NextHome is proud to announce our newest addition to the franchise, NextHome Whalen & Co. This new brokerage represents the eighth office location opened in Washington by the NextHome franchise.
The Kennewick-based brokerage will be owned and operated by REALTOR® and Broker of record, Chris Whalen. NextHome Whalen & Co. will provide real estate services such as first-time buyer, investor, multi-family, land, luxury and traditional single-family sales to the areas of the “Tri-Cities” (Kennewick, Richland, and Pasco), Benton City, Burbank, West Richland, and the remainder of Benton and Franklin Counties.
Kennewick is located three hours southeast of Seattle and home to nearly 75,000 residents. The city sits on the southwest bank of the Columbia River.
Chris was introduced to real estate in one of the most unique ways possible – as a limo driver who happened to drive a real estate agent to the airport.
“I remember picking up a gentleman while I was driving limousines at the time,” recalled Chris. “He requested to my company that I be the one to pick him back up upon his return. When I dropped him at his house and saw where he lived, I asked ‘What do you do?’ He said he was in real estate, and the rest was history.”
Chris has been interested in construction and architecture since he was a kid, so the tie into real estate seemed like a natural choice for a career.
He started in 2004 with Coldwell Banker in Phoenix, Arizona. After working several years at the brokerage, he made the moved to Keller Williams Realty and worked on one of the top teams in Arizona.
Chris and his wife, Kristina, moved a few years later and he ended up selling newly constructed homes with a company called New Home Star in Cedar Rapids, Iowa – the town where he was born and raised. At that time, New Home Star was the biggest home builder in eastern Iowa.
Knowing that he needed a position with more stability and health benefits, Chris approached the New Home Star team and asked if there were any positions that corporate could offer that made more sense for his family. They told Chris a sales manager position opened up in Kennewick, Washington if he was interested.
Randomly enough, Kristina grew up in that area, so the Whalens moved to Kennewick. Chris was not only responsible for the sales of new homes in Kennewick, but he also trained several other sales team members who worked in surrounding areas such as Spokane.
While finding his career interesting, Chris missed the ability to sell homes on his own terms versus selling just a few types of model homes. In June 2016, he left New Home Star and started his own company Whalen & Co. Real Estate and grew a successful brokerage.
He found NextHome in 2018 and found the franchise to be exactly what he had been looking for in order to grow his brokerage with the right technology and tools for his agents.
“After doing my research on NextHome, I realized that the company could advance all the technology that I wanted for my brokerage,” said Chris. “In speaking with some of the savvier agents in our area that I trust, these agents agreed and I was all in with NextHome.”
“The people are great, the support is great… NextHome is everything we were looking for,” added Chris.
Chris says the success of the company will be because of NextHome Whalen & Co.’s committed agents and their dedication towards first-class service for their clients.
Chris currently serves on the Education Committee of his local Real Estate Board and is also a Certified Real Estate Instructor with the State of Washington.
Chris and Kristina have been married since 2004 and have two children – Tommy (14) and Samantha (4). The family loves to travel and spend time on the water on their boat and enjoy the Colombia River.
Please join us in welcoming Chris and the rest of the team at NextHome Whalen & Co. on the opening of their brand new office in Kennewick, WA!
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.