EP20: Charles Moore – Why Denver Real Estate Prices Are Rising Plus How to Live for Free
Channel: Liberty Entrepreneurs Podcast
Date: 2016-03-03

Charles Moore

charlesm@realtor.com

Charles (aka Chuck) is a Realtor at Your Castle Real Estate in Denver, Colorado. He is also a Founding Partner at Gearhart Moore Holdings, LLC, and Broker / Owner at Capital Works Mortgage.
In today’s conversation, we talk about getting into the mortgage business, and the somewhat shady strategies that Wells Fargo would use to get people to refinance, getting renters to pay for your house and office, developing real estate, why Denver real estate prices have shot up recently, and Chuck’s forecast for Denver’s real estate future.

Entrepreneurial beginnings:

As a child, he grabbed vegetables from his parents garden and sold them to neighbors, before getting in trouble

Then had a paper route, but paid a friend to do the route for him

Charles first business: Oxygen bar machine $1 a minute to breathe air, changed to $5 for all you can breathe

Fascinating Well’s Fargo subprime marketing strategy: Carpet bomb checks for $1000. If consumer cashes it, they pay 20%. What client doesn’t realize is when chased them, WF would run a credit report. If you own a home, WF mortgage sales would call them, and refinance to save $1000 a month. Move them from a 30 year fixed that they had paid a few years down on, to a 40 year with a 3 year arm with 4% origination fees (basically stripping equity).

Charles got out of this job ASAP, and began the path to working for himself.

Got into development after experiences with buying his first house in Colorado.

First House: Bought for $103k in 2007, payment of $900 a month, roommate paid $500 a month, lived for $400 a month.

Current house: found a lot where he could build two houses on lot, rent out second house, renter pays mortgage minus $300 a month.

Working on a deal where he will be making $500 a month plus living in a nice house.

In finding property that he wants to buy, Charles currently gets an MLS alert for every single property in Denver with the zoning code MX: Mixed Use

Charles and his parter Ben are principals (personally signing on debt) on over 80 units.

Land is getting very expensive in Denver: used to be able to get a duplex lot in northwest Denver for $275k – $300k 18 to 24 months ago, now they are selling for $450k. As the price of the land goes up, what goes onto the land needs to go up.

“People are worried about a glut of inventory coming on the market and driving prices down. I don’t see where that inventory is going to come from.”

What is driving prices up? Does the legalization of marijuana factor in?

What could drive prices down? Demand of existing inventory slowing down. Used to be 50k a month, recent stats show that around 1 million people moved to Denver last year, so the monthly is 80k or 90k / month. If that slows down, you will have a smaller pool of buyers.

Working on the chairlift: How Charles answers emails on the lift while skiing, and his clients don’t even realize that he wasn’t in the office.

Book Chuck gifted most: Rich Dad, Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki – http://www.amazon.com/Rich-Dad-Poor-Teach-Middle/dp/1612680011

Freakonomics, Malcolm Gladwell

Contact Info:

Anyone with any real estate needs in Colorado:

Charles’ cell phone: 303-305-9400

charlesm@realtor.com

Referrals: Colorado: anyone needing a mortgage, anyone needing to buy or sell their house, anyone looking into getting into the development game.