Newbie from Boulder, Colorado

[Neil DiMuccio]

Hello BP Community!

My name is Neil and I picked up Brandon's "The Book on Rental Property Investing" yesterday from the bookstore, which is how I learned about this community. I thought I'd drop by and say hello as I begin my RE journey. I'm currently interested in buy-and-hold rental investing and house hacking, but am open to any and all strategies and approaches. 

I have previously dabbled in stocks using IRA accounts (ultimately landing on being an index, buy-and-hold type investor), as well as peer-to-peer loans also in IRA accounts through Lendingclub.com (where I have beat my stock returns and used less risk to do so).

More fun and possibly random facts about me:

-Age: 34

-From: Colorado Springs (age 1-18), Fort Collins (age 19-25), Boulder (age 27-34). I like Northern Colorado / college towns quite a bit due to cultural activites, cycling, and laid back lifestyle.

-Profession: Lots of customer service, but I'm eager to see if RE suits me. I'm currently between positions and learning more about home maintenance and repair

-Religion: Unitarian Universalist 

-Spouse: unmarried, but have a very loving and supportive girlfriend of 4.5 years

-Pets: I have a very sweet cat named Maple

-Hobbies: I like hiking, biking, listening to music, playing games (board & video), and reading / learning

-Location: Boulder is a nice town but due to the supply of housing being (intentionally) broken, it is REALLY daunting for a non-wealthy person to think about starting a real estate journey here...    it is hard to find a small 1 bedroom apartment for under 200-250k, and most detached homes are 600k+ (unless you qualify for affordable housing, in which case you have to jump through a lot of hoops and seemingly get lucky to secure property in town). Not sure I'll stay in Boulder forever, though the appreciation of price (and rent) is pretty killer if you can get in here. 

-Goals: In addition to learning more about RE in general, I'm exploring the possibility of buying a property with one or more friends (outside of Boulder) to start up a little co-living community. There's a lot of moving pieces to such a thing, and lots of different ways it could end up not working. But still, the thought of creating such a space is inspiring

I'm aiming to be somewhat of a lurker / frequent user of the forums, so please don't hesitate to say hello, especially if you're in my area or are interested in anything I've said so far!

Cheers,

Neil