Keller Williams reports 15% drop in sales in Q2

Keller Williams saw sales volume plunge and the number of new home listings fall, as the pandemic brought many parts of the country to a standstill in the second quarter.

The brokerage’s North American agents closed 272,000 deals last quarter, for a total sales volume of $85.3 billion, down 15 percent from the same period last year, the company reported on Friday.

Its listings in the U.S. and Canada dropped 23 percent, year-over-year, with agents bringing just under 178,000 properties to market during the second quarter.

Written contracts, a harbinger for future closed sales, were down 13.5 percent annually to 315,000, with a total value of $99.4 billion, according to the private company, which voluntarily reports its performance quarterly.

Josh Team, president of Keller Williams, said the brokerage maintained “healthy profit levels” and noted that “we outpaced the industry in terms of closed transactions.”

He pointed to the National Association of Realtors’ report that second quarter closed transactions in the U.S. were down 17.8 percent, year-over-year.

Internationally, Keller Williams’ nearly 11,000 agents closed just over 6,000 deals in the second quarter, a 19 percent drop, year-over-year, as new listings tumbled 16 percent to about 19,200. Agents abroad wrote roughly 8,000 contracts, a 22 percent annual decline.

The quarter ended better than Keller Williams’ estimated after the first quarter. Team said the brokerage was forecasting a 20 to 30 percent drop in sales volume due to coronavirus. In late March, the brokerage announced it was slashing costs related to agent coaching and setting aside $20 million to support agents.

The brokerage is continuing to buckle down on its investment in and development of technology. The firm updated its consumer app to add new features such as scheduling for virtual tours, and Team said the firm’s relationship with Facebook was a “key contributor” to helping agents garner leads at low prices.

“Agents are finding massive success in social ads, often paying less than one to two dollars per lead,” he said in a release.

The firm said its social media advertising tools netted its agents nearly 723,000 leads from Facebook and Instagram, up more than 170 percent from the first quarter, at an average cost per lead of $1.77. Traffic on digital advertising for real estate has skyrocketed as many buyers remained at home, though developers have pulled back on spending, according to advertising agencies.

Write to Erin Hudson at ekh@therealdeal.com

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