In a recent article, Keller Williams President Marc King explains his confidence in the brokerage’s path to success in 2023. Instead of creating a company identity around technology, the shift back to “people first” seems to be the key.
“Real estate is hyperlocal. It’s why I believe our model is the best for helping the consumer because we have offices on the ground; we have leaders on the ground,” he said. “We start from a foundation that real estate is based on a local real estate agent, their sphere of influence and their local knowledge. No one national company is smarter than a local real estate agent.”
“Agents don’t want to go work for a tech company, they want to go work for a real estate brokerage company that leverages tech to help them be more successful,” he added.
Currently, Keller Williams is indeed leading the way among franchisors. In T3 Sixty’s latest Real Estate Almanac, KW dominated the franchise list with a 2021 annual sales volume of $500.1 billion — roughly $200 billion ahead of its nearest competitors RE/MAX ($341.1 billion) and Coldwell Banker ($335 billion). Its franchise performance also secured kwx’s spot on T3 Sixty’s largest holding companies’ list, only being overshadowed by Anywhere who pulled in $737.8 billion.
T3 Sixty founder Stefan Swanepoel and independent real estate analyst Mike DelPrete said the ability to stay at the top will become more challenging as the industry consolidates and brokerages enter “dogfights” to maintain their positions.
“I think [the winners are] companies that are not putting blinders on and just looking at their business, but they’re looking at the whole chessboard and they understand they’re not alone,” DelPrete said in August of the industry’s biggest players, including KW. “They’re not operating in a black box. Everybody’s making moves. Everybody’s making investments. Everybody’s doing new things and cutting out things that aren’t working.”
