Pleasanton, CA — December 1oth, 2019 — NextHome is proud to announce our newest addition to the franchise, NextHome Treasure Coast. The brokerage represents the 62nd office location opened in Florida for the NextHome franchise.
The brokerage is based on the Treasure Coast in the town of Stuart and is owned by Cristi Hernandez and Karen Luther. Cristi and Karen provide decades of area expertise as they lead an office of 20 professional agents. Cristi will be NextHome Treasure Coast’s broker of record. Karen will handle administrative operations – a role she is well suited for following a career as a business director at one of the nation’s largest law firms.
NextHome Treasure Coast provides unparalleled service for residential buyers, condo purchases, and those seeking the perfect vacation home. The team also has unique expertise in beachfront properties, multi-family, luxury, and farmland.
Stuart is located about 40 miles north of West Palm Beach, and NextHome Treasure Coast will serve a metro population of more than 167,000. The brokerage will help clients across Stuart, Palm City, Jensen Beach, Hobe Sound, Jupiter, Palm Beach Gardens, Port St. Lucie, Fort Pierce, Sewells Point, and the remainder of North Palm Beach, Martin, and Saint Lucie counties.
Cristi began her real estate career in 2002 with a nationally franchised brokerage in Lake Worth, Florida – an eclectic coastal community in Palm Beach County. After one year there, she transitioned to Illustrated Properties, one of the largest independents in the state. Within her first three years, Cristi’s hard work propelled her to the top 10% of agents in a brokerage of more than 650.
Although she started at the company’s Lake Worth location, Cristi soon moved to the Sewells Point office where she continued to build her database of happy clients.
In 2013, Cristi began working with a Stuart-based Keller Williams office where she became a team leader.
Cristi’s hard work helped the brokerage grow from a $167 Million company to a $450 million company.
“We grew to a 250 agent office with an average 1,500 plus closed units per year,” Cristi said.
The fact that the entire market area had about 850 agents total makes Cristi’s accomplishments even more remarkable.
Meanwhile, as Cristi was building her real estate career, Karen was climbing the corporate ladder as a Business Director.
Karen began her career as a legal secretary with Greenberg Traurig – one of the top 10 largest law firms in the nation. In 2000, she became a Business Director for two of the firm’s many offices, a position she held until leaving in 2014.
After years of non-stop, high-pressure, frantic work, Karen left the firm needing something new.
“I needed a chance to recover from burnout,” Karen recalled.
After taking time to rediscover what brings her joy, Karen started working as an Assistant Marketing Center Administrator at the same Keller Williams office as Cristi. Karen used her years of business expertise and incredible work ethic to handle the office’s on-boarding and retention.
Eventually, Cristi was drawn to the appeal of owning her own brokerage and found NextHome during her search on where to implement her talents. She knew that she wanted Karen to be a part of it.
“I realized I could build an empire for someone else or I could build my own,” Cristi said. “Karen has all the attributes that I don’t have, she is the ying to my yang, and I knew we would make a phenomenal team.”
Karen agrees that the combination of their professional skills, experience, and personalities will create great value for Treasure Coast clients.
“Cristi has this unique ability to dial in on someone when meeting them for the first time,” Karen said. “She has an ability to quickly understand unique needs and personalities. I knew we could build something great together.”
“Cristi came to me and asked if I would look through the NextHome materials and give her my opinion,” Karen said. “Then we sat down and had a conversation about becoming partners.”
As NextHome franchisees, Cristi and Karen look forward to providing buyers, sellers, and agents with phenomenal marketing, time-saving tools, and great leadership.
“I came from a very strong leadership background and one thing that was appealing about NextHome was the structure and the strong direction the company provides,” Cristi said. “If you don’t have strong leadership, you are going nowhere.”
Today, Cristi and Karen are making NextHome Treasure Coast stand out by providing their agents with unparalleled support and leadership.
“I think that we do bring a very unique value to this market,” Karen said. “We offer a tremendous amount of agent support and we are very hands on. At NextHome Treasure Coast, we offer the personal touch.”
Cristi’s main focus is building the NextHome brand with an occasional sale to help keep a watchful eye on market changes and the challenges her agents might face.
“If you are training agents you want to know what they are experiencing,” Cristi said. “You want to know what’s going on out there. The only way to know those things are great communication and keeping yourself out there.”
Karen and Cristi are active in various community service organizations, including Children Achieving Radical Educational Success (C.A.R.E.S.) and Kane Center Council on Aging of Martin County.
C.A.R.E.S. works with St. Lucie County schools to provide the county’s more than 1,400 homeless K-12 students with basic supplies. Thanks to the organization’s work, kids living homelessly get essential hygiene and other basic need supplies and educational resources to keep them engaged year-round.
Once a quarter, Cristi and several other agents provide a delicious meal for seniors at the Kane Center. Along with the food, Cristi gives her time, staying to chat and play games. She and Karen also participate in a monthly Womens Power Lunch where 150 of the area’s leading professional women come to support each other and network. In addition, Cristi is a past president of the St. Lucie chapter of Women REALTORS® and past GRI Instructor.
When she isn’t selling real estate, building her business and helping her community, Cristi loves to boat, fish, and going snorkeling with her family. She has been married for 25 years to Roy Hernandez III and together they have two sons: Roy Hernandez IV (24) and Robert (22). Together, Roy and his namesake son operate a roofing and construction business – ACI Century, and Robert is in law school.
Karen has been married for 31 years to Don and together they have two sons: Michael (28), a resident of Savannah, Georgia who also works in real estate, and Bradley (26), a student at the University of Tampa. When she isn’t building NextHome Treasure Coast and volunteering, Karen loves to cook, read, and walk.
Please join us in congratulating Cristi, Karen, and their team on the opening of NextHome Treasure Coast in Stuart, Florida!
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.