An independent estate agent has been named the best in the UK and the founder says it’s because she’s never chased money.

Angi Cooney set up C residential in 2003 and now has a team of six staff based in Rugeley.

In 2022 C residential won the title of Overall Best Estate Agent of the Year for the UK and it also won the Overall Guild Member of the Year out of more than 800 branches.

Angi said: “Of course a business needs to be profitable, but the experience of the clients is more important than how much money you can make from them.
“Anyone can sell property but it takes compassion and a genuine desire to do the very best you can for clients to ensure you are the best of the best.
“Many agents will tell you they have professionalism blah blah blah but without compassion you are just like all the rest.
“We are at the forefront of our community – we are completely involved with the local town council and I organised the annual Christmas events for more than 10 years. This has recently been passed to the town council using the blueprint of the very successful community event.”

Out of hours the team regularly don their C res sweatshirts and go to all of the local community events. Angi says this is because her team are #allaboutthebrand
During the pandemic the team hand-delivered letters to all of the bungalows in the area with a note asking them to ring the office if they needed anything.

“We had in excess of 20 calls from elderly people needing help with picking up prescriptions and food for them,” she said. “The team all got behind this and we carried on doing this until the lockdown eased.”
Last year they were at the forefront in creating a community garden within Rugeley town centre and Angi, through her contacts, managed to have all of the materials either donated free of charge or provided at a discount. This project was in association with the town council and has become a community focal point where people of all ages meet and chat.

Angi said: “It is appropriately called the Mindfulness Garden as we have a high number of suicides within the area, particularly young men.”
This year the team are putting their fundraising efforts into installing sound booths into a local secondary school.

Angi said: “We believe that these booths will help create and stimulate young people to develop not only their skills but their self-confidence. This is on the back of the work we did with the Mindfulness Garden.”
She added: “
Finally “We never take our business for granted. We are only as good as our last sale which is why we associate ourselves only with the best of the best companies to ensure we stay ahead of our competitors.”

C residential has entered the Small Business of the Year category of the Staffordshire University Business Awards.