Newbie from Denver, Colorado

[Jeremy Ring]

Hey y'all. I'm JD, born and raised in Colorado. I have no experience in real estate, but after reading rich dad, poor dad and a few other real estate investing books,I want to get started. Not sure if it's for me, but I at least want to start by hacking a multifamily unit to get my mortgage paid for and stop renting. 

after browsing the site for a bit, I've come to the conclusion that I should search out a lender first, so any suggestions on that front would be appreciated. And any anecdotes or suggestions on the Denver markets would also be appreciated.

Im a bit overwhelmed with the number of lenders, so any recommendations would be welcomed. I don't want to post the list and risk violating the site TOS.

[James Carlson]

@Jeremy Ring

Welcome to BP and to investing. There are so many ideas on here that it can be overwhelming. I always tell our first-time buyer clients to keep it simple. Buy a single-family house (a small one if you don't want to house-hack by the room, or a slightly bigger one if you do want to house-hack and rent out the rooms.) Either way, unless you have experience with big rehab projects, I'd suggest making it a pretty much ready-to-go property. What I like about this is that:

• Everybody has to live somewhere, so make your first "investment" your own primary residence.
• If you're house-hacking, it's a pretty easy way to get experience being a landlord.
• The somewhat turnkey property will ensure you have an easy first step into investing and that you have success. That success will breed excitement, which will push you to expand a bit and do more investments.

I know you can still get a pretty big house in some of the northern Denver suburbs and rent by the room and cover your mortgage. I don't mean to discourage you from the multi-family, but everybody and their brother wants to do that in Denver, and the prices reflect that. The single-family home house-hack is an easier way to achieve this, get some landlording experience and ensure you have a positive first experience in real estate.

Also, you're taking the right first step by talking to a lender. They'll be able to give you a sense pretty quickly of what you qualify for. I'll PM you with some lenders we like working with. Good luck!