KW’s festive Family Reunion to include a dose of reality 

When times are tough, a strong workplace culture can serve as a buoy, helping team members face the challenges ahead. And that's something Keller Williams is looking to foster and focus on during its annual Family Reunion conference in Las Vegas this week.

Kicking off on Feb. 18, the event is expected to bring together more than 8,700 agents with another 10,000 attending online. It will feature over 160 breakout sessions and a keynote presentation with Co-Founder Gary Keller on the state of the housing market.

While the backdrop is glitzy and celebratory, the conference will also address the sobering reality of what is shaping up to be another difficult year for real estate agents and brokers. 

How to 'get through it' (it takes more than hope): With home sales ending 2024 at a 30-year low, 2025 is off to a slow start — and may not improve in the near term as mortgage rates remain elevated and demand remains weak. 

With that in mind, this year's Family Reunion will focus on helping KW agents "get through it" by making sure they have the right answers when speaking with potential clients, said Jason Abrams, head of industry and learning at Keller Williams. But first, he said, it's important to acknowledge that the industry will be dealing with this slowdown for a while longer.

"These cycles don't sort themselves out in a year," Abrams told Real Estate News, noting that we're in about year three of what is usually a five-year period of recovery. 

"The message we're going to have is that all the hope in the world that something changes tomorrow doesn't actually make a change tomorrow. So what are the actions they can take today to thrive in the next year?"

Keep the conversations going — and keep at it: One of those actions, according to KW leadership, is doubling down on client education, because buyers and sellers have more questions than ever about the uncertainty surrounding both the market and the industry.

The "trick" to managing that uncertainty, Abrams said, "is simply having more conversations with more people about real estate."

What agents should be focusing on, Abrams added, are the transactions they can be capturing right now. "At the end of the day, the ones that need to move still need to move… whether interest rates change or inflation goes up or down."

And that can sustain agents and brokers — if they're willing to get out there and do the work.

"The fact of the matter is there's enough housing units being sold that every real estate agent can go live their best life in this industry," Abrams said. "How they go about it, knowing that there's going to be less units than they might be accustomed to, that's the art of what we're going to be teaching at Family."