The Real Story Behind the Lookout Living Team

The Real Story Behind the Lookout Living Team

Nobody really grows up saying they want to be a real estate agent. At least, we didn't.

Between the two of us, we have an architecture degree, a nursing career, a Hurricane Katrina story, and about fifteen years of figuring it out before we landed exactly where we were supposed to be. This is that story, the real version, not a polished bio.

Steve's Side: From New Orleans to Chattanooga, the Long Way Around

I grew up just outside of New Orleans, Catholic school from second grade through high school graduation. I was a decent student who thought he wanted to study business. I enrolled at the University of New Orleans, got through a couple of semesters, and then Hurricane Katrina hit.

We were displaced from home for several months and I was out of school for almost a year.

When I went back, business wasn't working for me anymore. I switched my major to art. Then quickly realized I couldn't do much with an art degree so I moved two hours west to Lafayette, Louisiana and switched majors again, this time to architecture. In the meantime, my parents had decided they were done with New Orleans. We had visited Chattanooga several times over the years and always loved it, so they packed up and moved while I stayed and finished school in Louisiana.

Halfway through my architecture degree I realized I didn't actually want to be an architect either. But I'd already switched majors twice and I wasn't switching again, so I put my head down and finished. I graduated with a degree in a field I wasn't planning to enter, in a city where I no longer had family, with no real plan.

In the summer of 2011, I moved to Chattanooga.

I didn't have another plan, so I figured I'd keep following the path I was already on. I applied to architecture grad school in Charlotte, North Carolina, but didn't get in. So without much of a plan, I became a nighttime security guard. It sounds bleak in retrospect, but honestly it gave me time to think and to read. I'd gotten interested in real estate while I was in school. House flipping, development, rentals. I never actually did any of it, but I was fascinated by it.

One night my parents had a realtor over for dinner, the same one who had sold them their home in Chattanooga four years earlier. He'd stayed in touch with them all that time, and they'd stayed in touch with him. He was about my age, so we hung out a couple of times, and somewhere in our conversations, I told him about my interest in investment properties, flipping, development, all of it. He suggested I get my real estate license. My first reaction was no! I'm an introvert. The idea of cold calling strangers and knocking on doors sounded like a personal nightmare. But he made a compelling case, and I figured what did I have to lose? I studied during my night shifts, took my classes, and got my license in 2012. That night, at dinner, also showed me something I've never forgotten: take care of your clients, stay in touch, treat people well, and the relationships you build in real estate will outlast any single transaction.

I had no idea it would change everything.

Alex's Side: Chattanooga Roots and a Career She Loved Until She Didn't

Alex basically grew up in Chattanooga. Her mom and my mom were teachers at the same school and had known each other for years. We like to think they had something to do with how everything turned out.  Our families knew each other before Alex and I ever did. When I first moved to Chattanooga, still new to the city and figuring things out, Alex and her sister showed me around. We hung out together while our parents hung out as well. We were just friends at first.

We started dating later in 2012, a few months after I got my real estate license.

Alex went to school outside of Nashville for two years, came back to Chattanooga, and decided she wanted to be a nurse. She went to nursing school here in Chattanooga, worked hard, and built a career she was genuinely good at. She worked as a floor nurse with dialysis patients for years. We got engaged in 2014, married in 2015, bought our first house in 2016, our second in 2017, and had our first son in 2018.

Real estate was my thing. Nursing was hers. That's how it was supposed to go.

The Years That Changed Everything

2020 and 2021 were the hardest stretch of our lives, and we're not going to sugarcoat it.

Alex's mom had been fighting cancer for almost six years. Alex had already lost her dad in 2010, so her mom was everything. Her mom passed away in December of 2020. Alex had just transitioned to a mother-baby floor at a new hospital in October of that year, trying to find something with a little more joy in it after years of watching patients struggle then coming home to watch her mom struggle as well. Her mom didn't make it to see the new year.

Our second son was born in 2021, on Alex's mom's birthday. That wasn't a coincidence. We planned it that way. It was our way of keeping her close.

At the same time, I was in the middle of my own professional crisis. After spending 2.5 years working as a buyer's agent on a large team, things were about to end badly. I left at the halfway point of 2021 with no plan, no income, and no desire to stay in real estate at all. Alex was on maternity leave. We were grieving. COVID was still reshaping everything. We were broke and I was done.

I started looking at other careers. I was genuinely planning to walk away from real estate entirely.

But I had a few clients I still needed to finish up with, so I kept working while I figured out my next move. One of those transactions took me to a showing at a listing held by an old realtor friend. I told her what was going on; the whole story. She had just opened her own office and she made me a simple offer: come work with her and give it six months before quitting.

I reluctantly agreed. That year turned out to be the best year I'd had in real estate up to that point. So much so that in August of 2021, just 2-3 months after I was supposedly planning to leave the industry, we bought our first rental property.

How the Team Happened

As my business grew from that point, I needed help. Alex was back working part-time as a nurse and picking up tasks to help me here and there. Mostly client communication and things that were slipping through the cracks as I got busier. She was better with people than I ever was. I was better with paperwork and the process. It became obvious, almost immediately, that we worked very well together.

Alex got her real estate license in September 2021, planning to help me more part-time while she kept nursing part-time. Then Christmas came. She had to work and missed our son's first Christmas. That was it.  By the end of the year she had fully left nursing and thats when we formed the Lookout Living Team.

What started as me needing an extra set of hands turned into a genuine partnership, and honestly, Alex made the business better in ways I hadn't anticipated. She brought a warmth and a way with clients that changed how people experienced working with us.

I got my broker's license. We stayed at our friend's office through the end of 2023.  And then we made the move to Epique Realty, where we've been for almost three years now and where we're still continuing to grow.

We now have three kids. Our third arrived in early 2026. We're also, as of right now, preparing our own home to sell because we've outgrown it, in the best possible way.

Why We're Telling You All of This

We tell clients all the time that real estate is personal. The house you're buying or selling isn't a transaction, it's a chapter of your life. We believe that because we've lived it. We bought our first home together. We lost someone we loved. We almost quit. We built something anyway.

The Lookout Living Team exists because life pushed us in a direction we didn't plan for, and we decided to make the most of it. We work in Chattanooga because this is home. I got here by a long and winding road, and Alex never really wanted to be anywhere else. We love this city, we know it well, and we work hard for the people who trust us with one of the biggest decisions of their lives.

If you're thinking about buying or selling in Chattanooga, we'd love to have a conversation and hear your story.