
Travis Old
Real Estate Broker · Builder · Educator
Horizon Realty Group
About Travis
Builder's Precision. Broker's Judgment.
I grew up in Moyock, twenty minutes east of Elizabeth City, and I've spent most of my adult life either building something in Northeast NC or helping somebody else find their way into it. These days that means writing offers and walking houses across Pasquotank, Camden, Chowan, Currituck, and Perquimans, and writing this brief in the evenings.
The Buyer's Brief is the document I wished existed when I first started sending out-of-town clients long emails about what each part of town is actually like to live in: where the wind comes from, which streets flood, what the drive to the Coast Guard base feels like on a Monday. It's long-form on purpose. It's honest on purpose.
I work mostly with first-time buyers, Coast Guard families on PCS orders, and people moving down from Hampton Roads or further north looking for a working downtown on the water. I don't list every house in town. I can sell any of them, though. And the listing agent will have zero fiduciary responsibility to you. Remember that before you tell me, "Oh, I thought you were the listing agent." If you want zero representation, call them first. Their name is on each listing on this site.
Prefer to just talk? My number's at the top of every page, and a call or text beats waiting on an email reply. If you'd rather start with email, it runs through my client intake system, an AI-assisted setup that gets a teammate looped in fast, before we ever talk directly. Either path is fine. The chapters on this site cost nothing to read, and if you end up working with a different agent, they'll probably point you back here anyway.
29
Closed Sales
$8.5M+
Sales Volume
20+
Years in Real Estate
19
Counties Served
Credentials & Affiliations
Licenses, Designations & Service
NC Real Estate Broker License #334264
Licensed NC Real Estate Broker and Realtor since 2021 (5 years). North Carolina Real Estate Commission.
VerifyMemberships & Designations
- NAR (National Association of REALTORS®)Member in good standing
- AHWD (At Home With Diversity)NAR Certification
- RPR REALTOR® Certified TrainerView Profile
- Board of DirectorsAlbemarle Area Association of REALTORS®
- 2026 William C. Bass Leadership AcademyNC REALTORS® Statewide Leadership Program
- Founder, Old Carolina AcademyNC-Licensed Real Estate Education Provider
Service Area
Counties Served
Specialties
Property Types & Client Focus
Client Reviews
What Clients Say
We were introduced to Travis through a friend and we're thankful that we got to work with him on our search and ultimate finding of our new home. Travis is a wealth of knowledge about the area and shared lots of information with us during our search that helped us in finding the right house for our family. He made appointments for the houses we wanted to see and showed us several he had found so we could compare different areas and styles. He was very patient with us and all of our questions. He shared his knowledge and suggestions in every house that we viewed. He is very responsive with his communication and willing to take the time to talk through our questions and concerns during the day, at night or on the weekends. Once we chose our house he worked closely with the selling agent and the mortgage company to keep the process moving along smoothly. We truly enjoyed our time with Travis looking at all the different houses and purchasing our home in our new hometown. He's the best and we would confidently recommend him to anyone that is looking for a house.
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"They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not labor in vain, for they shall be a people blessed by the Lord."
What to expect
How this works for you.
No gated content
Every chapter of every brief is free to read, in full, with no email wall. The email signup is for new listings — never a condition of reading anything on this site.
Buyer representation, plainly explained
NC agency law is more nuanced than most homepages let on — dual and designated agency both change what a broker actually owes you. Read how it actually works before you assume.
Contractor-grounded
Travis is a licensed NC General Contractor as well as a broker: 20 years working Northeast NC soils, flood zones, and historic foundations informs how these briefs are written, not just how houses get sold.
The rhythm of the year
What the calendar feels like.
A working downtown on the water has a real annual rhythm. These are the moments people who live here actually plan around.
North Carolina Potato Festival
Northeast NC's largest festival. Three days of downtown street fair, midway rides, live music, a car & bike show, and the National Potato Peeling Competition. Free french fries. If you are evaluating whether you would like living in Elizabeth City, this is the weekend to test-drive the city — the entire downtown shows up. Plan parking accordingly; rental demand inside the city spikes for this weekend.
TarWheel Cycling Event
The signature regional cycling event. Starts on the downtown waterfront and runs 33, 64, or 100-mile loops through the flat farmland of Pasquotank and Perquimans counties. Draws riders from across the Mid-Atlantic, and is the easiest single signal of how the city treats its waterfront as a staging ground for the wider region.
Tater Trot 5K & 1-Mile Walk
The community road race that pairs with the Potato Festival. Family-friendly, downtown course along the river. The kind of thing that runners moving into the area will find on race-registration sites within their first month.
Summer Sounds / Music on the Green
Free outdoor concert series at Mariners' Wharf. Bring a chair. The single most reliable proof point that Elizabeth City's waterfront programming is genuinely public — no ticketing, no fenced VIP area, no admission. Weekly cadence varies by year; verify on the Elizabeth City Downtown Inc. calendar.
First Friday ArtWalk
Downtown gallery hop and shop walk. Tracks the city's downtown commercial vacancy honestly — when the ArtWalk is busy, downtown is healthy. Verify the current month's lineup on the Elizabeth City Downtown Inc. calendar before showing up.
Holiday on the Harbor
Downtown light-up and the harbor-side holiday programming the city runs through the holiday season. The closest thing to a small-town Hallmark-channel December that actually exists in Northeast NC, and a useful weekend to visit if a winter showing trip is on the calendar.
Sourced from Visit Elizabeth City and Elizabeth City Downtown Inc.
