I didn't know what home felt like before moving to Bellingham.

 

I was born in Arkansas, came of age in Chicago, met my wife Kelly in Denver, took a brief aside through Mexico, and then landed in Bellingham to be near Kel's family.

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It was a whirlwind that ended with us living in the most incredible place on earth, while being trapped behind screens working cushy, but mentally and emotionally taxing tech jobs.

 

I reported to a boss in San Francisco, worked with customers around the world, was paid out of a bank account in New York, and tried to make time for Bellingham outside of the ever-increasing office hours.

 

I'd be dead at the end of this thing and the only contribution I'd have to show for any of it was going to be whatever I could make happen on nights and weekends.

 

That was pure cognitive dissonance for me.

 

So, like any self-respecting adult, I quit my job; got a real estate license knowing it was the most beloved and trusted profession in the county and definitely not a "completely saturated, why would you ever quit your stable career to become a middle-man in a place that's experiencing an active affordability crisis with one of the widest median-income-to-median-home-price gaps in the country; not to mention our closest neighbor and best friends who are finally recovering from the pandemic and beginning to fuel our economy once again are about to get torpedoed by a small-handed politician 2,500 miles away" type of market.

 

It sounded perfect: so here I am, getting to work.

 

Currently I'm interested in:

• Dreaming about the future of the Birchwood Neighborhood and how to keep it wild, but grown and grocer'd (if you know anyone who wants to sell there, hit me up – I want to be your neighbor)

• Meeting artists, makers, farmers and small business owners who are contributing to the health and humanity of our region and highlighting them in my real estate app.

• Finding opportunities to place first time home owners in a market they thought they could never afford through programs by Kulshan Community Land Trust, Habitat for Humanity, and pocket listings (homeowners who are open to sell, but aren't interested in the traditional process of clearing/staging/listing).

• Meeting leaders of non-profits and neighborhood associations around town to better understand how contributions on real estate commissions might be put to use to impact our community.

• Educating myself on the history of Whatcom; our tribal neighbors in the Lummi, Nooksack, and Semiahmoo (now north of the border); the work they're currently doing; and what partnering together looks like now as we live in the shadow of resource extraction, ecological and life disruption. Their lands don't stop at the 49th parallel like ours do, and I'm just beginning to understand the land and water underneath these invisible lines and what it means for all of us.

 

Alright, thanks for listening... on that note, I'll say: