Keller Williams celebrates new Town office
FWKCC ribbon cut ‘Kellerizes’ scene
Keller Williams Realty-Farragut/Hardin Valley celebrated the opening of its newest office in Farragut with a ribbon cutting.
The event, hosted by Farragut West Knox Chamber of Commerce, took place Tuesday, April 25, at the new office, 11400 Parkside Drive, Suite 120, in Parkside Plaza, Turkey Creek. The new office, part of a local franchise, gives the realty company room to grow, operating partner Sharon Laing said.
Although Keller Williams Realty moved to the new office in September 2016, Laing said, “We wanted to wait to get the office ‘Kellerized’ with all the information Keller Williams International gives us, so we decided to have our grand opening in spring. So, here we are today.
“We love it,” she added. “We are thrilled. We’re right here in Turkey Creek. It’s a high-profile area and we love the building. I think Farragut is a very growing area.
“We hope to take additional space here. We’re working on that now, so I would project we will probably make that happen by the end of the year or the first part of 2018.”
Keller Williams Realty has 125 agents in the Farragut office.
“We luckily found this space [in Turkey Creek],” Laing said. “We were out, just driving around one day and my assistant pulled this [location] up on his i-phone.”
“We have just continued to grow,” Laing added. “When we were first under project for this, we had about 70 agents. Now we are up to 125 agents and hopefully still growing.”
Keller Williams Realty offers every type of real estate service —residential, land, commercial, luxury, condos, lakefront and specialties.
“Some of our agents are into development,” she said.
The company serves all of Knox, Blount, Loudon, Anderson and Jefferson counties but the agents are not limited as to where they can sell, Laing said.
The office is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Mondays through Fridays. On the weekends, it has an answering service.
This is the second Keller Williams franchise in the East Tennessee area.
“We are thrilled to be part of this community. It’s growing. We want to grow,” Laing said.
“We second that,” town of Farragut Alderman Louise Povlin said.
Looking back, “We actually first opened this Keller Williams [franchise] in the Bearden area in 2008,” Laing said. “We came into Farragut around 2010 — in five years — because our company was growing and we felt there was a need in the marketplace for us to have an office.
“We were in a very small [satellite] office at 11121 Kingston Pike. We had, at the time, 35 agents and we just started growing and growing and growing. Of course, the real estate market is getting better and better so that encourages growth.”
Then, Keller Williams management decided it needed a “stand-alone” office in Farragut, Laing said.
“I hired a CEO, Kim Lawson, and CFO John Sarten,” she said. “We began trying to grow the company with more agents.”
More than just a for-profit company according to Laing, “Keller Williams is a God-family-business mission statement company. We want our agents to be well-rounded so whatever their faith is, their family comes first then business because realtors tend to work 24/7 and I don’t think that’s healthy for people.
“We want [agents] to work smarter, not harder,” she added.
Right now, Keller Williams Realty franchise has five offices with 500 agents.
“We’re looking to expand into other areas in the greater East Tennessee area,” Laing said.
