At the 2024 Keller Williams Family Reunion event in Las Vegas, co-founder and executive chairman Gary Keller took the stage on Tuesday and spoke to a room full of real estate agents about the importance of buyer agency agreements within the context of the ongoing antitrust lawsuits.
Among other services, buyers’ agents help clients navigate the extensive paperwork and negotiate the sales price of a home. But clients often are not well educated on the value of these services, Keller argued.
Because of the lack of awareness around the value of such services, customers tend to take the agent’s services for granted, Keller said. In turn, this reinforces the need for buyer agency agreements.
“If you want to understand fundamentally how the industry got sued, it’s because you don’t do this (clearly presenting the buyers’ agent value proposition),” Keller said on stage. “You are being accused of not being transparent.
“If you ask me what should change in the industry more than anything else, is that every one of you leaves here, and for the rest of your lives, when you meet a potential buyer, you pull out your value proposition … [and] you explain how you work and how you are getting paid.”
Keller also emphasized the importance of networking. In 2023, 43% of buyers found their agents through a referral from a friend, family member or neighbor, according to data released by the National Association of Realtors.
In February, Keller Williams entered into a settlement agreement with the plaintiffs in the Sitzer/Burnett suit, settling all home seller lawsuits nationwide. According to spokesperson Darryl Frost, the firm will pay $70 million as part of the agreement, which must be approved by U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Bough.
“We realized that the right thing to do was to settle on behalf of everyone in this room,” Keller said on Tuesday. “This is an active lawsuit; this is ongoing. As a result, you are not going to get any of us to talk about it.
“We hope that our settlement gets approved and we hope that things move on.”
