New(ish) member from Denver

[Kurt Chronister]

Hey all,

Originally from mid-Missouri, I went to college in St Louis and moved out to Denver shortly after graduation where I have been practicing pharmacy for 18 years.  I bought my first house in August of 2002 and met my wife in 2009 and decided we should sell our houses and buy into a larger home for our future family.  Problem was, our houses weren't appraising for what we needed to cover the existing mortgages so we decided to rent those out using a PM and see what happened.  A few years later I had a real problem with the PM charging us for phantom maintenance items and decided to part ways and go about things on my own.

A few really bad tenants later on my wife's property (a toilet was clogged so they decided to light the toilet paper on fire and see if that would help the crud go down. Seriously, they were sort of proud that they thought of doing something like this.) and we decided to sell hers off. We owed $185k on the house and thought that we would have to bring 10-15 to closing to cover the difference, but our agent told us that the market was turning and to see what happened. We put the property up for sale in rough condition and it sold for $230k the first day on the market. I couldn't believe it, and thought there might be something to this REI thing.

On my old property, it was appraising nicely and I thought I was about the smartest guy in the world for holding onto it through the downturn.  Then in 2017 I had a knock on my door and it was the Secret Service.  No joke.  Turns out my awesome tenant that had been paying his cash 1 day early every month in $100 bills had setup a wire fraud and money laundering scheme out of my property and the authorities thought I was in on it.  They busted in the front door and knocked a few holes in the walls, but the place was in ok shape and I spent about $12k to fix it up and put it on the market.  Sold for $390k.

I have 2 rentals now and looking to acquire more in the Denver and St Louis areas.