Where we work
Street plans are drawn from each area's own coordinates. They show the shape of a place, not a property — no home on this site sits at a real address.
Five people, one office, fifteen areas
Sweetgum is five brokers above a shopfront in Raleigh. We are not trying to be the biggest firm in the Triangle; we are trying to be the one a nervous first-time buyer feels comfortable calling at nine on a Sunday evening.
Six things we actually do
Not a call centre, not a form that promises a response within one business day. The five people on this page are the five people who pick up. On a Saturday, during a due diligence window, that is the entire product.
Nadia is in Five Points, Marcus in North Hills, Rosalind in Oakwood, Devon in Holly Springs, Priya in Wake Forest. Not a marketing line — it is why they know which streets flood and which block is quieter than the one beside it.
The single easiest way for a brokerage to break the law is to answer "what is the neighbourhood like?" with anything about the people. We answer it with building stock, lot sizes, HOAs, distances and attendance zones — and we will tell you plainly why.
Our fee is in writing before we tour a single house or photograph a single room. We take no referral fee from any lender, inspector, attorney or contractor. If we introduce you to someone it is because they were good to the last client.
If the honest answer is that you should rent another year, save another six months, or walk away from the house you love, we say it. We would rather be the people you call next year.
It is a home. It is where somebody is going to eat dinner for the next decade. The vocabulary you use about a thing shapes how you treat the person buying it.
Who you would be working with
Broker · first-time buyers
Lives in Five Points, Raleigh
Nadia bought her own first house inside the beltline and has been explaining due diligence fees to nervous people ever since. She works mostly inside the beltline and knows the 203(k) renovation loan process better than most lenders do, which comes in useful more often than you would expect.
Broker · sellers and North Raleigh
Lives in North Hills, Raleigh
Marcus spent eleven years as a residential appraiser before he got his broker licence, which is why his listing presentations are mostly numbers and why he will tell you when your house is not worth what the internet says. He lives in a 1961 ranch he has been slowly un-renovating.
Broker · downsizing and relocation
Lives in Historic Oakwood, Raleigh
Rosalind works almost entirely inside Raleigh’s historic overlay districts and can tell you exactly what a certificate of appropriateness involves. She specialises in downsizing, which is mostly a logistics job and partly a patience job, and she reads condominium reserve studies for fun.
Broker · new construction and the southern towns
Lives in Holly Springs
Devon worked in production homebuilding for six years, so he knows which options are worth paying for and which are margin. He handles most of our new-construction buyers and insists on an independent inspection before the eleventh month of the builder warranty, every time.
Broker · relocation and north Wake
Lives in Wake Forest
Priya moved here for a job in 2014 with three weeks to find somewhere to live, and now runs most of our relocation work. She does more video touring than anyone here and is very good at ruling homes out before you waste a Saturday on them.
No licence numbers appear on this site. A real North Carolina brokerage would print its firm licence number here, and each broker would print theirs. We have left them out rather than invent them: a fabricated number in the state’s real format can collide with a licence somebody actually holds.
The part with legal weight
Equal Housing Opportunity. We are pledged to the letter and spirit of U.S. policy for the achievement of equal housing opportunity throughout the nation. We encourage and support an affirmative advertising and marketing programme in which there are no barriers to obtaining housing because of race, colour, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin.
In practice this shapes how we answer the most common question we get, which is “what is that neighbourhood like?”. The honest answer is a description of the housing and the infrastructure — when it was built, how big the lots are, whether there is an HOA, how far it is to work, which schools the district assigns. It is never a description of the people, and it is never a recommendation of one area over another on any basis connected to who lives there. That is not caution; it is the law, and it is also just correct.
Read the full statementSix shapes a search takes
Not case studies, and not testimonials — there are none of those anywhere on this site. These are the six situations people arrive with, written out as the process we would run for each one.
First home · one or two incomes · no equity to move
The loan maximum and the payment you want are different numbers
We start at the lender, not at a listing. What comes back is two numbers: the largest loan you could be approved for, and the monthly payment you would still be comfortable with in February when the heating bill lands. Those are rarely the same number, and the gap between them is where most first-time buyers get hurt. We search against the second one. Every home on this site has a payment estimator on its page that shows principal, interest, tax, insurance and any HOA together, because the mortgage payment is not the cost of the house.
Moving in · short timeline · touring from another state
Ruling homes out before you spend a Saturday on them
The scarce thing is not homes, it is your Saturdays. So the first pass is done on video, on a call, with the map open and the commute drawn on it — and most of it is ruling places out. By the time you fly in, the list is short enough to see in a day and you already know why each one is on it. We will also introduce you to a lender before you write, because on a compressed timeline the ability to close quickly is worth more in a negotiation than another few thousand on the price.
Growing family · trading up · one thing on the list is not negotiable
Drive the geography before you look at a single listing
The Triangle does not fit together the way a map suggests, and the honest first step is two hours in a car looking at nothing for sale. Once you can picture the distances, the search stops being a list of compromises and becomes one question: which single thing are you not giving up? A fenced yard, a main-floor bedroom, a garage you can actually park in. We build the filter around that one and let everything else move.
Downsizing · selling a long-held house first · stairs are the reason
Read the reserve study before you fall in love with the building
Selling a house you have owned for twenty-six years is not the same job as selling one you bought five years ago, and the order matters: what the sale nets you sets the budget for what comes next. On the buying side, a condominium is a share of a building and of its liabilities. We read the reserve study, the last two budgets and three years of minutes before we let anyone write an offer, because a thin reserve on a building with an ageing roof is a special assessment that has not been scheduled yet.
Wants a project · has a design in mind · needs the budget to survive it
A renovation loan folds the work into the mortgage
Most searches quietly steer toward move-in-ready because it is easier to sell. If you want the opposite, say so and we will start sending you the listings other people skip. The financing is the part that decides whether it works: an FHA 203(k) or a conventional renovation loan folds the work into the mortgage rather than onto a credit card, but it comes with a draw schedule, a contractor bid and an inspection at each stage. We will sit in those meetings with you.
Buying new · builder-held inventory or to-be-built
Negotiate the incentives, not the sticker
Builders protect the headline price because it sets the comparable for the rest of the phase. What moves instead is everything around it: closing-cost assistance, a rate buy-down through the preferred lender, an options allowance. We will run the buy-down against a straight conventional loan and show you the real cost of each rather than the monthly payment on the brochure. And we book an independent inspection before the eleventh month of the builder warranty, every time.
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