House Hack Everything: Craig Curelop’s Strategy for Building Wealth Through Real Estate

Craig Curelop (00:00)
No, I would just say, if you’re not getting started and you feel like you’re waiting for something, like rates to come down or prices to come down or whatever, just know that you’re in analysis paralysis and you’re just kind of being, you’re just being a wimp and trying to use, don’t just call you out, like you’re just being a wimp and you’re trying to use these outside factors that you can’t control as a reason for your indecision.

Scott Bursey (01:58)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast powered by Investor Fuel. I’m your host Scott Bursey. And today we’ve got a guest who isn’t just playing the game. He practically wrote the playbook on house hacking for financial freedom. Craig Curelop from HomeCrew. The FI team is in the house and the fuel he is bringing is pure high octane knowledge on turning your primary residence into your most powerful wealth building engine.

Craig, welcome to the show.

Craig Curelop (02:29)
Scott, thanks so much for the great introduction. Appreciate you, man.

Scott Bursey (02:33)
appreciate you and for those of our listeners that aren’t familiar with your journey, could you please tell us how did your career begin and what’s your main focus now?

Craig Curelop (02:43)
Yeah, so I began, I bought my first real estate property back in 2017 in Denver. And I, you know, at the time there was no investor agents that I knew about or that I could work with. And so, you know, I was kind of like doing all my own research and doing all the stuff and you know, my agent walked away with a pretty fat commission and not a whole lot of help, honestly. And so that was when I realized that there was a little bit of a need out there, but a need that honestly I didn’t really want to fill right away. Like at first I just wanted to be a real estate investor.

So I actually went ahead and I got my real estate license just to help myself buy my own deals. I figured, Hey, if I bought a deal a year, I would make an extra 10 or $15,000 a year. That’s a lot more money than what it costs to take the course. So let’s do it. So I did my second deal, which was just my deal. Uh, my second property that I bought. And then by the time I was on my third one, I started having friends reach out to me and be like, Hey, I want to do what you’re doing. Right. I want to, what I was doing with each house was I was living in it.

and I was renting out the rooms. And so I was living for free, building wealth in real estate and building a rental portfolio, kind of like step by step. And so when my friends saw what I was doing, they wanted me to guide them through them doing it. And so I started helping out friend after friend after friend, and then I was like, oh man, there’s like a real need here. And so then I went ahead and I scaled that real estate agent business, ended up doing like 100 deals in my first year and built a team.

And now we have, you know, Denver’s top investor friendly agent team. So that’s me in 30 seconds.

Scott Bursey (04:17)
Yes,

you built that into a powerhouse. Congratulations.

Craig Curelop (04:23)
Thanks, Scott. Yeah.

Scott Bursey (04:25)
If someone’s listening to this and they’re thinking, this is someone that I like to partner with or learn from, what do you want them to know about your business first?

Craig Curelop (04:35)
So the way that we partner with a lot of people, we partner with a lot of real estate agents. And basically what happens is we partner with them in building their business. And so if they’re willing to do the work, we are willing to provide all of the coaching, guiding resources, everything they need at pretty much no real cost to them. And we are able to partner with them to help them grow. And so what they need to know is that if you want to get into real estate, it’s hard.

and be ready. There’s a reason why a lot of people don’t get into real estate and because it’s hard, but it’s not as hard as some other things and it’s not very risky, I don’t think, like compared to other investments that generate similar returns. And so if you’re looking to get ahead financially, 90 % of the world’s millionaires own real estate. So you can either beat them or join them, you know? So that’s kind of, yeah.

Scott Bursey (06:10)
Great point. Yeah, that’s a…

That’s a huge distinction, absolutely. And Craig, no business is perfect. What’s one thing that you’re still trying to figure out or working around lately?

Craig Curelop (06:27)
⁓ so on the, on the realtor side of business, really we are, I feel like we’re in a really good groove in that, you know, we start off as pretty much only helping investors, but then with the investor pool shrinking a little bit as market conditions became less desirable, ⁓ we moved a little bit more into the residential space. And so now we’ve got a more balanced business of residential and investors. So, so that’s been really great. ⁓ really the constraints in our business is just

I mean, it’s really just attract is just partnering with more agents and then getting our current agents to that next level. And we’re doing a good job with it. It just takes, you know, it just takes some time and some effort.

