Pleasanton, CA — January 9th, 2020 — NextHome is proud to announce our newest addition to the franchise, NextHome Kingdom, based in Endicott, New York. The brokerage represents the 11th office location opened in New York for the NextHome franchise.
NextHome Kingdom is owned by the husband and wife team Keith and Carrie King and will serve Endicott, Binghamton, Johnson City, Vestal, Endwell, Chenango Valley, Owego, and the remainder of Broome and Tioga counties.
The pair will focus their skills on residential real estate of all types, including first-time home-buying, investment properties, and resales.
Carrie was first attracted to real estate after navigating through their first home-buying adventure in 1998. At the time, Keith and Carrie both had entry-level jobs and only qualified for a small mortgage. To qualify, Carrie had to return a necklace Keith had bought her to change their debt-to-income. It was difficult for them to find an agent who would work with them at their price point, leading Carrie to take on most of the legwork herself. The reward was worth the hard work when they closed and both felt so proud to be an American Dream success story with owning their own home.
In 2006, the couple had grown more financially secure and Carrie obtained her real estate license so she could sell homes part-time. All the while, she remained active in her first career as an optician.
“I was working as an agent during my lunches and after work and I found incredible success,” Carrie said.
In her first six months working part-time, Carrie sold about $1 million in real estate in a market where home values were in the $112,000 range.
Realizing she could help her family financially by switching to real estate full-time, Carrie jumped in with both feet leaving her career in opticianry in February of 2007. Ironically, she took the leap just in time for the real estate crash that accompanied the Great Recession. Through it all, she pressed on not willing to turn back to her old career. She took any type of business she could get to help keep the family finances afloat. Between broker priced opinions, rentals and property management, foreclosures, short sales, small investors, and land speculators, Carrie’s hard work and creativity helped increase her sales each year.
Her perseverance paid off. Throughout her 14-year career, Carrie developed lasting client relationships that she enjoys to this day. In 2018, she had her biggest year to date with 52 properties under contract, selling $9.2 million.
With Carrie’s continued success and Keith’s pending retirement, they started considering opening their own brokerage and fulfilling a dream that seemed unattainable when they met working at a local Hardees in 1993.
“When we first met 26 years ago, we knew we worked well together professionally and we always wanted to open our own business. After years of hard work and saving, now we can,” Keith said.
They began researching brokerages and discovered the NextHome difference.
“I love how with NextHome I don’t have to recreate the wheel at all,” Carrie said. “I want to focus on selling properties and recruiting phenomenal agents. NextHome’s back-end support gives me the freedom to do those two things well.”
Today, Carrie and Keith are nurturing relationships with clients that they have enjoyed for many years. Carrie is the office’s broker of record, but still enjoys selling real estate. Keith is NextHome Kingdom’s administrative lead and handles day-to-day business operations. Together, they are promoting customer-first service throughout their area.
“I always put my clients first,” Carrie said. “Humans over houses has been the cornerstone ideology of my business since 2006. In fact, when I hear agents boast about properties they’ve sold without giving acknowledgment to their clients, I can’t help but feel upset. That type of behavior makes the personal accomplishment of the clients become secondary, I never want to treat people as if they were just a file or a sale and lose that human factor of my business.”
Keith is a proud Navy veteran and retired law enforcement officer. He has given 29 years of service to his country and the community he loves. He is looking forward to using his experience with leadership, problem-solving, and communication to help NextHome Kingdom grow.
Together, Keith and Carrie are the proud parents of two children: Kyla (22) and Kelsey (17).
Please join us in congratulating Keith and Carrie on the opening of NextHome Kingdom in Endicott, New York!
Interested in being a part of the NextHome Real Estate Franchise? Contact VP of Sales Charis Moreno at Charis@NextHome.com.
Each office is an independently owned and operated business.