I grew up in Winston-Salem. I came to the Upstate three years ago for Wofford, and moved here for good more recently. I mention it because “local” is a word people use loosely in this business, and you should be able to weigh mine. Two things occupy me now, and they overlap more than you might expect.
The first is real estate. I am licensed in South Carolina and I help people buy and sell, mostly when a move follows a major life change: a death in the family, a job relocation, retirement, or downsizing. First-time buyers moving on from college or into a new career are welcome too. The complicated end of it is where I am most useful: owners who live four states away, places that have sat empty a while, families who have to agree before anything can happen.
The second is software. I built a tool called Estate Watch that fills in South Carolina’s probate forms, tracks the deadlines the court sets, and gives a family one shared place to see what has happened and what has not. It is free, and it stays free.
Why both
The honest answer is that I started with the software and kept meeting people who needed something the software could not do. A form does not empty a house. A deadline reminder does not answer the phone when a sister in Ohio wants to know why this is taking so long. At some point the useful thing to do was to get licensed and be able to help with the part that actually involved a house.
I would rather say that plainly than have you discover it later and wonder what else I left out.
The line between them
Estate Watch does not recommend real estate agents. Not other agents, and not me. There is no referral button, no directory, no fee that reaches me because somebody used the software. A family can use it from now until the estate closes and never learn I sell houses.
That is a deliberate design decision and I would keep it even if it cost me work, because the moment a free tool starts steering people it stops being a free tool.
The longer version
My education, what I have done so far, and where each of those things can be checked are on my resume.