The chief executive of the UK operation of a US-owned brand says his agency its the fastest growing in this country “supporting great agents to build significant wealth.”
Ben Taylor, chief executive of Keller Williams UK, says: “Our expansion as the fastest growing estate agency business in the UK continues … [with] the Keller Williams ethos of supporting great agents to build significant wealth via the largest real estate brand in the world. In my view there has never been a better time to back yourself in this industry.”
Taylor, a former director at Countrywide, made his claim at the launch of Keller Williams UK’s 11th market centre - the centralised hub system it operates, encouraging self-employed agents to use the centres as offices if they don’t wish to work from home.
He says KW UK now has 250 agents across the UK working from its market centres.
The new market centre - at Inverness, serving the Grampiuan, Moray, Highlands and Islands - is the second in Scotland, and is to be known as Keller Williams Caledonia.
The market centre’s new head, known as the operating principal, is Andy Reid, who has 20 years experience in property including being a regional manager at McEwan Fraser and a franchise owner at REMAX.
“I’ve spent a long time in both the traditional corporate estate agency world as well as the franchised property sector and my ambition is to take all of those learnings via a business model that focusses on the prosperity of the individual agent as a means of building significant market share across the Highland areas of Scotland” explains Reid.
“This requires a big brand, a genuine support network and great technology too and Keller Williams undoubtedly leads the UK and the world in these respects. Anyone thinking about leaving ‘ordinary’ behind and backing themselves as an agent, should get in touch”.
The international Keller Williams network, which recently opened market centres in Serbia and the Dominican Republic, now has over 10,7450 agents and more than 230 market centres outside of north Amrica.
The debate about the relative merits of employed and self-employed agent business models has waged for some years, with the latter enjoying prominence in recent years through operations as varied as Purplebricks and a plethora of smaller operations such as Mr & Mrs Jones, Harding Green, Agent & Homes.
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What a crock. Has anyone who has joined them even sold a house before? 250 agents and how many instructions?
I have. Loads to tell the truth.
119 in England & Wales in July, since you ask, less than 0.5 listings per agent
In 2020 in England & Wales KW had 95 agents listing sales, up from 83 in 2019.
Hardly exponential growth, is it?
And it still leaves 155 agents unaccounted for. EAT do you not have fact-checkers or do you just publish the press releases as they come in?
Kws tech is all hot air and spruiking
Looking at their website they have 470 properties available. Divide that by the supposed 250 agents that's a whopping 1.8 properties per agent!
I can see a few individuals running up credit card bills while trying to make a living.
Scaling excellence is one thing - scaling a dated, insidious, broken model that encourages interruption marketing is altogether different.
The terrible trio of illusion, impatience and incompetence are ever-present in how some USA companies perceive growth. One only has to look at the quality of agents that are attracted to some agencies to realise that it's not real growth. Simply a footprint hoping to attract as many agents regardless of ability.
There is nothing attractive for any agent considering KW, other than to be among like-minded short-term thinkers.
100% Correct about being total crock. Fasting growing perhaps but also fastest departures.
Americans do not get much outside of Bahamas and Hawaii!!!
So blinkered and xenophobic...jeez only a few have even more got a passport
Anyone can join KW providing you have a pulse. Most of their agents I know are all failed business owners or poor performing agents.
Well done to KW for sucking these poor agents into another American Dream with some hype, average software and some basic sales training manuals.
Do yourself a favour and speak to the thousand of people who have never made it At KW
So much negativity guys (and I note you are all blokes). Estate agency is going through a period of change and evolution right now. Let's see how they do in the long term and in the meantime criticise by all means but cut back the anger stuff (Chris Arnold excepted) and show a bit more respect. We're all just trying different ways to make a living.
Some facts would probably lead to fewer emotional reactions.
All one would say is.
Do your due diligence.
Kw like all franchisors are generally struggling.
It's fairly widely known their tech strategy is more PR than reality.
As far as I can tell, they're using reapit - how can they even hope to pretend to be in control of a tech strategy?
I rarely, if ever, comment on these forums but today I've decided that I will.
Every time I see a post about a novel business or tech etc, the comments are hardly ever, if at all, positive.
All I read is a barrage of negativity and unsubstantiated opinion as to why that will never work.
So, riddle me this Batman; i.e. all of you keyboard uber experts - what will?
The wind of change is upon us; ROPA is coming, standards in the industry are lamentable, tech changes every industry sooner or later and the general public has a very, very poor opinion of what we do.
Part of the issue is that most of the headlines are based upon what a company intends to do rather than proof of concept.
Much of which have been tested before and investors have lost money. I see no reason not to point this out, as it saves other people potentially losing money.
If Axel Springer had read some of the comments they might still have hundreds of millions in the bank and not up in smoke.
I would take your point, IF this were a novel business idea, or a novel bit of tech. But it isn’t. KW, looked at rationally, is not quite a Pyramid scheme, and not quite a new Church of Scientology, but shares many characteristics of both. All without making any of its employees much in the way of income.
But hats off to their PR department for getting this published.
No offense to EAT who have to make a living , but globally business media is funded by PR releases.
Unfortunately we don't want to pay for high quality analysis and journalism in enough numbers to make it viable anymore.
Until recently I paid for FT.com there is just as much waffle on there.
Michal Riley - Axel invested in PB, nothing to do with KW so what's your point? Equally KW is privately owned.
Arthur Balfour - pyramid scheme - how so? Church of Scientology - equally how so? I feel a more substantial response that because I say it is, is warranted to support such a statement.
All I seem to be reading is that anything new is bad and it is because I said so from the middle-aged male and pale fraternity.
The traditional model is failing. Standards are poor. Change is needed and will happen if you like it or not.
My question - still unanswered BTW - is what IS the way forward?
The org. With the way forward would not be stupid enough to post it on here.
Ps. The point is that comments on here aren't all negative, they are often useful and from people who have pursued ideas and witness change in the industry over long periods of time.
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