AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Keller Williams (“KW”), the world's largest real estate technology franchise by agent count and the U.S. leader in units and sales volume, continued to expand aggressively internationally, achieve technology milestones, and top franchise and industry-related rankings in Q1 ‘19.
“Together with our agents, we are developing and continuing to innovate on our products at unprecedented speed,” said Gary Keller, co-founder, chairman and CEO, Keller Williams. “This is only possible as a result of the work we quietly did for more than two years building our platform, while everyone was wondering what we were up to.”
“Command is quickly becoming the most sophisticated real estate operating system on the planet, reducing our agents’ technology spend and empowering them with the one-to-one experiences today’s consumers expect,” said Keller.
“With our recent moves, many are thinking that we’re just building Kelle, a CRM or a marketing platform, but what we’re really marching toward is a seamless transaction,” said Josh Team, president, Keller Williams. “This is why we have been building data alliances with companies like Google, Nextdoor and dozens of others.”
“It is also why we’ve been aggressive about our tech acquisitions, purchased a mortgage company, launched an iBuyer program and are building our insurance marketplace, plus many others, so that everything works together creating one unified experience for the consumer,” said Team.
Q1 ’19 Technology and Industry Highlights
- A year old, Kelle, a proprietary AI-fueled real estate business partner, has 85,422 active users, as of March 31.
- In Q1 ’19 alone, 18,485 live referrals were sent via Kelle, representing $4.5 billion in sales volume.
- In February, KW made available Command, a smart CRM-plus suite of apps hosted on the Keller Cloud platform.
- Command had 41,505 active users as of March 31.
- Inside Q1 ’19 alone, agents added 17,178,468 client contacts into Command.
- In January, Swanepoel Power 200 ranked Gary Keller the No. 2 most powerful person in residential real estate.
- In January, Entrepreneur Magazine ranked KW No. 32 in its annual ranking of the top 500 franchises.
- In February, Fast Company named KW the No. 1 “Most Innovative Company” in real estate.
- In March, KW had the most (174) brokerages on the REAL Trends 500 by transaction sides.
- In March, leading the industry, KW’s (333) firms represented 33.3% of RISMedia’s Power Broker - Top 1,000 list.
“We expect to continue to see a year-over-year decline in total existing home sales in the U.S. throughout 2019, likely in the 2 to 5 percent range,” said Ruben Gonzalez, chief economist, Keller Williams. “Price growth is also slowing with median existing home prices tracking in the low single digits now.”
According to the National Association of REALTORS®, the number of existing homes sold in the U.S. declined 6.6% in Q1 ’19 to 996,000 and the sales volume associated with those homes declined 4.3% compared to Q1 ’18.
“The housing market has shifted and we continue to be focused on ensuring our agents are in the best position to continue to take market share,” said Keller. “Keller Williams was born in a market shift. All we see is opportunity.”
United States and Canada (production in Q1 ’19)
- KW is home to 157,377 agents in the United States (153,904) and Canada (3,473), as of March 31, 2019.¹
- As of March 31, agents closed 214,499 transactions, down 1.7% over Q1 ‘18.
- Agents closed $63.5 billion in sales volume, down 1.9% over Q1 ‘18.
- Agents took 176,891 new listings (new market inventory), down 1.6% over Q1 ‘18.
- Listings taken volume totaled $62.2 billion, up 0.7% over Q1 ‘18.
- Agents wrote 268,136 contracts (projected closings), down 0.7% over Q1 ‘18.
- Contracts written volume was $80.1 billion, down 1.0% over Q1 ‘18.
Keller Williams Worldwide (production outside the U.S. and Canada in Q1 ’19)
- KW has 8,385 agents collectively operating outside the U.S. and Canada, up 33.7% over Q1 ’18.
- In Q1 ’19, Keller Williams expanded globally into Italy and added 12 more offices.
- Agents closed 7,364 transactions in Q1 ’19, up 27.3% over Q1 ‘18.
- Agents closed $1.1 billion in sales volume, up 11.5% over Q1 ‘18.
- Agents took 22,992 new listings (new market inventory), up 41.6% over Q1 ‘18.
- Listings taken volume totaled $8.2 billion, up 53.5% over Q1 ‘18.
- Agents wrote 8,864 contracts (projected closings), up 36.7% over Q1 ‘18.
- Contracts written volume was $1.0 billion, up 21.2% over Q1 ‘18.
Outside of the U.S. and Canada, Keller Williams regions now include Argentina; Belgium; Belize; Bermuda; Cambodia; Chile; Colombia; Costa Rica; Czech Republic; Dubai, UAE; France; Greater Shanghai, China; Greece; Indonesia; Ireland; Israel; Italy; Jamaica; Luxembourg; Mexico; Monaco; Nicaragua; Northern Cyprus; Panama; Philippines; Poland; Portugal; Puerto Rico; Romania; Southern Africa; Southern Cyprus; Spain; Trinidad and Tobago; Turkey; United Kingdom; and Vietnam.
¹ Agent count numbers in the U.S. and Canada were revised downward to account for franchise-wide market center agent roster cleanup, which took place in January and February 2019.
About Keller Williams
Austin, Texas-based Keller Williams, the world's largest real estate technology franchise by agent count, has more than 1,030 offices and 179,000 associates. The franchise is also No. 1 in units and sales volume in the United States.
In 2019, Fast Company named Keller Williams the No. 1 “Most Innovative Company” in real estate. In 2015, the company began its evolution into a technology company, now building the real estate platform that agents' buyers and sellers prefer.
Since 1983, the company has cultivated an agent-centric, technology-driven and education-based culture that rewards agents as stakeholders. For more information, visit kw.com.
