Agency boasts of lettings surge despite office closures

Keller Williams UK - which has seen market centre closures in recent months - insists that its lettings business KW Move is going great guns.

The US-inspired agency, which was reported to have established only 11 market centres in its nine years of business in the UK, this year announced the closure of its Bristol and Warwick centres. It also lost one of its highest profile operators, former eMoov boss Russell Quirk, who has parted ways with the company this year.

However, KW UK says it has seen a 300 per cent increase in managed tenancies, achieved over the last 18 months.  

A spokesperson says no exact figures are available but says the growth is based on “hundreds, not handfuls” of tenancies, grown organically and not through acquisitions. 

Paul Sloan, operation director at KW Move, says: “Our results over the last 18 month period have seen us grow our portfolio of managed tenancies by over 300 per cent with hundreds of landlords now having their properties let and managed by KW associates.

“Through KW Move, we have created a market leading lettings and management proposition for our agents and their customers that offers 24/7 access to the service.

“Agents operating as part of KW can now offer a full range of lettings and well as sales services with the support of KW Move. This builds on one of our core values of building long term customer relationships.”

KW Move is described as effectively being a “market centre” for lettings. It provides training, tech, property management and other services to agents across the UK who individually would not have the expertise or infrastructure to support a lettings service.

KWUK claims to have 480 associates and is part of what it describes as “the world's largest real estate franchise by agent count” with 1,100 offices and 200,000 associates across 56 countries.