Kranz Co. Life in Bloom

Our Journey into Real Estate Investing: How We Got Started

We consider ourselves incredibly blessed to have the investment properties we do today. But looking back, it’s a little surprising how we ended up here. My former career was in real estate, and I worked with one of the top teams in Colorado. Through that experience, I became very comfortable with the market, homes, and the buying process — which, as it turns out, helped us a lot when we ventured into the world of property investing.

Honestly, our entry into real estate investing wasn’t some grand plan. It kind of just happened.

Our first home was an 800-square-foot bungalow in a not-so-great part of Denver. When I say “sketchy,” I mean the kind of neighborhood where you definitely don’t want to walk down the wrong block at night. But it was in an area that was changing, growing, and on the cusp of becoming “hip.” Would I recommend buying to the max of your budget to a client? Absolutely not! But at the time, we were broke, so we put down the smallest down payment possible (which was almost all we had saved) to get into that house. The washer/dryer my parents gifted us was a life-saver — without it, I would’ve been washing clothes in the bathtub.

Despite the challenges, we loved that little bungalow. It was the place where we made so many wonderful memories, but we eventually outgrew it. Like…I was blending my smoothies on the front porch so I wouldn’t wake Josh up, small. As we started thinking about having kids and needing a space for family visits, we knew it was time for something bigger.

That’s when we found our next home. It had been sitting on the market for a while, so we took a chance. We listed our bungalow on Zillow for rent, and to our surprise, we were bombarded with applications — which, if you’re familiar with Denver, is pretty typical. Since we had a signed lease, we were able to use it to help qualify for the next home.

Six years later, we’ve still been renting out that first property, and it’s been the easiest rental we could ask for. Honestly, it sparked our addiction to real estate investing. Over the past eight years, we’ve bought and/or sold six times. Along the way, we’ve had some huge wins, learned a ton of lessons, and, of course, faced a few headaches.

Each time we flip the home for new tenants we spend a night there eating pizza off the floor (which is what Josh and I did the night we closed) & take an updated family photo. It is one of my favorite nights.

I’m happy to share more about our journey, answer questions, or dive deeper into the lessons we’ve learned if that’s something that would be helpful to you.

With Love, Chloe