Keller Williams Realty recently merged with Resort Brokerage, a real estate firm based in Ocean Isle Beach.

The former Resort Brokerage office at 15 Causeway Drive in Ocean Isle is now part of Keller Williams, officials said Tuesday.

The merger adds a roster of 20 agents to Keller Williams in Wilmington, and more will likely be added to the Brunswick County office, said Clifton Cheek, formerly of Resort Brokerage and now the south Brunswick Keller Williams office's broker in charge. He is also this year's president of the Brunswick County Association of Realtors.

Resort Brokerage was founded in 1999 by Larry Cheek, a retired dentist and Clifton Cheek's father. The company had a total sales volume of $58 million last year. 

“The culture, the principals of and values of the company really just hit home with us,” Clifton Cheek said of the decision by Resort Brokerage officials to merge with Keller Williams. “It spoke volumes to what we had created in our own business and what we tried to do for the people that we care about – our clients, our agents, and our office.  . . . We realized that this partnership with a company that is much, much greater than us will give us a lot more exposure, a lot more tools, resources, education and things that we’ve been creating ourselves over the years but that they’ve already got there."

The Keller Williams Realty market center office in Wilmington is located in Suite 101 at 1001 Military Cutoff Road, a space the firm recently moved into after outgrowing offices at 1838 Sir Tyler Drive. The merger with Resort Brokerage brings the total number of local licensed residential real estate agents working for Keller Williams in the Cape Fear region to more than 200.

The merger "helps us grow our influence and market share in south Brunswick," said Ladd Gasparovic, operating principal of the Wilmington-based Keller Williams office.

Keller Williams has been growing nationally and locally, Gasparovic said, with a 176 percent increase from for the Wilmington office in agent count, a 365 percent rise in units sold and a 449 percent increase in volume from 2014 to 2017.

Correction: This version corrects the address for Keller Williams Realty in Wilmington.