Scott Bursey (07:08)
Are you focusing on Colorado right now?

Craig Curelop (07:11)
Colorado and like North Idaho, Washington is where we’re at right now.

Scott Bursey (07:15)
Okay, awesome. And what do you feel is one of your biggest opportunities? You know, this could be a market shift, a new offering, or something of that nature.

Craig Curelop (07:25)
So I think a big opportunity for us that we’re looking into is because we were investor focused for so long and we honestly got most of our deals straight off the MLS, there’s a pretty big off-market deal pool that we haven’t really tapped into, but we’ve got a lot of flippers that reach out to us that want these off-market deals. So we’re thinking about opening up a whole arm dedicated to generating, like finding some more distressed properties that our flippers can take down.

Scott Bursey (07:53)
some and could you tell us about that first deal how did that feel what were some of the highlights and maybe some of the pitfalls

Craig Curelop (08:01)
Yeah, so my first deal, ⁓ was a, so at the time I really wanted to house hack, that’s what it’s called, right? So you, know, we bought a property with three and a half percent down. I lived in one unit, rented out the other unit, and my goal was to really live for free. But at the time we were kind of phasing out of like duplexes and triplexes and quads, it was really hard to live for free, but that was like the only way people thought you could house hack. And so,

That was the way I did. I bought my first duplex. It was a top bottom. It was only like a mile and a half from work. So I would oftentimes walk or ride my bike to work. And ⁓ I lived in the bottom, rented out the top. And I ended up having to pay like three or $400 a month in order to pay the mortgage every month. But that wasn’t enough. I really wanted to live for free. So what I did was I Airbnb’d out my bedroom and I slept on the futon in the living room for a year.

made me an extra $1,100 a month renting out the room. So I was actually positive about $700 a month while living for free, albeit on the futon in my living room.

Scott Bursey (09:10)
What’s the long-term vision? you planning on expanding into different markets?

Craig Curelop (09:17)
So the long-term vision is always shifting. For me, I would say right now we want to, we really want to be a dominant player in Denver. I mean, I suppose we are, but I guess we are in the investor space, but we also want to be in the residential space. Like there’s more, there’s more stuff to do there. And then really kind of have things take off up here in North Idaho and Washington, Eastern Washington. ⁓ And then we might look to go into other markets, but we don’t want to split ourselves too thin.

Scott Bursey (09:48)
Absolutely completely understand and Craig if you can walk us through what is the most common operational weakness or friction point you see new house hackers struggle with?

Craig Curelop (10:36)
Honestly, it’s probably just treating, because you are living in the house, it’s really easy to treat it as a home and not as an investment and as a business. So I see people, yeah, just not treating it as a business. Like you want to sign leases with everybody. You want to make sure your books are being tracked. You want to open up a separate bank account and rental incomes to go into that and treat it like a business, you know, rather than just kind of treating it like a hobby.

Scott Bursey (11:01)
Absolutely. What non-financial threat, be it regulatory or market trend, is the biggest headwind house hackers need to plan for in your view?

Craig Curelop (11:12)
Ummmm ⁓

All of the threats that I foresee are financial. ⁓

Scott Bursey (11:27)
You can go down that road with the financial, that’s fine.

Craig Curelop (11:30)
Yeah, mean, prices are increasing. Rates aren’t coming down like everybody thought they would. So we’re kind of at the place of, you know, you’ve got to still make the leap, even though perhaps this isn’t financial. Like in all of probably every podcast you listen to and all that, you’ll hear that if it doesn’t cashflow, you shouldn’t buy it. And that is very wise advice. But when you’re house hacking.

And if your budget is like three or $400,000, at least in Colorado or even in Idaho or right now, like you’re not going to buy a house that cash flows. Like you just, you just can’t do it. Um, it’s a three, you’ll buy a three bed, one bath type house. You live in one room, you rent out the other two, and maybe you can offset your mortgage and you can probably live for less than you would, you know, if you were to live out in the wild renting. And so you’re just getting, and so that, that first property isn’t going to be a cornerstone.

of your portfolio like it might have been a few years ago, that’s just gonna be your biggest education. So you’re gonna learn a lot. You might get some equity that you can then sell and put into something else later, ⁓ but don’t look at that as something that you’re gonna probably hold onto forever.

