Keller Williams Realty announced Tuesday the formation of KW SF Bay Area, a new collective bringing together agents and operations from KW San Francisco, KW Peninsula Estates and The Cunningham Group’s (TCG) network of offices from Napa to Carmel.
The new collective will include about 400 real estate agents serving San Francisco and San Mateo counties and will offer agents streamlined operations, communications and marketing to help share more resources and referrals. Senior executive team leader Nicole Aissa will head KW SF Bay Area.
Cunningham Group agents will have affiliation with KW in Napa, Oakland, Alameda, Castro Valley, Los Gatos, Saratoga and Carmel, as well as worldwide through Keller Williams International. “KW’s over $1 billion tech investment has mobilized new capabilities for agents to drive business, access training and support and deepen agent-client relationships in this new era of real estate,” Aissa said in a statement.
The move has been planned for some time and responds to the evolving trends of the real estate industry, agent business mobility and the pervasive use of technology and data-driven communications, the company said.
Another way KW SF Bay Area benefits from the new collective is that agents will now be allowed to talk with each other about off-market home deals without having to publicize them within 24 hours on the MLS — a loophole in the National Association of Realtors’ new Clear Cooperation Policy, which went into effect on May 1.
“That is not the primary intention but it is an extra silver lining,” said KW SF Bay Area Broker Associate Jennifer Rosdail. “An added benefit is that we now have a much larger network of agents to share information about listings that are off-market or coming soon, without violating NAR’s troubled Clear Cooperation Policy. For agents, this provides a distinct advantage as having access to information is key and we can provide more comprehensive support for our clients who desire the privacy or convenience of having their home marketed privately.”
KW offices are currently open and agents are conducting business by appointment in San Francisco on Monterey Boulevard and Lombard Street, in Burlingame, San Mateo, Napa and Half Moon Bay.
Austin-based KWRI is the world’s largest real estate franchise by agent count and has more than 975 offices and 186,000 associates worldwide.
The Cunningham Group with regional partners has a network of over 1,700-plus agents spanning California and Hawaii with combined sales volume of over $6.4 billion. TCG offices in Northern California are a network of agents, internal operations, and buyer/seller services covering Napa to Newport Beach.