Episode 24: Explore Grand Junction's Finest Homes with Joe Silzell!

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:17:01
Nate Carver
Hey, if you're in the Grand Junction Mesa County area of Colorado and are looking for a great real estate agent to list your home with or to purchase a home, I would like to introduce you to Joe Silzell.

00:00:17:01 - 00:00:38:00
Nate Carver
Hey, I'm Nate Carver and welcome to Between Two Doors.

00:00:38:00 - 00:00:45:01
Nate Carver
Joe, how are you doing? Good. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Thanks for being on between two doors.

00:00:45:01 - 00:01:01:05
Nate Carver
And let's just jump into it. I want to hear your story. We'd love to share with the world what you doing prior to real estate? Becoming a real estate agent. And then you know what? Your arc is into being a real estate agent.

00:01:01:07 - 00:01:25:16
Joe Silzell
Okay, so, you know, before I got into real estate, I joined the United States Marine Corps right out of high school in 2012 and did five years in the Marine Corps as an infantry rifleman and did some security forces and some pretty, pretty fun, pretty interesting stuff. Got to go, all over the world. Got to see a lot of different countries, got to be stationed for a bit, which was fantastic.

00:01:25:18 - 00:01:53:01
Joe Silzell
Then when I was getting out of the Marine Corps, I came back to Grand Junction, which is where I grew up, actually grew up a few miles outside of it, in Mesa, Colorado. Then I moved back here, joined the sheriff's department as a detention deputy and did that for a little over a year. Was doing that and was getting ready to move out to patrol, and I got my real estate license to, kind of do some fixing flips and, rentals and stuff on the side.

00:01:53:03 - 00:01:59:24
Joe Silzell
And then, I decided I wanted to go to full time. So that's kind of my odd journey to get into real estate.

00:02:00:01 - 00:02:06:11
Nate Carver
Like it? Let me just. I was going to ask you. I think I probably already know that your favorite duty station was in Hawaii.

00:02:06:17 - 00:02:08:18
Joe Silzell
Oh, yeah. By far, not even any.

00:02:08:24 - 00:02:25:22
Nate Carver
Yeah, yeah. So Joe's marine. I was in the Army. Hawaii is always the dream. The dream duty station is Hawaii. So. Okay, how about that? Favorite weapons platform or weapon that you got to use? In your in your service career.

00:02:25:24 - 00:02:42:00
Joe Silzell
So I'm always going to have a special place in my heart for my and for am bread and wine. Milk. Because that's what I got to carry all the time. But now that I'm out just the 240 Bravo. Like, let's just keep it simple with that thing's a lot of fun to shoot, and it's not as fun to carry around, but it's a lot of fun to shoot, and I.

00:02:42:02 - 00:02:43:11
Joe Silzell
I miss that sometimes.

00:02:43:13 - 00:02:51:12
Nate Carver
Yeah, I'm a big Second Amendment advocate and, I wish I could own a in the 19th, but, you know. Oh.

00:02:51:14 - 00:02:53:05
Joe Silzell
Yeah, you know.

00:02:53:07 - 00:02:54:00
Nate Carver
It's want.

00:02:54:02 - 00:02:57:04
Joe Silzell
To, but, you know, you don't need to shoot. What was that was right.

00:02:57:08 - 00:03:20:02
Nate Carver
I think that's a very nice. Yeah. So anyway, I got a few other weapons that are legal. But anyway, I would love to, 240 brothers. Excellent. Okay, so when you got in the real estate, becoming a real estate agent, you've done some stuff on the investment side. Now, have you done personal investments, or are you just.

00:03:20:02 - 00:03:24:07
Nate Carver
Are you linking up with other investors as well? Or.

00:03:24:09 - 00:03:46:14
Joe Silzell
I started with I started with helping some investors and then got into it myself. Last year, personally, we did, we and business partner, we did seven flips in Grand Junction, and then I had another investor contract that I did for and another one that did too. So, you know, building both of those guys up and, you know, doing some ourselves as well.

00:03:46:16 - 00:04:13:23
Nate Carver
I like it. So if yours are or when there are investors out there, reach out to Joe. He's he's been on both sides of of that trans action as a client customer and and a real estate agent. Any on the flips. Have you seen some red flags that, your investors need to be aware of or that you would like to if you could head that off at the at the on the front end of that flip?

