Why Empower exists
Keith Dunham, Founder of Empower Transactions
Empower was created out of necessity, not theory — by someone who has run the brokerage, sold the brokerage, and helped build the software the industry runs on. At HomeCity we took a brokerage margin from about 3% to over 25% by moving the back office off the payroll. Empower is that back office, built as a product.
Keith Dunham led operations at HomeCity Real Estate, scaling it to hundreds of monthly closings before its sale to Better Homes & Gardens. He went on to co-build Opcity, the lead-management platform later acquired by Realtor.com. Empower is the third chapter: the back office he wished he’d had as an operator, now run for brokerages nationwide.
Who runs Empower Transactions?
Empower is run by founder Keith Dunham and a US-based operations team. Keith scaled HomeCity Real Estate to hundreds of monthly closings, sold it to Better Homes & Gardens, and co-built Opcity before it was acquired by Realtor.com. Empower packages that operating experience as a service.
HomeCity Real Estate
Running operations at a high-volume brokerage teaches what no course does: recruiting, hiring, and training agents; keeping files compliant at hundreds of closings a month; and building the systems that let growth happen without the wheels coming off. At its peak HomeCity was doing over $500 million a year in real estate sales across Austin and Dallas. It sold to Better Homes & Gardens.
Opcity → Realtor.com
Co-building Opcity meant watching software change the economics of an entire industry — and learning that the tools only work when operators, not just engineers, decide what they should do. Opcity was acquired by Realtor.com.
Empower Transactions
Broker compliance review, transaction coordination, and listing operations — delivered under each client’s own brand by a US-based team, nationwide. It is the back office that could not be bought in the early 2010s, built as a product.
Why do brokerage margins matter so much?
Because they are thinner than people think. HomeCity ran about 3%, and most brokerages do worse. In the early 2010s there was no option to outsource the back office. Once there was, we moved work off the payroll and took the margin above 25%.
Why not just use compliance software?
We build software too — Empower’s own AI reads every file the moment it arrives. The difference is what happens next: experienced people make the judgment calls, chase the fixes, and stand behind the result. Software flags problems; a team resolves them. Brokers need both, so we built both.
What does Keith actually know?
The things a growing broker gets no honest help with: recruiting, hiring and training agents; choosing a software stack that will not collapse at scale; marketing an office; and building a back office that keeps the broker of record out of trouble.
What happens on a consultation call?
You talk to operators, not a sales rep. Empower consults brokers on what a growing brokerage actually has to solve — recruiting, retention, compliance, back office, and the software stack — from people who ran a $500-million-a-year brokerage across Austin and Dallas, and sold it.
How to reach him
Keith writes most of what Empower publishes on brokerage operations and compliance. For partnerships or press, contact Empower or connect with Keith on LinkedIn.