It’s out with the old and in with the new in 2020 for real estate giant Keller Williams, as the company launched a redesigned version of its website on January 1.
The company said that it’s in an effort to be centered on an improved, neighborhood-based home search experience.
“We are excited about the new responsive functionalities of KW.com. We also added content to better serve consumers on their home buying, selling, and renting journeys,” said Keller Williams spokesperson Darryl Frost.
According to the company, the search experience is powered by data feeds resulting from Keller Williams’ acquisition of Smarter Agent, announced in September 2018.
The redesign also foreshadows an experience consumers can expect in the upcoming consumer-app update happening in early 2020.
Keller Williams Vice President of Industry, Jason Abrams, said that the difference in the search is that it is neighborhood-centric.
After getting feedback from consumers, Abrams said that this critical addition was for the benefit of the consumers.
“In this way, people were talking less about houses but more a collection of rooms based within a specific neighborhood that offers certain lifestyle preferences,” Abrams told HousingWire in an interview.
“And better understanding of what those lifestyle preferences were what are the neighborhood attributes that were important?” Abrams continued. “How does walkability play into this? What is the snapshot of that marketplace? How do the private schools and public schools work? What are the student-teacher ratios in these places is business?”
“It was more about living well and searching well,” he added.
In Abrams’ words – the site is about getting more hyperlocal. Abrams said he noticed that neighborhood attributes, such as coffee culture, a walkability score or a school district, was popular among Keller Williams’ consumers. That’s where this redesign came in.
Keller Williams will also be releasing a new app early this year, and Abrams said this is a pivotal point in the agent-consumer relationship, and won’t be minimalizing the interactions.
“I believe that in a lot of ways the cell phone is the remote control for people’s lives. And in that way, Keller Williams’ needs can be represented there, but the app in my mind is less about the company and more about the relationship with the consumer and the real estate agent, meaning that when I think about an app, each real estate agent needs to have their app in the consumer’s phone,” Abrams said.
“This way helps them curate experiences, provide local insights, foster through transactions, and allow people to have more human interaction. I believe that all technology that works within our space needs to serve to make people more human more often,” Abrams added.