00:04:14:00 - 00:04:38:11
Joe Silzell
Yeah. There's a few things we have unique here in Grand Junction like obviously everybody a lot of places have especes and stuff like that, but we have what's called mill tailings is where they used to use radioactive material in some of the ground. We have mines around here that they used to do that. So that's a big report to pull and find out if you do have that and whether it's the foundation in the yard, anything like that, because that could be a big remedial piece.

00:04:38:13 - 00:04:54:13
Joe Silzell
We have a lot of radon here, which is a naturally occurring, gas that pretty much comes up and then can be toxic. And it's a safety, a health thing. So both of those are kind of the ones that are outside the normal, you know, roof foundation, plumbing, electrical stuff.

00:04:54:15 - 00:05:06:24
Nate Carver
Nice. Excellent. So what? Tell me what brought you to Grand Junction. Why Grand Junction or. Yeah, let's start there. Why are you in Grand Junction?

00:05:07:01 - 00:05:27:04
Joe Silzell
So, I grew up about 45 minutes from here of, in Mesa, Colorado, which is so small that, the coffee shops called blink. Because you blink, you miss. Slow down. And, my whole family's pretty much here. I've got a couple relatives out of state right now, but most of them live between Mesa Colburn and here, which are all within about an hour's drive.

00:05:27:06 - 00:05:34:24
Joe Silzell
So I when I moved back from the marine Corps, I don't want to go back up to the little tiny town, but I wanted to be, you know, close to family. So that's how I got here.

00:05:35:01 - 00:05:47:04
Nate Carver
Nice. What would you tell someone looking to move to Grand Junction or to Mesa County? Maybe a couple of highlights of why they'd want to pick your area.

00:05:47:06 - 00:06:05:21
Joe Silzell
Oh, we get so many great reasons to be here. So we have the most outdoor activities of any hub in the United States. We've been in a couple of different big magazines about it. We've got a little wine country of our own in the palisade, which there's like kind of like 16 wineries or something like that. We have a great amount of fruit.

00:06:05:21 - 00:06:25:10
Joe Silzell
We have the best festivals in the state, no matter what anybody else tells you. But yeah, if you want to go hiking, biking, you want to go, water rafting, you want to do fishing? Hunting? I mean, we really have all the outdoor activities. We have a ski area within 45 minutes. There's several different lakes and rivers to go do stuff.

00:06:25:10 - 00:06:53:13
Joe Silzell
And, my wife absolutely loves to go paddleboarding, so we do that, you know, several times in the summer. And in the winter, there's a whole bunch of, snow activities to go do, including like snowmobiling and cross-country and obviously the ski area. So we have a ton of outdoor activities. That's where, we had a lot of influx after the or during the pandemic because of that, because so many people had to work remote.

00:06:53:15 - 00:07:03:00
Joe Silzell
And then when you look at it, our prices are pretty low compared to the rest of the state, and we have just as much activities as everywhere else. So it's a good place to be.

00:07:03:02 - 00:07:36:14
Nate Carver
I like it, I like it. All right. So you've you've been killing it in the real estate market, helping buyers buy homes, helping people that need to sell their homes, get them sold and helping investors. What would be some key advice that you could let, someone looking to buy a home, in junction or in Grand Junction, what are some key features, key ideas that you would want them to know going into maybe a first time homebuyer?

00:07:36:16 - 00:07:50:23
Joe Silzell
So what I always tell people is, the first thing you do when you look at a house is, do I want to live here? The second thing you live has what problems does it have? Because eventually I'm probably going to sell that house and I'm going to have the same issues selling it as the reason I want to buy it.

00:07:51:00 - 00:08:04:09
Joe Silzell
So those are really big things to look at because houses, no matter what you want to do with them, everybody wants to live in their house is that is going to be an asset and is probably going to your biggest asset. So you don't want to do something that's going to put you in a spot where later you're going to have issues.

00:08:04:09 - 00:08:25:23
Joe Silzell
So that's one of the first things I always bring up. For first time homebuyers, we have a lot of really good. And you're very well aware of this. Of all the good programs and stuff we have out here, whether it's FHA conventional for my veterans, VA loans are amazing. We have a ton of area out here that to do those with, as well as USDA loans and some of the areas out here.

00:08:26:00 - 00:08:44:12
Joe Silzell
So there's a lot of different really good things about when you go buy a house, which is a first time homebuyer. We are still seeing sellers, you know, helping out with concessions and helping people get into those homes. So it's not, as, you know, worrisome as a lot of people are thinking. And as you probably tell everybody all the time, you don't need 20% down to buy a house.

