Gary Keller to donate $5 million to found Baylor real estate center
Center to focus on buyers' influences, agents' concerns.
Gary Keller, the Austin entrepreneur who founded the Keller Williams real estate firm, is donating $5 million to start a residential real estate research center at Baylor University, his alma mater.
"The goal of the Keller Center will be to study the issues that are pressing for real estate agents in today's marketplace," Keller said. "For all the awesome research that is out there, there is an equal amount that is not being done."
Texas A&M University operates a statewide Real Estate Center, but Keller and Baylor officials said the Keller Center would have a unique focus on the factors that drive home buyers' decisions, their relationship with agents and marketing and management issues for real estate agencies.
The center will be part of Baylor's Hankamer School of Business. It will start is first project in August.
Keller graduated from Baylor with a marketing degree in 1979. Four years later, he started Keller Williams Realty Inc., which has grown into the fourth-largest real estate franchise company in North America.
There are more than 77,000 agents in more than 600 offices across the United States and Canada.
Gary Keller has been recognized by several leading industry publications as one of the most influential people in the real estate industry.
AMERICAN STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