Scott Bursey (12:48)
What a great breakdown, Craig. Thank you for that. That was wonderful. And when analyzing a city, what is the fastest metric you use to determine if a market is truly prime for house hacking potential?

Craig Curelop (12:51)
Yeah.

⁓ Any market is good. ⁓ There’s not a market in the US that you shouldn’t house hack. It’s harder in some markets, for example, like if you’re in San Francisco and New York, I mean, could certainly find renters, shoot, put up a table and throw a curtain over it and someone will live underneath that, like in those markets, right? But it’s harder to afford in those areas.

So, ⁓ if you can’t afford in your area, you may want to think about moving. But I do think house hacking is by far the most powerful way to build wealth.

Scott Bursey (13:40)
Please share a story or two with our listeners about your career and some the story that really stands out in your mind that you feel that our listeners would migrate to.

Craig Curelop (13:59)
All of the bad ones come to mind. ⁓ Well, okay, so, you know, again, like, house hacking is not, like, you’re gonna probably have a story if you’re house hacking, right? You’re living with your tenants and whatnot, especially if you’re living, yeah, I was living, you know, I had Airbnb guests, like revolving door, Airbnb guests coming in and out. And so, one Airbnb guest in particular, he actually stayed for a few months. It was like more of like a midterm rental. He stayed for two or three months over the winter.

Scott Bursey (14:11)
Yes. I would imagine.

Craig Curelop (14:30)
And he brought in his dog, which I said was okay, which I shouldn’t have done. And then one, it was Super Bowl Sunday, like that night of Super Bowl Sunday, he had people over for the Super Bowl. And like our place was like 600 square feet. Like there’s no, there’s no business of having people in this place. But he him, this girl, and then his, one of his friends. And I come home and like him and the girl are,

you know, you can imagine what they’re doing,

things that I probably shouldn’t say in the podcast. The friend is outside passed out in the kitchen because that’s pretty much all there was. And then the dog was just barking and barking and there was poop like in the like. So I came home to just like what? And then I tried to go to sleep. And of course, I smell the poop and I hear the noise and the kid, the guys out there, you know, in the kitchen. And I was just like, what the heck?

am I doing? And so that was kind of like the funniest night, I would say. I did talk to him after and make sure that didn’t happen again. And you’re going to have a weird story like that, but I would say out of 365 nights of doing that in that particular property, that was the only one where I remember it being really bad. So for what that property has done for me today, yeah.

Scott Bursey (16:31)
When it comes to house hacking,

yeah, there’s normally a really cool story or two that I’ve found with speaking with people. So we’ve talked about the long game. Let’s talk about the short game now. The next 18 to 24 months, what’s some strategy that you’re going to be employing, Craig?

Craig Curelop (16:51)
Yeah, so co-living is a strategy that we’re really into now. So this is kind of where co-living all started, right? was so, that was the first house I got that duplex, but then the second one I bought was a single family home that I lived in one bedroom and rented out the other rooms. And those numbers just like blew it out of the water. And so we’ve been really doing that pretty much ever since. And now we’re really looking to systematize it and build it out. So I’ve partnered with an operator. I mentioned, you know, I’m really good with the acquisition side.

he’s really good at the operation side. And so we’ve partnered in acquiring and operating these houses together. And so we’re looking to build something to where we can get to probably 500 rooms under management by the end of this year. And then at 18 months, we should have 1,000 to 1,500 rooms under management.

Scott Bursey (17:38)
Craig, when you’re underwriting a potential house hack, what is the single most overlooked leverage point or calculation that truly separates the average investor from the seasoned pro in your mind?

