Market Share in Puget Sound - Who Sold the Most Property in 2008?

Let’s start with a definition. What is Market Share?

Market share, in strategic management and marketing, is the percentage or proportion of the total available market or market segment that is being serviced by a company. It can be expressed as a company’s sales revenue (from that market) divided by the total sales revenue available in that market. It can also be expressed as a company’s unit sales volume (in a market) divided by the total volume of units sold in that market. It is generally necessary to commission market research (generally desk/secondary research, although sometimes primary research) to estimate the total market size and a company’s market share.

Yesterday, during a conversation about the Kenmore housing market, one of my neighbors  asked me who held the largest market share in the local real estate market. “That’s easy,” I said, “it’s Windermere!” The answer came out of my mouth before I even really thought about it. It’s a perfect example of how powerful branding and brand recognition is. Heck, I work for Keller Williams Realty which is the fourth largest brokerage in the United States. I’m proud of that, BUT, how much real estate is Keller Williams Realty selling locally?  Well, curiosity got the best of me and I consulted one of my statistical databases. I limited my search to the percentage of combined sales (both listings and selling transactions) and the simple number of transactions by each company. Here’s what I found:

MARKET SHARE - THE WHOLE PUGET SOUND 2008

MARKET SHARE - KING COUNTY 2008

MARKET SHARE - KENMORE, WA 2008

MARKET SHARE - SNOHOMISH COUNTY 2008

It’s clear that Windermere is the dominant real estate brokerage in our market place; however, we can also see that “All Others” (meaning the total of many smaller brokerages) actually capture more of the market share as a whole. The logical question then is: “Isn’t Windermere the best brokerage in this area?” In the past decade, certainly, Windermere has been the dominant name in real estate. There has been an increase in the number of smaller brokerages (and the other larger competitors) that have been eating away at Windermere’s market share. It will be interesting to see how all of the dominant players perform in 2009.