The Colorado Springs Academy House was our first home purchase ever.

We originally purchased this home as a primary residence, but eventually needed to relocate for work. We decided to hang onto the home as a rental property. This was our first home purchase ever. It turned out to be an excellent investment even though we were completely new first-time home buyers. This home was purchased with a 0% down VA loan and we actually lived in it for a couple years.

We really loved this home, the location, and views of the mountain range and the Air Force Academy. The home had everything we could ever want and should have been our forever home. Unfortunately, after living in Colorado Springs for a couple of years, we realized that we were growing out of our careers. We needed to find a location that offered more opportunities for us. We ended up finding some amazing opportunities in the Bay Area in California. This move served to launch our careers forward in a rocket-like fashion.

This was a really hard decision to leave Colorado again. Our thoughts were that if we could rent the house out, maybe we could come back again after a few years. Unfortunately, we never did move back, but keeping the home as a rental became a great investment decision. While we were gone, the Colorado Springs market decided to appreciate like crazy, but of course we ran into some bumps along the way…

We hired a local property management company to manage things for us since we would be living across the United States. The both of us would also be working full-time jobs. Unfortunately, after we had signed an agreement with this company, we started to realize quickly that all their services were not exactly what they had promised. It took us three months of micro-managing the company to finally get solid tenants in place. We had to fight to get the rental home marketed properly and to even have potential tenants scheduled to view the home. Mean while, we were having to pay the mortgage each month while also paying a hefty Bay Area monthly rent amount.

We were finally able to work with the management company to secure some solid tenants. This process was super stressful. This was on top of having to move a family across the country and start new jobs in a new state. Despite that we did learn ALOT about what a good property manager should and should not do. We were fortunate that our tenants were able to stay for 2 years. They never missed a payment, but the whole time we were always a little concerned about exactly how well the home was being managed while we were away. There was little we could do other then track the management company down every few months asking for updates.

We had already started Wayfinder Homes LLC by this time. Our company was in the middle of finishing up our first official fix and flip property in Salisbury, NC when we received a call from our utility company in Colorado. They were checking to confirm that we would still like our utilities shut off next week. We were absolutely confused as to what this was about. It took about 10 calls and emails over the span of multiple days to finally track down our property manager to find out what was happening. We were informed that they FORGOT to let us last month that our tenants were terminating the lease early. (By this time they were leaving next week)

Our favorite property managers made up a billion excuses why they forgot to tell us this very important tid-bit of knowledge. They would “really love to help us find a new tenant”. The property manager would “absolutely love to represent us as a seller’s agent to sell the home” for a commission of course. Anything they could do to make up for it….I am sure there were some sort of legal ramifications we could have taken against them. Honestly we would rather invest or efforts in solving the current problem vs. spending months and lots of money in court. We decided to do a mad scramble to just sell the house instead of messing with a new tenant search or another property manager on such short notice. Our real estate investing activities were also ramping up in North Carolina. Having some capital on hand could accelerate our ventures considerably.

We were incredibly fortunate and lucky that the Colorado Springs market was so hot. This turned out to be the perfect time to sell. This rental home had significantly appreciated over the years and the market was starting to slow down for the season. We were able to use the proceeds from this transaction to purchase our Davidson Colonial Home. This home needed some work, plus we could re-use the VA Loan to finance this next purchase since we were planning to use it as a primary residence while we fixed it up. We were also able to use the funds to acquire our short-term rental the Tree House at the “Beech”.

The Rental Numbers Breakdown

In summary for the Colorado Springs Academy House, we were able to cash flow each month despite the awful property management experience. We were also gaining equity overtime, capitalize on the quick appreciation for the area, and avoid the capital gains tax since we lived in the home. We also put little to no money down to make it happen due to the VA financing, so this turned out to be a solid return on investment. Here is a break down of the numbers for you geeks (like me) out there:

Purchase price – $355,000 (negotiated down from original $375,000 list price)

No renovations needed

Monthly rent cash flow – $200 per month

Final sell price 3 years later – $425,000

Listing Photos