00:08:44:12 - 00:08:53:01
Joe Silzell
So that's still a out there. I mean, I know that was a huge thing that was pushed for many years, but it's not something that you have to have as a first time homebuyer.

00:08:53:03 - 00:09:07:23
Nate Carver
That's absolutely right. USDA VA no zero down, and as low as 3% on a conventional three and a half on an FHA. And there are programs to even help with the the down payment assistance.

00:09:07:24 - 00:09:17:02
Joe Silzell
Yeah. We have chat out here. You know about that one. And that's thousand dollars down for FHA and conventional. So I've even seen it once on a VA. It was a really weird situation.

00:09:17:04 - 00:09:45:13
Nate Carver
Nice. Well, good. Okay. So tell me, I would love to know. In your experience, is the real estate world. Tell me, well, what your goals were when you first thought I want to be a real estate agent not too far ago. And you're you're you're doing fantastic now. And, currently. And you have had year over year growth in your business.

00:09:45:15 - 00:09:59:09
Nate Carver
So I'd like to know what you were thinking in the beginning, your goals. Or I'm going to be a real estate agent. What's that going to look like? And then we'll come back. I'm going to find out where you're at today, see if that's changed anything for you?

00:09:59:11 - 00:10:16:12
Joe Silzell
Yeah. So when I was brand new agent, I always tell people I, like, walked backwards into real estate because it was not like what I thought I was going to be doing. I, when I got my license, I didn't realize it was commission based. I went around with the paper. If anybody in industry knows, it's kind of funny.

00:10:16:12 - 00:10:40:01
Joe Silzell
I went out with a paper. Whatever it's called, we take it you can do the word right now, a resume. So I got paper resume into these different offices and asked if they were hiring. Surprise. Like, if you don't know the industry, if you everybody go hire you. Well, mostly everybody anyway, so I got hired on, just started learning.

00:10:40:03 - 00:11:02:13
Joe Silzell
Got with a great office Remax where, you know, the best and the biggest here, in my area. And we have, a really, really good, general manager. Well, anyway, I started learning from so many people that had 15, 20 years experience and just got to kind of learn the ropes from a lot of them. And, then I was just, like, focused on helping first time homebuyers and veterans.

00:11:02:18 - 00:11:21:23
Joe Silzell
And when I first got into it, you know, you're a little overwhelmed, but you're like, all right, I can figure this out. I've got people to go ask questions about. It just started helping people. And what I found out was buyers are so much fun to work with because, you know, you get to see that that face light up when they get to see the house, they're going to get or when they start looking in, they're not sure.

00:11:21:23 - 00:11:36:10
Joe Silzell
And then finally the right one pops up. I it's just such a good thing. And then, you know, you start learning all the different things on my end about, like, what things to avoid, what things to look out for, what things to, you know, you know, know that there's going to be a problem before you a problem.

00:11:36:12 - 00:12:03:18
Joe Silzell
So getting in front of that kind of stuff. But when you're young, you're just like, hey, I just want to help people and I want to do all these things, and I really want to just, you know, my mindset was always, I really just want to help somebody get into a home because I know what that means, whether it's my my direct family, my interact family, like I know what it's meant to them to be stable and get into a house or townhouse or whatever it is, where they're comfortable and they actually know they're going to be okay.

00:12:03:20 - 00:12:06:00
Joe Silzell
So that's always a big thing.

00:12:06:02 - 00:12:30:03
Nate Carver
What did that mean to you? The first first transaction you did that was a first time home buyer. What did that mean? Well, I'm sure you you can tell me what it meant to them. You probably saw that closing, right? So tell me that and then tell me what that meant to you.

00:12:30:05 - 00:12:50:13
Joe Silzell
For me, it was a little bit nerve wracking, to be honest. You know, you're helping somebody buy this great big thing. You're worried about it. I'm. It was me and him in. It was. It was December when we closed. I think we closed last the week after Christmas. We were out there in like, the 13th and 14th of December painting because, you know, FHA loan had to get things wrapped up.

00:12:50:18 - 00:13:09:13
Joe Silzell
So, we were we were helping, you know, work with the seller to get this house to work out. The guy was like, 22 years old. He was super excited. He was, you know, had, like, three dogs. He couldn't find rental property to get into because he had these big dogs. And when he found out he could get into a house, he was just so excited.

