New Member from Chicago, Looking to Move to Colorado

[Conor Funk]

Good Morning BiggerPockets community!  

I’m a newbie to the real estate investing community, but certainly an emerging and diligent student to the game. I graduated from Illinois State University last May with a degree in Construction Management which has been aiding me well as I’ve been working as a Superintendent with a residential builder for the past 10 months. Prior to graduating, I worked for 6 months for two summers with a similar company building homes. Despite just turning 23 years old a little over 3 weeks ago, I like to consider myself quite knowledgeable on technical aspect of home building being that I’ve built almost 30 houses already.

Moving forward, I always knew I wanted to do something within the parameters of real estate investing, but I was unaware of just how dense the options and avenues of investing were — which is awesome! Since May 2017, I’ve listened to about 3-4 podcasts/week and have read tons of books (far more reading than I ever actually did at college) pertaining to not only real estate investing, but also negotiating, overcoming mental obstacles, business strategies, etc. I currently work 55-65 hours a week out in the field, but always find myself making time for more RE education whenever I get the chance.

As many of you veterans know, there comes a time where you need to make that leap of faith outside of your comfort zone and just DO IT. So, that is exactly why I decided to post today after being active at a distance so to speak for the past 10 months.

I took a vacation out to Colorado earlier in March with a few friends which I also found the time to meet for two interviews with some GC’s in the Denver/Boulder area. This trip was the final push I needed to decide I definitely wanted to get out of my comfort zone in Illinois and move out there (there was plenty of calculation prior to this decision for those who may feel this is an “on the whim” decision).

Though I'm aware the market in the Greater Denver Area is extremely saturated with investors and prices are sky high, I'm hoping I can find a duplex that I can househack or potentially a SFH live-in flip situation if the numbers work. That being said, my goal is to start with the live-in investment and eventually scale to out-of-state investing just purely out of feasibility — something I'm sure many of you can relate to.

If anyone has an agent in the Greater Denver Area they could recommend from personal experience, I’d appreciate a connection, especially for a newbie investor; otherwise, I’ll build my network based upon all the tools I’ve acquired over the past year and as I make my way out there while simply renting for a short time. I hope everyone has a productive week and stays motivated while keeping in mind to live in the present!

- Conor