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Keller Center for Research in Residential Real Estate Marketing Launches Ground Breaking Initiatives

Austin, TX | November 8, 2007

Drilling Down to What Really Works

AUSTIN, TEXAS (November 8, 2007) —More than 50 of the top producing real estate agents in the country gathered at Baylor University in Waco, Texas recently for the Inaugural Research Summit at the Keller Center for Research in Residential Real Estate Marketing. The Summit was led by Gary Keller, founder and Chairman of Keller Williams Realty, the fourth-largest residential real estate franchise in North America and a Baylor alumnus. 

Focused on Getting Leads and Making Sales: What Really Works, the event represented an unprecedented step toward academic, quantitative research within the residential real estate business.

The Keller Center was funded through a $5 million donation by Keller in January 2007. 

“The Millionaire Real Estate Agent [MREA] was actually the impetus behind the founding of the Keller Center,” said Keller. “While that book was a success on many levels, our research revealed that so much of what the real estate industry believes about what works is learned by word-of-mouth, or anecdotally, rather than being based on solid quantitative analysis.”

Attendees spent two days discussing what research needed to be done in the areas of Lead Generation, Lead Conversion and Branding with Baylor faculty, Keller Williams Realty researchers and course writers, and MREA co-authors, Dave Jenks and Jay Papasan. 

Keller asked attendees: “If you could know one thing, that if you knew it, would have a tremendous impact on your business, what would it be?” The results of this masterminding will serve as the direction for the research that will be developed by Keller Center’s faculty in the coming years. 

“The summit was a tremendous success and very productive. The agents in attendance confirmed resoundingly that they are most interested in issues surrounding lead generation and conversion, so that will be our first focus,” says Laura Indergard, associate director of the Keller Center.  

“The Keller Center’s upcoming research initiatives will have a far-reaching impact among real estate professionals, “ asserted Sami Inkinen, COO and co-founderof the real estate search engine,Trulia.com, who was one of several real estate industry heavyweights in attendance. “Not only will the rigorous and methodological research approach create a framework for best practices that will help real estate professionals to become more productive and more savvy business people, it will also serve to improve the image of the entire industry.” 

At the close of the Summit, Keller emphasized to attendees, “What you are a part of is historic. The research that Baylor University will do now, based on your input, will make a truly important contribution to the real estate industry.” 

Keller graduated from Baylor University in 1979 with a bachelor of business administration degree in marketing, with a specialization in real estate and insurance. In 2006, the university honored Keller with its Distinguished Alumni Award. That same year, REALTOR® Magazine named Keller one of the Top 25 Most Influential Thought Leaders in real estate. In 2007, Inman News recognized Keller as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Real Estate.

About Keller Williams Realty Inc.

Founded in 1983, Keller Williams Realty Inc. is the fourth-largest real estate franchise operation in North America, with more than 650 offices and 77,000 associates in the United States and Canada. The company’s agent-centric culture emphasizes access to leading-edge education and promotes an economic model that rewards associates as stakeholders and partners. Keller Williams Realty, which began franchising in 1990, is growing by more than a thousand agents a month. Keller Williams Realty associates place high value on professional education and a full-time commitment to real estate sales. For more information, visit Keller Williams Realty online at (www.kw.com).  

About Baylor Business

The Hankamer School of Business holds to a visionary standard of excellence whereby integrity stands shoulder to shoulder with analytic and strategic strengths to build leaders, not simply careers. In the Ethics rankings done by BusinessWeek magazine, the undergraduate business program is ranked 3rd in the nation. Among private business schools, the undergraduate program is ranked 22nd by U.S.News and World Report and 23rd by BusinessWeek. Baylor’s Entrepreneurship program is ranked 14th by U.S. News and its Accounting program is ranked 18th by Public Accounting Report. Visit (www.baylor.edu/business) for more information.

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