00:13:09:13 - 00:13:27:16
Joe Silzell
And then we found this really cute 1950s home with a big backyard and a garage for his truck. And, I mean, it was just like one of those things where, you know, he before he talked to me, he even realized he could potentially buy a house. And then when he was buying it, he was just so like, I have you all grown up, you know, so that, I mean, honestly, it meant the world to me.

00:13:27:16 - 00:13:45:18
Joe Silzell
I still keep in touch with him. We're good friends. He actually painted a truck for me because that's what he does for a living. Not long ago. But just such an amazing moment where, you know, his parents came in. They were so proud of him. It was just those kind of things that, you know, it's one of those good moments that I don't think we get to share enough.

00:13:45:20 - 00:14:14:24
Nate Carver
Yeah. Hello? Yeah. That's, that's when, you know, you found your calling in life. Yeah, it's definitely on those days. So I would love to hear, a funny story. Crazy story. Anything that you've experienced in the real estate world that that has shocked you or just made you laugh or, you know, that anybody else could learn from, or maybe couldn't even imagine?

00:14:15:01 - 00:14:44:03
Joe Silzell
Okay, so I got a funny one. And, I don't know if people, I don't know if there's a video of this house particularly, but everybody's heard, like, the, really bad stories of what a, robot vacuum can do. So I was going to go show this house. This is probably 83 years ago. I was going to go show this house, and you go inside the house and, the dog that they had in there, had, like, gone to the restroom in the middle of the, kitchen.

00:14:44:05 - 00:15:10:20
Joe Silzell
And that vacuum had, like, literally, like, wiped the entire house with this dog's, poop all over the house in. And it looks like murder zone of just brown being pushed all around. Yeah. That actually happened to, a family member of mine now, too. But, it was it was one of the most comical moments because you walk in and we're like, what's on the ground outside it, it just hits you.

00:15:10:20 - 00:15:17:19
Joe Silzell
And the people are just so. So, I mean, there's a lot of funny moments, but that one, that one kind of sticks out to.

00:15:17:21 - 00:15:25:10
Nate Carver
Oh my gosh. Yeah, that's the first I've heard that, folks. If you got a Roomba. Yeah. Be careful.

00:15:25:10 - 00:15:27:13
Joe Silzell
Be careful with pets.

00:15:27:15 - 00:15:35:21
Nate Carver
It's Oh my goodness. Well so tell me going forward what's what's next on the horizon for you?

00:15:35:23 - 00:15:57:18
Joe Silzell
You know, I got married last year, and we're sitting down some big roots. We, just got my wife moved into my house. So, right now I'm just really happy to be here. Really, you know, joyful to be helping people. Grateful. My business is, you know, really become, you know, so much more than I ever thought it would be.

00:15:57:20 - 00:16:15:05
Joe Silzell
I just am about to get my, fifth. That a six year buyer agent award for my office. That's the most amount of buyers represented in a year. Five and six years. I missed it last year, which I was like, I was going for the five, but, but I got it back this year, so pretty excited for that.

00:16:15:05 - 00:16:19:16
Joe Silzell
So honestly, just just really grateful for a man.

00:16:19:18 - 00:16:45:04
Nate Carver
Excellent. You're doing great. You're doing fantastic. That. Like I said, I wanted to celebrate, your success by having you on the podcast and creating an opportunity for more people to get to know you. Joe, if anybody or when anybody is looking to buy a home or sell a home, what is the best way that they can get Ahold of you?

00:16:45:06 - 00:17:04:07
Joe Silzell
Just reach out to me, text me or call me. My number's (970) 462-5154. I mean, I got my phone on me all the time. I'm always on it. What I say is, if it's after 5:00, just text me. I'll get back to you. Phone calls in the evening are always, you know, a little more disruptive than a text that.

00:17:04:09 - 00:17:26:06
Nate Carver
I love it. There you have, folks. Look, you're looking for a real estate agent on top of his game. From Marine Corps to real estate in Mesa County, Colorado. Reach out to Joe. I'll have his contact information connected to this podcast wherever you're watching or listening. Thank you, Joe, for being a guest. It was a pleasure talking to you.

00:17:26:08 - 00:17:29:00
Joe Silzell
Yeah, it's good to be here.

00:17:36:24 - 00:17:45:01
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