Ranking the National Real Estate Companies: Transaction sides, transaction volume, agent count, gross commission income... which is best? And of course, it doesn't even matter to me... my success in real estate is in direct proportion to the number of people who, when they think of real estate, think of me.
Recently I noticed one of the competing brokerages in my market area touting that they are "Number One in Ohio"... actually, it was impossible not to notice it, as they answered their phones proclaiming such. I'd respond by saying " Hi there, this is Kevin Cahill with Keller Williams, number Four in the country." The receptionists would always laugh and say "What can I do for ya, Kev..."
Then I noticed that their now advertising that they are number four in the country... This is based on transactions sides (34,659), not on their agent count (2,162)... which works out to an average 16 transactions per agent per year (which is very strong). But take a look at the NAR report on largest companies:
http://www.realtor.org/rmomag.NSF/files/Top100Companies-2006.pdf/$FILE/Top100Companies-2006.pdf
Look a little further down, and you see one of our many KW offices listed in the #23 slot with 1,717 agents; and then again at #48 with another 1,372 agents; and again at #84 with 638 agents (that's Gary Keller's own office).
If we were to combine our Ohio offices, we have 16 offices and 1,229 agents... not bad.
I know that Keller Williams is only considering agent count... looking now on our company's homepage, http://www.kw.com/ , I see that we are at 72,303. Here is a press release from KW about our standing: http://www.kw.com/kw/pr/documents/Nov2006growth_MediaFinal.pdf . We were all very excited when we passed Prudential earlier in 2006 to grab the #4 slot...
Re/Max of course is huge, and NRT is huge, and Coldwell Banker is mighty large... what's most interesting to me is that these regional large companies claim how large they are, and yet, there are not a multitude of owners of those large brands; whereas, in KW, and to great extent our friends at Re/Max, there are many local owners thriving, though they cannot claim to be larger than these regional brands because "each office is independently owned and operated".
In the end, what really matters as a fiduciary is that my clients each feel how very important they are to my small little neighborhood brand, and how thankful I am to be their number one.
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