Hope I haven't shot myself in the foot by giving out the location but I'm thinking you all have bigger fish to fry anyway, lol! 

Is my experience normal?

Just buy your first rental as a house hack to get your foot in the door and get some operational experience owning/ operating Multi-family.

And I definitely don’t need to get off on the wrong foot with my first rental.

I wanted to introduce myself as I am incredibly anxious to step foot into the incredible world of REI and would love to know if there are any local investors that meet/would like to meet on a semi-regular basis.I currently have a full time job in outside sales in the Arvada area so I do a lot of driving around which enables me to spend a lot of my time listening to podcasts and educating myself but I would love to get to know some players within my local area to really dive deep into the subject and in which I could potentially be of value in the future.

Normally does not cost you more. 

Is property management normally part of this arrangement?  

ROI is normally much better on resales. 

I just need to get my foot on the bottom rung of the ladder. 

Architects and builders in the area are quoting 2000 per square foot, but I am seeing new construction builds in Martis camp selling for 4 million for 4000 square feet, just wondering why I am being quoted double what other builds are being sold for.