The rumour mill was working overtime at the weekend with EYE informed by several sources that Keller Williams in Leeds had become the latest market centre to close on Friday, making it the third such Keller Williams UK casualty in just seven months.
KW Leeds is one of just 11 UK franchises established by franchisor Keller Williams and the closure would have come on the back of the insolvency of KW Warwick and KW Bristol earlier this year.
However, its principal told EYE yesterday that Keller Williams Leeds has not closed, although two senior members of staff, including Leeds market centre director, Lauren Power, were made redundant on Friday.
“The KW Leeds Market Centre has not closed and will not close,” said its operating principle, Diane Griffin.
Griffin, who is chairman of the Board for Keller Williams UK, as well as a KW franchisee owner in the US, said that her business had “identified an opportunity that would help Leeds agents grow their businesses faster” by partnering with the KW Plus Market Centre, located in Chelmsford.
“They [the KW Plus Market Centre] are the largest MC, with an extensive support infrastructure for their agents,” she explained. “Our agents deserve this and are very excited about the opportunity. We remain KW Leeds and have additional resources to support our agents.
“KW Leeds and the rest of KWUK are excited by our accelerated growth plans for 2023,” she added.
Aside from confirm that KW Leeds “has not closed” and that the “local physical office will remain open”, with agents “supported by a new team [at KW Plus], to benefit from additional resources”, Griffin also made it clear that two positions were made redundant.
She continued: “One of the team members is moving to the role of a self-employed agent with KW Leeds, so one individual is leaving the business.
“Leeds benefitting from the experienced resources in KW Plus is a strategic move to help our agents improve their businesses.”
Accelerated growth They are going backwards, the agent count has gone backwards and the offices are closing Are KW turning in to PB?
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What a load of c**p from Diane Griffin. the Marketing office in Leeds has been haemorrhaging money for years, it’s not grown in agent count and has failed under its ownership and leadership. Moving from Leeds to Essex benefits agents how exactly? How silly is that? It’s 207 miles and 3 hours 43 mins away. The model that pays salaries for its marketing office needs to make up that in a share of agents commission which means you need a lot of income to compensate the outgoings (rocket science it ain’t) and the fact is there are 14 agents according to KWUK agebt finder so it’s clear it’s gone bust.
I do wonder if the leadership at KW know when to stop kidding themselves
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