Lowcountry Connect is a collection of individuals and businesses in the Lowcountry of South Carolina who support the very core of integrity of Charter One Realty and The John Weber Team. Their efforts to help their clients transition to South Carolina with regard to Banking & Mortgages, Insurance, Building & Home Repair, Home Inspections and enjoying life in the Lowcountry is a perfect fit with our Best-in-Class approach.
This combining of resources is a value creation for our client’s long-term benefit.
David Crowell, Movement Mortgage
For more than 25 years, David Crowell has been hands-down the most trusted loan officer in the Lowcountry. First with Mortgage Network, which he founded and built into a pillar of the community, and now with Movement Mortgage, he has helped countless locals find their home. Along the way, he’s secured more than $1 billion in mortgages.
“It’s all built on an intimate relationship formed around a critical matter,” he said. “It’s a little bit like asking, ‘Who did your heart transplant?’ ‘Who officiated your wedding?’ I’m the person who got you your home.”
Being there for clients is how he built a reputation that has raised the bar for mortgage lending in the Lowcountry. Now with the resources of Movement Mortgage behind him, he has more leverage to secure the best rates for his clients.
“Movement Mortgage is ten times bigger, highly successful and operates in all 50 states,” he said. “But everything here is precisely the same as it was, down to the magic markers. We retained 100 percent of our employees, the only difference is they have a more powerful banking operation behind them.”
And they’re putting those resources to work doing what Crowell has done best for more than 25 years: helping people just like you get into the home of their dreams.
Charles Davis, Edge Home Finance
One of the greatest attractions for those relocating to the Lowcountry is our wealth of communities geared specifically towards those 55 and better. Whether it’s the amenity-rich lifestyle of Sun City or the laid-back island vibe of Margaritaville, the golden years sparkle just a little bit brighter under the Lowcountry sun.
Few know that better than Charles Davis, who turned his Lowcountry vacation permanent with a move to Margaritaville in June of 2023.
“We did a stay and play some friends, and my wife and I had been looking for a move from Denver,” he said. “I just fell in love with it. Everyone has been so nice, and it’s a great place to do business.”
As someone who has just been through the process of moving cross-country to one of the Lowcountry’s premier 55+ communities, he has seen that journey first-hand. As a loan officer with Edge Home Finance, he has the resources of a national firm he can put to use helping others on that journey.
“Edge is a nationwide broker, with 150 lenders on the back end, so I can shop the best rates for everyone. I work with everybody, but right now the majority of my business is people who moved here for the same reason I did,” he said. And he treats them to what he calls “white glove concierge lending. “Really my approach to business has less to do with mortgage needs and more the big picture of where they are in their life. What fits best today may not work in 2 years, so I spend a lot of time talking with customers about where they are and where they’re going.”
Marc Ricciardi, Belmont Insurance Services
One of the biggest challenges new residents of the Lowcountry face is finding insurance. The Lowcountry’s sublime beauty can sometimes be tempered with unpredictable weather, and as a result many carriers are hesitant to write policies for area.
As a longtime insurance professional, having spent the majority of his career a large national agency, Marc Ricciardi came to the Lowcountry hoping to help bridge that gap. When he purchased Belmont Insurance Services a year ago, he saw an opportunity to open new insurance possibilities for his Lowcountry neighbors.
“The business is changing, and we wanted to be on the front edge of that,” he said. “Our goal is to change the way that services is provided through an independent agency channel.”
Fulfilling that goal is possible through Belmont’s extensive reach, being licensed in nearly every state of the union. “We’re able to leverage non catastrophe coverage in other states for a lot of clients who move here, which allows us to get better overall coverage,” he said. “It also open up more carriers and more access to the marketplace. I doubt many locally owned agencies are licensed in that many states, but we’re all over the country.”
And that wide reach means outstanding coverage at a price you won’t find anywhere else.
Scott Frieden, Hindsight Home Inspections
While Scott Frieden can claim to have flipped a few houses as a kid, his road to home inspection was not a straight one. In fact, at one point it was more of a runway.
“I went into the military at an adult age, and the Air Force really provided me with something that I really needed, which was a direction, but integrity and morals,” he said. “That really transformed the entire dynamic of my life.”
It also informed the dynamic of his business, Hindsight Home Inspections. When Frieden enters a home, he commits himself to complete honesty with all parties involved. “I do my inspections the right way,” he said. “I’m working under a certain set of standards, and I try to go above and beyond in explaining to clients what won’t necessarily make it into the report.”
That includes giving homeowners more context on his findings. If a hot water heater passes inspection, but may be showing signs that it could soon fail, he makes sure that he communicates that.
“When I go in to do a home inspection, I’m going to explain everything about the house, so it doesn’t bite you on the butt later on,” he said.
That honesty, instilled in him by the United States Air Force, is the cornerstone on which Frieden built Hindsight Home Inspections. Ten years in, that honesty has made him one the Lowcountry’s most trusted home inspectors.
Chuck Wiseman, Wiseman Law Firm
While he may originally hail from Fremont, Nebraska, Chuck Wiseman has cultivated the kind of lengthy reputation in the Lowcountry that makes someone an honorary island native. Since first visiting in 1979, he has been a part of the island’s fabric since landing his first summer job as a dockhand with Island Water Sports in Sea Pines’ South Beach Marina.
“My roots run pretty deep on this island,” he said. “Starting as a kid learning to sail, to working as a professional musician on the island for 20 years, to raising a family here, living here has shaped me in so many ways.”
That community focus, forged over 25 years as a full-time local, informs the personal connections that set his law firm apart. Founded in 2018 with a focus on real estate law, estate planning and business law, Wiseman Law Firm continues a family tradition of quality representation Chuck learned from his father (who still practices law at 81 years old).
David Crowell: Movement Mortgage
