All Forum Posts by: Wesley Jeanette

Curb appeal is huge. Why start out at a disadvantage by having the front unfinished?

As Charlie said the majority of retail buyers just want to move in. They also budget that way. I would think people have an easier time paying a few grand more for a house (getting a larger mortgage) than having to scrape together cash after they close to sod a yard.

You are also asking to track in more dirt without having grass in the front.

Thanks for having this conversation going. I think the UX for my alert inbox is awful now. I don't think I have very many alerts set, but I have 23 pages I can go through which is overwhelming. To be fair I am not great at UX design but if your intention is to have 30 days of past alerts available why not do something similar to an archive in gmail? The read results are searchable but they don't clutter your current inbox. 

I liked marking a topic as read and it being cleared from view. This is especially true when I have 4 or 5 alerts from the same forum topic.

I know you are working on this so thank you.

@Brian Cornick You are correct in your understanding, you can hang your license for two years then go off on your own. 

In Colorado we don't have a sale associate license, it is just a brokers license. I Just got mine a few months ago to do the same thing as you, on the license search page I am listed as 'Associate Level Real Estate Broker'. I have my license hung at a REMAX and am technically active as a licensed assistant to a family friend. I am a licensed assistant because the monthly fees are significantly less for me than if I was just a regular agent at REMAX.

When I look up his license it is listed as 'Independent Level Real Estate Broker - Associate'.  I also did a quick search on my fathers license, he has his managing license and in the past has been a managing broker, his is license is listed as 'Employing Level Real Estate Broker - Associate'  .

I think a big benefit a lot of agents mention is the ability to see properties on your own. If something interesting comes up you don't need to ask your agent to drop everything and meet you, you can just schedule your own showing.

There are a lot of different aspects you can bring to a partnership other than money. 15k might be the perfect amount of cash if you were able to contribute by being boots on the ground, meeting with contractors, property managers...

As for going at it on your own, I don't know the price of things there but you probably could do some house hacking with that much cash. When I bought my first two properties I put 5% down which turned out to be around 25k and lived there for a year as my primary. I wish I had know more about house hacking back then, I would have rented out the other rooms either to long term roommates or AirBnB.

If you are serious about starting now there are a ton of things you can do.

I also used Colorado Real Estate School at the start of the year and passed on my first attempt. Loved being able to do everything online at my own pace. My brother took his class in person (in Tucson) and said that wasn't great due to the instructor going slower. It took him a month longer before he could take the exam and by that time he had forgotten some of the early material. With 168 hours, there is a ton of material to learn and remember so the faster you can get through it the better. I took a 3 week vacation in the middle and when I got back that early stuff I had learned was hard to remember.

I would just say make sure you actually watch the lectures and do all of the reading. Being online it's easy to get distracted and have a video run through. Also try and do all of the exams with as little internet help as possible, even if it takes you a few tries to pass. 

Also if you use CRE School, there are 3 different packages to choose from. The differences really are in how much support you can get from them, none/email/phone. I didn't use them at all but I paid for the middle package where I could email them questions. I think there is a lot of great resources out there and the class itself covers everything you need to know so if I did it again I would do the cheaper package.

L&D Construction in Denver has been establishing themselves as great ADU folks. They have been having monthly meetups to answer questions and share knowledge. David Schultz, the owner, actually just finished building one in his backyard. I would highly recommend them.

Additionally, I believe elevations has a 20 year product which consists of the first 10 years being interest only (draw period) followed by a 10 year repayment period. I started looking into 1stBank but decided the 20 year term was what I wanted.

On top of the amount of money they will give, the product they will offer, I would add the time and effort it takes you to close on the product. I was originally quoted a 2 week turnaround if I used their "value estimate" and a 4-6 week if I had an appraisal done.

I have had some issues on the HELOC I am in the process of getting with Elevations. I wanted to have an appraisal done so I could lock a larger chunk of my equity at a lower fixed rate. I have gone back and forth several times saying I wanted this and when could the appraiser come through the home. Finally, after 3 weeks of emails, I decided to just take their "value estimate" (which is fine if I hadn't done any improvements). I am also fairly maxed in my DTI so maybe that has been the real slowdown and push back on the appraisal. Anyways, after agreeing to their "value estimate" they are saying it will be closed in a week.

Even with this difficulty, I would still go with them again.

Dang, I wish I had seen this event yesterday

I also highly recommend elevations and have everything through them.

I have several friends at First Bank and always reach out to them when I am looking to do something new though. They are good, and super convenient as they have locations everywhere. 

I guess I just stick to elevations cause it's where everything already is. The Boulder locations are just a slight inconvenience.