After purging its roster of non-performing agents, Keller Williams said its 2019 sales volume rose 5.7 percent despite the lower headcount.
The Gary Keller-led company, which is the largest franchise brokerage in the U.S., said agents closed more than 1.13 million transactions in 2019, up 3.4 percent year-over-year. Sales volume rose to $351.2 billion, up from $332.4 billion in 2018.
But as of Dec. 31, 2019, Keller Williams said it had 169,317 agents worldwide. In the U.S. and Canada, its roster of agents totaled 159,372, slightly lower than the 159,447 agents it had as of Jan. 31, 2019.
Austin-based Keller Williams reported its earnings at “Family Reunion,” an annual company-wide event that took place this year in Dallas.
An internal report, obtained by Inman, showed that KW’s agent count dropped over the past four months for the first time since 2012. A spokesperson chalked up the drop to “natural attrition,” but it also coincides with an effort by KW to remove ghost agents (those who hang their license but do little else) from the roster.
At Family Reunion, the company also said agents who leave to join a competitor will not take part in the company’s lifelong profit sharing program. The new policy, which will not be applied retroactively, was voted on after a task force of top producing agents and market center heads examined the program amid losses to rivals, including eXp Realty. Last year, CEO Gary Keller suggested agents who left KW for eXp should repay $1 million in profit share.
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Residential
New York
Keller Williams will cut off agents who leave