The story
Founded by Gary W. Keller in 1983.1
Founding and early history
Keller Williams was founded in 1983 by Gary Keller and Joe Williams. It started out as a single office based in Austin, Texas, selling local residential real estate in the Austin area. After two years in business, Keller Williams became the largest single office residential real estate firm in Austin with 72 licensed agents. In the mid-1980s, the company suffered from the United States housing bubble and began to offer profit sharing to existing and potential associates to retain agents and help get through the recession. Within a year, the company grew to 130 agents and began to climb back as the top real estate broker in Austin.
In the early 1990s, Keller Williams expanded outside the state of Texas, opening up its business model to franchising beginning in 1991. It opened an office in Oklahoma in 1993, marking the firm's first office to be located outside its home state. The Oklahoma office was later recognized as the most successful single real estate office in that state. Keller Williams expanded at a rapid rate throughout the United States, much of which was attributed to its commission split for agents. In 1997 the company was recognized by being on the Franchise Gold 100 list by Success Magazine. As it moved into the next century, Keller Williams became the 6th largest real estate agency in the U.S. An example of its rapid expansion came in the state of Florida where in 2004 it was attributed as the largest real estate office in Polk County with 114 agents. That same year, it was attributed as the fastest growing real estate office in the entire state with 45 market centers, bringing its total nationwide agent count to over 30,000.
Keller Williams continued expanding and in 2007, the company launched Luxury Homes by Keller Williams, a division within the company that brokers luxury only real estate. In 2008, it launched KW Commercial, a division providing commercial real estate associates with specialized technology, marketing tools, and resources. The division is known for allowing agents to keep more commission splits. It also allowed profit sharing similar to residential agents. As of 2012, the division boasted more than 1,000 brokers nationally.
2010 to 2016: International expansion
By the end of the decade in 2010, Keller Williams had 77,672 real estate agents in the United States. It surpassed Century 21 as the second largest real estate agency in the U.S., two years after taking over the third spot from RE/MAX International. Between 2005 and 2011, the company saw a 40 percent increase in the number of offices in North America. Keller Williams went international in 2012, launching Keller Williams Worldwide as a subdivision to manage its international franchising. It awarded its first overseas franchise in Vietnam in 2012. The same year, franchising of the company was made available in Indonesia and Southern Africa, and in 2013 expanded to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.
At the end of April 2014, Keller Williams reached 100,575 agents worldwide. This was due to an 18 percent increase in agents in 2013. As of 2014, it is the largest real estate franchise by agent count in North America and the only privately held global residential real estate brokerage. In 2014, the company also announced the opening of a region in Dubai. The first Dubai franchise was awarded to a leadership group affiliated with IFA Hotels & Resorts which is considered the largest foreign investor in Palm Jumeirah.
2017 to present: Transition to technology company and KWx
Keller Williams topped $67.1 billion in sales volume in 2016, up 22 percent from the previous year. The company began to position itself as a technology company in 2017. In 2017 it launched KW Labs, a division of the company process devoted to the building and testing of technology created by the company alongside its agents. This was in addition to KW Keller Cloud. It also introduced "Kelle", an artificial intelligence app which has been referred to as Siri but for real estate used as a virtual assistant, and an agent-to-agent referral tools platform called "Referrals". Keller Williams claims it is the number one franchise in the United States by sales volume in 2017, ranking number one in agents and units sold in 2017.
Keller Williams continued expansion into South America in 2018, opening franchises in Argentina, and adding to already existing locations in Colombia, Belize, Nicaragua, and Panama. It also expanded to Cambodia as well as Belgium and Luxembourg. Gary Keller replaced John Davis as CEO of the company in 2019, adding to his already title of Chairman of the company. The same year the company expanded into Morocco.
Keller Williams formed KWx in 2020, a holding company to oversee its portfolio of companies. It named Carl Liebert as the new CEO of the group with Gary Keller becoming the executive chairman. Josh Team also left Keller Williams with Marc King being promoted to the role of president.
From Wikipedia’s article on Keller Williams Realty, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5