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Coates, Reid & Waldron sold to ResortQuest International

Sarah S. Chung

Coates, Reid & Waldron has new owners, but local employees and clients won’t see drastic changes in how things are run, according to the Aspen firm’s management.On Friday, Aspen’s oldest property management firm and real estate brokerage was sold to ResortQuest International, Inc.The six co-owners of Coates, Reid & Waldron will become shareholders in ResortQuest and will continue to oversee the daily operations of the firm’s Aspen and Snowmass Village offices.”We’ll still be calling the shots locally,” said Brent Waldron, managing broker. “We really see this as an opportunity to expand beyond our local market. This will give us a competitive edge with increased exposure and increased markets.”ResortQuest is a Memphis-based property management and real estate company with 15,000 vacation rentals in 33 resort destinations across the country and in Canada.According to Waldron, current Coates, Reid & Waldron clients will now have the advantage of accessing ResortQuests’ other holdings while at the same time increasing the profile for their own local properties.”Our owners gain national marketing and advertising exposure, a state-of-the-art Web site and support programs to help us reach out to an international customer base,” Waldron said.One ResortQuest feature that holds particular appeal for Coates Reid & Waldron is the parent company’s “virtual tour,” which not only showcases a property’s interior rooms, but also allows the browser to wander out to a home’s deck and see the view – all on a computer screen.”In bottom-line terms, this was a real win-win scenario for us,” Waldron said. “None of us [owners] were ready to retire and do something else. We all love what we’re doing and this enables us to do it.”In addition to Coates, Reid & Waldron, ResortQuest also owns Houston and O’Leary in Aspen as well as management companies in Breckenridge, Crested Butte, and Telluride.