To sell or not to sell in the Denver market

[Susan Grinde]

My mom has inherited a property in a wonderful Denver location. As many of BP members know, that market has been crazy. The home was left to her by her partner of 44 years because he wanted to make sure she was taken care of. She does not think her situation is conducive to keeping it as a rental since she is 86 years old and has many health issues. On top of that, she is living with me in Washington State because she can no longer live alone in Florida. I would love for her to keep it and use it for a rental as I believe she could cash flow about $1,000/month, but she wants nothing to do with it. So, I am not sure what to do to help her but to turn to the BP members for some insights. We are not familiar with the Denver market enough to know if she should sell "as-is". Many homes in the area just get scraped and $1+million homes are built in their places, thus "as-is" looks pretty good. Or put some money into it to update it to sell it. The ROI could be pretty good as it could go from a 2bd/1ba to 3+bd/2ba with some work. Maybe some of the BP community that work in the Denver market (realtors, contractors, flippers, etc.) have some thoughts that would help her with her decision.

[Chris Lopez]

@Susan Grinde what part of town is it in? If they owned the home for awhile, she is probably sitting on a lot of equity. Keeping it as a rental will probably cashflow, but may give you the overall best return.

You really have three options:

1) Keep it as a rental - turn it over to a property manager and be hands-off. If it's an older home with lots of deferred maintenance, there will be work and expenses. Also, this may not be the best use of equity if you're sitting on a lot.

2) Sell it, leverage up and buy new rentals. Based on your comments, this doesn't sound ideal, but it can provide more cash flow and perhaps feed into her plans for leaving a legacy.

3) Sell it and pull the money off the table.

Send me a message with the address and I can take a look. I help a lot of investors and clients with these scenarios.