“I’ve always been interested in real estate and I’ve worked for home builders in the past but I’ve always wanted to do it on my own, to do fix and flip type projects. This is my first one which is obviously exciting. It took a long time to find the right house to make it happen. Even after finding the right house, it was hard to find the right contractor. It’s kind of my first test to see if this could actually be a career moving forward, to do these on a regular basis. That was my hope, to get this one done and use the equity to do another one or sell it. My hope is to quit my normal job and do this, just buy houses and have someone else build them and hopefully make enough to survive off of it. I like the Denver area, I think there’s a lot of opportunity but I’m open to other markets as well.
I grew up in northern VA. I worked for a home builder back there and was laid off in 2008 when the market crashed and came out here for vacation the next week, fell in love, and moved out shortly after. Part of the draw to Denver was the real estate market was much cheaper here than in northern Virginia. I thought there was a lot of opportunity here. I could live close to the city whereas that’s not possible in DC.
In 2012 my mom passed away and I went back to DC to take care of her estate. When I came back to Denver I didn’t have a job. I needed to do something to make money and I was trying to make my money work for me and that was part of the idea. I’ve always wanted to fix and flip houses. I tried to do it back in northern VA right as the market was crashing and it was a disaster.
This house, I can’t tell if it’s going to be my house or not. All those other houses were project houses and I didn’t think about it. This is still an investment to me no matter what but it’s a little bit different because I could possibly live here. I bought it originally to live in, at this point I have so much money into it I might just sell it.
I was talking to somebody the other day who was asking me if I was going to live in the house. I was like, no, I’ll love the house when it’s done but I’ll love the money a lot more than the house. I think that’s the challenge I’m having – what am I going to do with it? I’m not really worried about it right now, but I am questioning if I’m ever going to live here.
The house itself is way too big for me. I blew it out as big as possible because it’s an investment and that’s what I had to do in this neighborhood. I live in a 1 bedroom apartment right now and it’s plenty of space for me, to be honest. If I had a secondary bedroom it would be more than enough. It’s an investment more than a place for me to live.”
