Another Company Finds A Home Thanks to Murphy Commercial Real Estate
Another local business is now expanding its reach by moving into a new brick-and-mortar location. Next Step Realty, along with its subset W Home Group, has opened up in Annapolis at 220 Somerville Road, Suite 200. This Annapolis office is the third and latest for the company, which also has locations in Timonium at 22 West Padonia Road, Suite C-145, and in Baltimore at 2005 Fleet Street.
The expansion was made possible in part by Murphy Commercial Real Estate. “They are awesome,” says Kelly Schuit, an owner of Next Step Realty and a managing partner of W Home Group, reflecting on the new office and the team that helped them find it. She and her business partner, fellow owner James Weiskerger, connected with Murphy Commercial Real Estate through a mutual friend in advertising.
Murphy Commercial Real Estate managed to find Schuit and Weiskerger a great option from the very first day — in fact, the find was so unexpectedly fast that Schuit recalls being on vacation with her family when Weiskerger called her to say that one of the two places Murphy Commercial Real Estate had shown was the right fit and they had to act fast. “It wasn’t a long, drawn-out process,” Schuit explains with a laugh.
Next Step Realty, a Maryland-based boutique brokerage founded in 2014 as a response to big-box brokerages, aims to connect top-producing, top-talent agents who understand their local area with buyers and sellers within the residential market. With a philosophy rooted in quality over quantity, the
small but mighty company focuses on educating its client base and providing the best customer service possible. The W Home Group, which Schuit and Weiskerger manage together, is an exclusive group of what Schuit describes as “heavy hitters” focused mainly in Baltimore. Next Step Realty realized its need for a new Annapolis location after hearing the interest that was in the community.
“We met a handful of agents who were Annapolis based and who were just awesome and looking to take their business to next level. They wanted to join us, but we didn’t have space to support that,” Schuit recalls. “We said to them, ‘Listen, if enough people want to come over, we’ll open an office
for you here so you can do business in your backyard.’”
Schuit admits she didn’t have a lot of expectations, but plenty of interest followed — and there’s been even more now that they officially moved into Annapolis. “The cool thing is that once we said we were opening this office, we had even more agents reach out to us because there’s just not a ton of option in terms of brokerage in that area,” she says.
The new Annapolis office that Murphy Commercial Real Estate found for Next Step Realty is about 1,200 square feet with a reception area, office space and conference room. “The way we set up all our spaces, we like common work areas because we’ve found a lot of our agents prefer that,” she says. “We’ve got big open desks where people can pop in and work. There are tables, chairs, couches, and there’s a little kitchen area.”
At any given time during the day, agents might work in different areas around the multifunctional workspace — some agents might meet with clients in a conference room, while others get administrative work done from one of the offices, while others sit and focus from the comfort of a
nearby sofa. Each of the different spaces within the office serves a different need.
For Schuit, she sees this new Annapolis location being to Next Step Realty’s advantage as it continues to grow. The location of the building is ideal, being easily accessible without a lot of hassle to enter or exit the parking lot. More importantly, it has great visibility from the street. Schuit also notes that the space outside the office can accommodate gatherings and events for the community, helping Next Step Realty and W Home Group further establish itself within the Annapolis community. Finally, making the
expansion south to Annapolis from the Baltimore area allows Next Step Realty to better serve all of Maryland.
