that is rumored to close since venture capital-funded Compass came to town. The tech-enabled brokerage, which offers hefty cash incentives to Realtors that move to the brand, has poached top producers from several smaller brokerages.
Cook, who suffered a stroke in 2015 and mounted a valiant comeback, has been a mainstay in North Texas real estate since launching the residential real estate arm of Henry S. Miller Companies decades ago. With more than 100 years of experience between them, Cook and Rice have won well-deserved awards and recognition. In 2015, Virginia Cook was named “Woman of the Year” by Les Femmes du Monde.
Joanna England, Bethany Erickson, and Candy Evans contributed to this report.
