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Keller Williams, the defiantly independent Texas-based real estate franchisor, will sell an investment stake in its 42-year-old company to Stone Point Capital, a deal long anticipated but unrequited until now, executives told Inman exclusively Monday.
Chris Czarnecki
Amid news of the historic sale, Chris Czarnecki, the former CEO of Broadstone Net Lease, a real estate investment trust, was named to replace Mark Willis as Keller Williams’ chief executive officer, a position that has been vacant since late January. Cofounder Gary Keller will remain in his role as executive chairman of the company.
The news, which is expected to reverberate across more than 1,000 offices across the world, was shared internally with Keller Williams’ approximately 165,000 agents and associates in a call Monday morning, a spokesman told Inman.
“This is an exciting milestone for all Keller Williams agents and franchisees,” Gary Keller said in a statement. “We’ve built an incredible foundation and as we focus on each agent’s personal development and their continual sales growth, we welcome the partnership and backing from the team at Stone Point Capital.”
Gary Keller
“With their commitment, we will also be exploring new ways to make sure top agents and franchisees who drive the growth of our business are able to share in its future success,” he added. “I’m excited for the future and I’m excited to be entering the most prolific writing, teaching and coaching phase of my 48-year career in real estate. I love this company and I’m not going anywhere.”
Terms of the deal, including the precise ownership stake Stone Point is taking, were not made public. A spokesperson told Inman that Keller Williams will be owned by “Gary Keller, Stone Point Capital, and other members of the company’s leadership team.” Czarnecki will also be “coinvesting alongside Stone Point,” the spokesperson said.
“With a strong track record of fostering successful partnerships and driving growth, Stone Point brings strategic capital that can be meaningfully deployed to power agent sales growth and market center development through investments in education, data, and technology,” the spokesperson added.
Stone Point owns or has ownership stakes in dozens of firms. But it will perhaps be most familiar to real estate professionals as the parent of CoreLogic. Stone Point is an alternative investment management firm with a focus on global financial services and related industries. Aside from CoreLogic, the company has also made investments in Lone Wolf, Home Point Capital (which was acquired by Mr. Cooper in 2023) and Rialto Capital.
Czarnecki served as CEO Broadstone Net Lease — a diversified net lease REIT — from 2017 to 2023. He led the company’s $629 million IPO, expanded its portfolio to more than $5 billion in assets, and secured investment-grade credit ratings, according to materials provided by Keller Williams. He brings more than 20 years of industry experience to his new role at Keller Williams, with a successful track record of scaling businesses, leading strategic growth, and driving capital deployment.
Czarnecki also served as president and board member of Broadstone Net Lease and previously served in a leadership role in commercial real estate lending and credit analysis at BB&T.
Rumors of the deal between Keller Williams and Stone Point had been circulating widely for weeks.
The deal comes on the heels of predictions that 2025 will be especially active for mergers and acquisitions in real estate. It also follows a deal that saw Apollo Global Management — the private equity firm that previously owned Anywhere — acquire Bridge Investment Group, a rental and real estate investment firm.
Stone Point’s deal with Keller Williams also comes several years after rampant speculation that the franchisor was on the verge of going public. Responding to those rumors and writing in 2020, Inman founder Brad Inman noted that other larger real estate firms were raising huge amounts of cash at the time and that Keller Williams would eventually have to hold an initial public offering.
Then in 2021, Inman asked then-CEO Carl Liebert if an IPO was in the works. Liebert said that he and Gary Keller were “preparing the company for optionality and how we think about our future.” Liebert also said there was “more to come” and that there was an opportunity for the company “to go do something big in the future.”
But that “something big” never materialized. By 2022, Carl Liebert had left the company and the housing market slowed significantly in the face of fast-rising mortgage rates. With the changing economic times, rumors of a Keller Williams IPO largely disappeared.
However, the conditions that lead to those rumors in the first place never entirely went away; brokerages such as Compass and eXp achieved accelerated growth after going public, for example, and in recent months multiple industry leaders have noted to Inman that scale — and the resources that come with it — are the keys to thriving in real estate right now.
Those conditions appear to be a factor in the deal between Keller Williams and Stone Point. The franchisor’s statement on the deal describes it as a move to “accelerate growth,” with a spokesperson adding to Inman that Stone Point in particular has a track record of helping leaders “accelerate their strategy and fuel their growth.”
“The industry is changing and in today’s world capital, the need for risk mitigation and strategic relationships, are driving the real estate business more than ever,” the spokesperson added.
Czarnecki touched on a similar point, noting in the statement that the “partnership with Stone Point is all about success — giving us the ability to continue to innovate, expand and provide even more value to franchisees, agents, and their clients.”
“Keller Williams has built a global position and an incredible culture of growth and entrepreneurial achievement,” Czarnecki added, “and I am thrilled to be part of its next chapter and to serve and support the entire Keller Williams’ family.”
Update: This story was updated after publication with additional background and details about the deal.
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