Welcome to Keaton Cottage!

While we were there, we also visited a small family farm in the area. It had with picturesque mountain views, acres of rolling pastures, and livestock everywhere you looked. We gathered eggs, played with baby goats, and minute by minute fell in love with the mountains and the farm.  Little did we know, we were planting seeds for both our new business and our new way of life.

Our daughter gathering eggs.

At one point, while driving through the mountains, I turned to Adam and said, “We should buy a place here and rent it out when we aren’t using it.” He immediately agreed. The decision was made, and that moment would change the course of our lives.

    Back home in Florida, we started researching homes in the area near the cabin we rented. We   were disheartened to see that many were out of our price range. Our search soon took us further west, to a small town with more reasonable prices, that was also home to a ski resort. This gave any house we purchased the potential to be a profitable year round rental, which was essential for us and our budget. We met an amazing local real estate agent and sent her a few houses we had found online. She took videos for us, and before we knew it we were under contract. Yes…We bought a house from a video… In a town we had never been to… We were quite possibly out of our minds!

We couldn’t visit the house before we closed, and when we pulled into the parking lot of our local bank to sign the closing documents, I started to cry. I was terrified. We had no business buying a second house. We could barely afford the mortgage we already had, and truth be told, I have no idea how we even qualified for it. We were both working for a non-profit, and had used what little we had in our retirement accounts for the down payment. There was no back-up plan.The house had to rent enough to pay the bills, or we would be in trouble.

These days, when coaching clients about buying rental properties, I often find myself saying, “Buy a home in a place you love and want to visit yourself.” We did, and that decision has brought us priceless memories, new opportunities, and an adventure we never imagin