Craig Curelop (17:57)
I think when it comes to a house hack, the season of will realize that timing is more important than getting a really great deal. Because with a house hack, you have to live in it for a year, and that year starts when you close on the property. So if you wait six months to find a really good deal, and you close, let’s say, you start looking in April and you’re closing in October, well, now you just pushed out your second property six months too, and your third property. And so if you do that again for the second property,

that you buy, now you could have bought a property, a whole new property in the time you were just trying to find a really great deal. So timing is actually really important, like way more important than price. Like I’ll just pay asking, ⁓ you know, as long as the numbers still work and still make sense, like I’ll pay them what they want on a house hack just to make sure that I can kind of get in and get this process rolling.

Scott Bursey (18:51)
And Craig, this is the one that all of our listeners wanna know. If you were starting all over with, let’s say, 50K, where would you put it? Where would you have that go to work for you?

Craig Curelop (19:04)
It would for sure buy a house hack, a co-living house hack.

Scott Bursey (19:09)
whole living. Okay, awesome, awesome. And do you have any words of wisdom, any golden nuggets, any advice you’d to leave with our listeners here today?

Craig Curelop (19:20)
No, I would just say, if you’re not getting started and you feel like you’re waiting for something, like rates to come down or prices to come down or whatever, just know that you’re in analysis paralysis and you’re just kind of being, you’re just being a wimp and trying to use, don’t just call you out, like you’re just being a wimp and you’re trying to use these outside factors that you can’t control as a reason for your indecision.

But if you really want to get into real estate investing, get into it now, learn the lessons now, and then great, when the rates get better, when the prices come down, go buy another one, right? But the whole idea is like, you’re not going to get rich on one property, but you will on 10, 15, 20.

Scott Bursey (20:02)
Now you mentioned something about podcast tell us more do you have your own podcast Craig?

Craig Curelop (20:08)
We do, yep, it’s called the Co-Living Show. And so we talk all about, we interview people of all walks of co-living.

Scott Bursey (20:15)
Awesome and run us down that road a little bit. How did it start and what’s your focus and what are your ambitions that sort of thing.

Craig Curelop (20:25)
Yeah, so we started as a podcast called Investify where we would interview people on their way to financial independence. We did about 250 episodes, so like five years of that, and we decided to make a pivot towards co-living as I partnered with my partner Miller. And so now we interview co-living operators, co-living investors, co-living lenders, insurance, whatever, ⁓ people with different co-living stories.

because we truly think that that is a massive asset class that’s gonna be taken off here. And we want people to just be at the forefront of it.

Scott Bursey (21:00)
that’s really cool and do you see that ⁓ this is the wave of the future podcasting what’s your what’s your take on it?

Craig Curelop (21:10)
on co-living or on podcasting.

Scott Bursey (21:12)
on the podcast in general, far as spreading the word. What’s what, how do you ⁓ see the trends? What’s your take on it? And that sort of thing.

Craig Curelop (21:23)
So we have a community called the Co-Living Community and that lives on Facebook. So it’s a Facebook group. And so basically what we see is the podcast is me and my partner Miller can basically come and talk to all of our community every week on the podcast. So if you’re in the community, hopefully you listen to the podcast and then that’s also where a lot of interaction and all that kind of stuff happens.

Scott Bursey (21:47)
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. And congratulations. 250 episodes you said.

Craig Curelop (21:54)
250 and then we started doing this co-living one probably, I don’t know, a few months ago. So I think we’re like 10 episodes released, but like probably 20 recorded at this time. So yeah, I mean we’re pushing like 300 overall.

Scott Bursey (22:06)
Nice, nice. I’m certainly gonna tune into that. And Craig, this has been pure gold, my friend, for our listeners who wanna follow your journey and collaborate with you. What’s the best way for them to reach you?

Craig Curelop (22:19)
You can go to my Instagram, it’s just Craig Curelop. So Craig C-U-R-E-L-O-P. yeah, give me a follow there and then we’ll chat there.

Scott Bursey (22:31)
Craig, this has been just fabulous. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Craig Curelop (22:37)
Awesome, thanks so much Scott. was great to be here.

Scott Bursey (22:41)
And to our listeners, we appreciate each and every one of you. If you got value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We have a lineup of exceptional guests, just like Craig, who are making huge moves in the market. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you on the next episode, everyone.