Newbie from Colorado Springs

[Jenn N.]

Hi my name is Jenn. My husband and I are currently living (house hacking)  in Colorado Springs after traveling the country for 4 years in an RV. I've been around real estate my whole life (my dad and grandpa are land developers in the Indianapolis area) but until recently never had much interest in it. My husband and I refinanced our old house in CA in 2005 to fix and flip a house down the street. Given the year you can guess how that went. ;-) We finally sold that second house last year for a loss but took what we had left after the sale and bought a duplex out here in the Springs. We love house hacking so far...tiny mortgage and our tenants have been great. Our first house in CA is in escrow after renting it out for the last 11 years and we are getting ready to do a partial 1031 exchange. My head is about to explode crunching numbers. Both my husband and I are more creative types running a web design and media company but we are doing our best to educate ourselves this round. Currently we are going back and forth on whether to reinvest in the Springs or Indy. I think the numbers look better in Indy but we would like to stay where we live. Anyway we are mostly new to this...or at least new to researching and learning about real estate instead of being impulsive...and I'm loving the Bigger Pocket site and just read one of the books on rental properties. Anyway hi from Colorado Springs.

[Jenn N.]

@Leslie Pappas Thank you for the advice. I'm afraid I'm not an accredited investor. In fact, I had to look up what that meant. My husband and I are really just a couple of free spirited gypsies who are trying to turn a bad investment we made a long time ago around. We sacrificed a lot financially while we waited for the CA market to (mostly) recover. Now we are trying to figure out what to do with our equity. I really want to buy around the world plane tickets for our family and spend a year living out of backpacks but a small voice tells me I should invest and wait until we build some passive income. :-) I'm spending every free moment educating myself because soon that 45 day clock will be clicking before we need to indentify a new property.