New Member from Castle Rock, Colorado

[Jim Shirley]

Hi there, 

My name is Jim Shirley and I live in Castle Rock, Colorado. I grew up in Colorado Springs. I lived in Denver (Washington Park / DU areas) for 10+ years and also lived in both Crested Butte and Gunnison.

Background: I work in the mutual fund / financial industry and that is my day job. 

I worked as a mortgage lender in the Crested Butte / Gunnison area 2003 - 2005 so I got to know a little about resort area lending (and lending in general). 

I've owned 2 properties that were rentals while I was not living in them. I was naive and didn't know what I was doing though in terms of analyzing the numbers. I was making money over the mortgages because I bought the properties cheap. But if I had figured in vacancy rates and the various other expenses I'm sure they were losing me money.  Anyway, both properties were sold about 10 years ago.

I learned a great deal from renting to friends, renting to good tenants, and renting to bad tenants (and dealing with neighbors and HOA's). For example, if you have a rental property in a place where temperatures routinely go below freezing in the winter, does your lease include a requirement that the tenant needs to keep the furnace / heat on and at a minimum temperature? We had tenants turn the heat OFF in the condo before leaving town for Christmas (and they didn't even have to pay utilities!). I got a nice call on Christmas morning to let me know we had pipes burst and our condo was flooded. And the HOA ended up fighting with us over whether they should vote to approve covering the damage through the HOA insurance policy. I'm not sure that having the note in the lease about keeping the heat on in the Winter really stands up in court - but it did at least help us remember to go over it with new tenants.

Goals: I look forward to getting back into real estate investment in 2016. My goal is to find a buy and hold property to rent out. I want to master the fundamentals of valuing SFR and small multi-family properties. I will be trying to seek out a prospective mentor and I hope this year to find ways to help that person and develop a good relationship with them. And last but not least, build a team of professionals to help me.

I kind of wonder about trying to get my real estate license - but I'm not sure if that would be a distraction or if it would be a help. 

Thanks for reading! I look forward to meeting you.

Jim