Founding and early history

Keller Williams was founded in 1983 by Gary Keller and Joe Williams. It started out as a single office based in Austin, Texas, selling local residential real estate in the Austin area.  After two years in business, Keller Williams became the largest single office residential real estate firm in Austin with 72 licensed agents. In the mid-1980s, the company suffered from the United States housing bubble and began to offer profit sharing to existing and potential associates in order to retain agents and help get through the recession.  Within a year, the company grew to 130 agents and began to climb back as the top real estate broker in Austin.

In the early 1990s, Keller Williams expanded outside of the state of Texas, opening up its business model to franchising beginning in 1991. It opened an office in Oklahoma in 1993, marking the firm's first office to be located outside of its home state.  The Oklahoma office was later recognized as the most successful single real estate office in that state.   Keller Williams expanded at a rapid rate throughout the United States, much of which was attributed to its commission split for agents.  In 1997 the company was recognized by being on the Franchise Gold 100 list by Success Magazine.   As it moved into the next century, Keller Williams became the 6th largest real estate agency in the U.S.  An example of its rapid expansion came in the state of Florida where in 2004 it was attributed as the largest real estate office in Polk County with 114 agents.   That same year, it was attributed as the fastest growing real estate office in the entire state with 45 market centers, bringing its total nationwide agent count to over 30,000.

Keller Williams continued expanding and in 2007, the company launched Luxury Homes by Keller Williams, a division within the company that brokers luxury only real estate.  In 2008, it launched KW Commercial, a division providing commercial real estate associates with specialized technology, marketing tools, and resources.   The division is known for allowing agents to keep more commission splits.   It also allowed profit sharing similar to residential agents. As of 2012, the division boasted of more than 1,000 brokers nationally.

Keller Williams topped $67.1 billion in sales volume in 2016, up 22 percent from the previous year.  The company began to position itself as a technology company in 2017. In 2017 it launched KW Labs, a division of the company process devoted to the building and testing of technology created by the company alongside its agents. This was in addition to KW Keller Cloud.  It also introduced "Kelle," an artificial intelligence app which has been referred to as Siri but for real estate used as a virtual assistant, and an agent-to-agent referral tools platform called "Referrals."Keller Williams claims it is the number one franchise in the United States by sales volume in 2017, ranking number one in agents and units sold in 2017.

Keller Williams continued expansion into South America in 2018, opening franchises in Argentina, adding to already existing locations in Colombia, Belize, Nicaragua, and Panama.   It also expanded to Cambodia as well as Belgium and Luxembourg. Gary Keller replaced John Davis as CEO of the company in 2019, adding to his already title of Chairman of the company.   The same year the company expanded into Morocco.

Keller Williams formed KWx in 2020, a holding company to oversee its portfolio of companies. It named Carl Liebert as the new CEO of the group with Gary Keller becoming the executive chairman.  Josh Team also left Keller Williams with Marc King being promoted to role of president. 

Keller Williams operates a charitable arm known as KW Cares which is a nonprofit organization set up to assist both local communities as well as associates of the company and their families deal with hardships and emergencies.

Examples of giving include providing assistance to help fight serious illness or recover from a life altering accident. The organization also donates to various other nonprofits including the Ryan's Well Foundation, Homes For Our Troops, and the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Beginning in 2009, Keller Williams began organizing a one-day yearly event where all associates spend a day away from the office donating their time to their local communities.   Known among the associates as RED Day (Renew, Energize, and Donate), all Keller Williams offices close for the day to take part in the event.  Since its inception, associates have been involved with projects that include rebuilding homes, hosting blood drives, giving to local food shelters, and refurbishing local parks.