If you're shopping homes for sale in Summerville, SC, two names come up in the first five minutes: Nexton and Cane Bay. Both are huge. Both are growing fast. And both get lumped together by people who haven't walked them.

They're not the same place. I've sold homes …

You found a house you love. You call to see it. And the first question back is, "Are you pre-approved?" If you're not sure what that means, or you think a quick online pre-qual is the same thing, this post is for you. Before you tour a single home, talk …

South Carolina property taxes trip up almost every out-of-state buyer I work with. Someone moving down from New Jersey or Connecticut sees the quoted tax rate on a Charleston listing, assumes it's apples-to-apples with what they've paid their whole life, and then gets blindsided at year two when the bill …

Flood insurance is one of those topics where almost everybody has heard of it, almost nobody fully understands it, and nearly every Charleston buyer has to deal with it at some point. Buy a home anywhere near the coast — Sullivan's Island, Edisto Island, parts of James Island, …

Here's the thing about home inspections in Charleston. Most buyers walk in thinking the inspector is going to pop the hood on everything — foundation, roof, HVAC, plumbing, termites, pool, dock, septic, pest, mold, chimney — one checkmark per item and you're done. That's not how it works. A standard …

The dream sounds simple. Buy a Charleston-area beach or golf home you can enjoy several weeks a year and rent out the rest of the time to offset costs. Sometimes even generate net income. In reality, the buyers who pull this off successfully do a handful of things right up …

Buying new construction in the Charleston area comes with something resale homes don't offer — a real warranty. Multiple warranties, actually. Structural. Systems. Workmanship. Manufacturer coverage on appliances and materials. Buyers see the shiny model home and assume the warranty is bulletproof. It's not. It's specific, limited, and full of …

Real estate listings are marketing documents. That's not a criticism — it's just what they are. Every listing is written to make the home sound as appealing as possible while staying within legal limits. If you don't know how to read between the lines, you'll waste weeks touring homes that …

Buying a home you've never physically walked through is scary. Doing it in a market you don't live in is scarier. But over the last several years, more relocating families have bought Charleston homes sight-unseen than at any point in my 20+ years in coastal Carolina real estate. The right …

One of the first real conversations I have with buyers moving to Charleston isn't about price. It's about what kind of life they actually want here. Condo or single-family home? Because those are two completely different Charleston lifestyles, and picking the wrong one is expensive to fix later.

I've …