June showed up unannounced. Full humidity, no apology.

Good week though. A deal I've been sitting on just got interesting again. Columbia did something worth knowing about. Simpsonville is quietly becoming a place. And Scout got the job.

Let's go.

This is what the job actually looks like when it's not at a desk.

I spent part of last week bird dogging parcels for a handful of developers I work with. Before I ever send them a pin or make a call, I need to understand what I'm looking at — their buy box is specific, and my job is to do the legwork so theirs stops at the inbox.

That means getting in the Rover, driving out, and actually reading the land. Not CoStar. Not Google Maps. The ground.

I'm checking utilities — water, sewer, gas line proximity. Road conditions and access points. Whether the timber's been cut or the trees are mature. If there's full canopy or a field of saplings that tells you how long the land's been sitting. What the surrounding development looks like and what direction it's moving. And maybe most importantly — what's happening at 2:05 on a Wednesday afternoon. Foot traffic, truck traffic, who's out there, what the activity level says about the area.

All of it goes into notes. Notes go to the developer. That's the job.

The Rover fits every road and never complains. Same energy I'm going for.

Ended the week at Grove Farms. Two little ones in cowboy boots walking the barn aisle like they'd been doing it their whole lives — water bottles in hand, completely unbothered. No screens. Just horses, hay, and that specific quiet you only get inside a working barn.

The Upstate still has places like that. Worth protecting.

Greenville industrial. Under 45 days to close. Here's what's on the table.

I don't post deals publicly often. This one is different — it needs to move, and the right buyer is probably already reading this.

A residential developer fell out after environmental came back unfavorable for their use. The building is fine. The land is fine. It just needs to stay industrial — which, given where Greenville's industrial vacancy sits right now, is not exactly a problem.

Here's what you're getting:

— Warehouse & Industrial zoned. Two lots, 2.5+ acres total. — 38,400 SF building with mezzanine office. 12-ft ceilings, two drive-in doors. Needs work, not a gut. — Second adjacent lot included — clear it for parking or build another 10,000+ SF. — SC Abandoned Building Tax Credit: 25% of rehab costs back, up to $2.7M. That's real money. — Full due diligence package transfers with sale — Phase I, Phase II, ALTA, Topo. You're not starting from scratch.

Needs to close in 45 days. Asking $3.2M for both lots.

Address stays off the newsletter. If this fits your buy box, reply and I'll get you everything today.

Three things worth knowing from last week.

Airsys just opened a 60-acre global HQ. In Woodruff.

Not Greenville. Not Spartanburg. Woodruff. Airsys — they build cooling systems for data centers and AI infrastructure — dropped $60 million on a campus at 101 Cool World Drive (yes, that's the real address). 215 jobs. Manufacturing starts Q1 2027.

The story isn't just the investment. It's the zip code. Companies at this scale are no longer landing only in the obvious spots. The corridor is expanding. Pay attention to what's moving south and east of downtown.

Simpsonville just got a lot more interesting.

NEAT Bourbon Bar and Indigo Kitchen are both heading to 123 E. Curtis St. in downtown Simpsonville. Same building. Early 2027 opening for both.

NEAT needs no introduction if you've been in Greenville or Greer. Indigo Kitchen — Indian street food, great track record — has been doing well at Unity Park. These two don't pick markets randomly. When operators this good both say yes to the same small downtown, that's a signal worth filing away.

Simpsonville has been on the edge of its moment for a while. This might be it.

The one-liner: The Upstate's growth story is spreading. Stop sleeping on the towns between the interstates.

SC just quietly froze affordable housing tax exemptions. June 30 is the deadline.

Columbia passed S. 853 — a bill that freezes final approval of certain property tax exemptions that affordable housing developers depend on. Starting June 30, the SC Department of Revenue can't green-light new applications. They sit in limbo through 2027.

There's a carve-out, but it's narrow — only nonprofits that own the property outright qualify. Most affordable housing in SC runs through joint ventures, so most projects don't make the cut.

Bottom line: if you haven't filed and recorded before June 30, you're looking at a two-year delay on that part of your financing stack. If this affects a deal you're working, call your attorney today. Not next week. Today.

SC grew faster than every other state last year. The housing shortage isn't fixing itself. This doesn't help.

This week's award goes to a broker who managed to delay a contract signing for a week and a half via DocuSign — which, if you're keeping score, was invented specifically so this couldn't happen.

The culprit: a mistyped seller name and email address. One typo. Sat there for ten days. A fully executable contract, held hostage by a keystroke that nobody caught before hitting send.

The seller existed. The buyer was ready. The deal wanted to happen. The DocuSign did not.

Somewhere out there, spellcheck is feeling very unappreciated.

We are rooting for you. Please proofread.

If you read Issue 01, you know Scout is a person. The dogs are fine. Moving on.

Three weeks of panel interviews. The kind of process designed to make you prove it — not once, but repeatedly, in front of people who are actively deciding. She didn't flinch.

Last Friday afternoon she got the call. She landed the Director role at a publicly traded MedTech company. At the age of 25.

Scout spent five years in Greenville before New York. She knows this town — the restaurants that don't have a Tuesday wait, the way the mountains sit on the horizon, the particular pace of a place that's growing but hasn't lost itself yet.

She chose to come back. That's the part that matters.

The Upstate has a way of pulling people home. Our next chapter starts here.

In 1873, the Greenville and Columbia Railroad finished a spur line that quietly connected Greenville to the Southern rail network. Nobody threw a parade. Textile mills showed up anyway. Then BMW. Then everyone else.

Infrastructure doesn't announce itself. It just changes everything.

See you next week.

— Haley

The Upstate Brief publishes every week. theupstatebrief.com · By Haley Stephens · Upstate SC · Since 2026 Reply to this email anytime. Haley reads every one.