Founding and early history Keller Williams was founded in 1983 by
Gary Keller and Joe Williams. It started out as a single office based in Austin, Texas, selling local residential real estate in the Austin area. After two years in business, Keller Williams became the largest single office residential real estate firm in Austin with 72 licensed agents. In the mid-1980s, the company suffered from the United States housing bubble and began to offer
profit sharing to existing and potential associates to retain agents and help get through the recession. In 1997 the company was recognized by being on the
Franchise Gold 100 list by
Success Magazine. As it moved into the next century, Keller Williams became the 6th largest real estate agency in the U.S. That same year, it was attributed as the fastest growing real estate office in the entire state with 45 market centers, bringing its total nationwide agent count to over 30,000. Keller Williams continued expanding and in 2007, the company launched
Luxury Homes by Keller Williams, a division within the company that brokers luxury only real estate. In 2008, it launched
KW Commercial, a division providing commercial real estate associates with specialized technology, marketing tools, and resources. The division is known for allowing agents to keep more commission splits.
2010 to 2016: International expansion By the end of the decade in 2010, Keller Williams had 77,672 real estate agents in the United States. It surpassed
Century 21 as the second largest real estate agency in the U.S., two years after taking over the third spot from
RE/MAX International. Between 2005 and 2011, the company saw a 40 percent increase in the number of offices in North America. At the end of April 2014, Keller Williams reached 100,575 agents worldwide. This was due to an 18 percent increase in agents in 2013. In 2014, the company also announced the opening of a region in Dubai. The first Dubai franchise was awarded to a leadership group affiliated with IFA Hotels & Resorts which is considered the largest foreign investor in
Palm Jumeirah.
2017 to present: Transition to technology company and KWx Keller Williams topped $67.1 billion in sales volume in 2016, up 22 percent from the previous year. The company began to position itself as a technology company in 2017. In 2017 it launched KW Labs, a division of the company process devoted to the building and testing of technology created by the company alongside its agents. This was in addition to KW Keller Cloud. It also introduced "Kelle", an artificial intelligence app which has been referred to as
Siri but for real estate used as a virtual assistant, and an agent-to-agent referral tools platform called "Referrals". Keller Williams claims it is the number one franchise in the United States by sales volume in 2017, ranking number one in agents and units sold in 2017. It also expanded to
Cambodia as well as Belgium and Luxembourg. Gary Keller replaced John Davis as CEO of the company in 2019, adding to his already title of Chairman of the company. The same year the company expanded into
Morocco. Keller Williams formed KWx in 2020, a
holding company to oversee its portfolio of companies. It named Carl Liebert as the new CEO of the group with Gary Keller becoming the executive chairman. Josh Team also left Keller Williams with Marc King being promoted to the role of president. ==Company divisions==