Hergenrother Realty Group, a high-performing real estate team with headquarters in Vermont, announced Thursday that it is rebranding and beefing up its relationship with Keller Williams.
Adam Hergenrother
The rebranding effort will see the team change its name to “Livian.” Additionally, founder and CEO Adam Hergenrother told Inman the project includes a “strategic investment” from Keller Williams that will allow the team to grow more quickly and access more of the franchisor’s tools.
The deal — the financial details of which weren’t publicly disclosed — is not an acquisition according to Hergenrother, though Keller Williams will have an ownership stake in Livian.
What this all means is that Livian will have greater access to Keller Williams’ various services, for instance, those related to title and insurance. While Hergenrother Realty Group was made up of Keller Williams agents who could already access those services on an individual basis, Livian will get institutional opportunities, such as branding Keller Williams products under the Livian banner.
The investment should also allow the company to “take what we have and expand it much faster,” Hergenrother said.
Hergenrother ultimately described Livian in a phone call with Inman as a “real estate platform,” adding that the idea is to create “the Amazon of real estate.”
In an email, Hergenrother further elaborated that “the infrastructure, support, and reach of KW paired with our robust platform for real estate teams will allow us to directly enhance the future of the consumer experience, while also helping agents’ and teams accelerate their business.”
Livian currently includes 270 agents on 33 teams spread out across 21 states, according to a company statement. The firm also includes 40 additional non-agent employees.
The Hergenrother Realty Group has long been among the most prominent and fastest-growing Keller Williams expansion teams, which is a Keller Williams real estate team that expands beyond its local market. This summer, for instance, the firm announced that the top Keller Williams team in the Ohio Valley region had merged with HergGroup Indianapolis, which itself was a part of the Hergenrother Realty Group.
Thursday’s statement further notes that in 2020 the Hergenrother Realty Group sold 2,248 homes and did $613.7 million in sales volume. Those results were up 28 percent and 38 percent, respectively, over 2019’s numbers.
Among other things, Livian will be offering a variety of services to agents and teams including marketing, lead generation, staff support, training and coaching, according to Thursday’s statement.
Asked about the name “Livian,” Hergenrother told Inman the moniker was the result of a lengthy research project that included marketing expert Roger Adams and brand strategy firm Siegel + Gale. Thursday’s statement notes that the “brand promise of Livian is ‘Love how you live.'”
Gary Keller
In the statement, Gary Keller — Keller Williams’ co-founder and the current executive vice chairman of parent firm kwx — said that “as we partner with Adam, he’s in turn partnering with our market centers, teams and agents for a true win-win.”
And kwx CEO Carl Liebert noted in the statement that “we’re excited to be aligning with Adam and Livian as we accelerate these efforts and demonstrate the power of the kwx platform for win-win success.”
For his part, Hergenrother said in the statement that his company is “focused on the full homeownership experience, and while in the process, helping our agent partners live fuller lives as well.”
“Livian,” Hergenrother added during his call with Inman, “wants to be part of this new era of real state and redefining what the home means.”
