Meet Stephanie Marshall | Property Manager

We had the good fortune of connecting with Stephanie Marshall and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Stephanie, what’s the most important lesson your business/career has taught you?
The single most important lesson my business has taught me is that you can manifest whatever you put your mind to. If you want the house on the hill, you can have it…you just have to decide you’re going do what it takes to get it. And you have to be real with yourself about it. You have to understand deeply that you are about to fight for something.That means you will work extremely hard and it may be an emotional rollercoaster, and you will have to refuse to let the answer “no” stop you. You may get to the pinnacle and go “ok, I either need to quit or push past my breaking point.” The process of achieving your dream sounds sexy, but it is definitely not pretty. Nor easy. But I promise it will be beautiful in the end.

What should our readers know about your business?
My creativity professor in grad school asked the class “how do you play?” Many folks in the room could not answer that question. She described how it was important to do what you love and if that isn’t what you do for work, then you need to bring that into your work. So I got really into backpacking, camping, hiking and outdoorsy stuff. I knew it would be important to bring this “play” into my work somehow.

My first property started passively. My husband and I started to look around at the local Austin market, and decided we should hold onto our existing home as we searched for a new home for our growing family. This was no easy task. It took 5 1/2 years for us to save enough and to make a move within our local area.

For my second investment, I wanted it to be in a place that supported my sense of outdoor adventure. This was no easy task. I had many parameters- like it had to be within driving distance of Austin, or a 2 hour flight, it had to be in the Rockies and within an hour of a ski resort. It had to have electricity and be accessible all four seasons. By the time I narrowed down the country to the state level (Colorado), then down even further, the market was on fire. Every offer I lost, the next opportunity cost was higher. Within a matter of months, I was on the verge of being priced out. I was racing….placing offers, knowing I was one of 12 people and some of them had cash offers. My realtor was new to this hot market, and she was trying to help me, but we were both new to this crazy competition. I lost to 12 different offers, when I finally hit one. But being that the property was in a fairly rural area, it took weeks for the inspector to get out to the property and to turn in her report. I had to find her on social media and beg for her to turn in the information. It was a week before the close date, and I was on the verge of losing my earnest money and the opportunity to make this investment. But then an inspection report came in on golden sails, and I got the place. I had to scratch and claw my way into the offer, into getting the paperwork done, and getting everything closed.

Once everything was finalized, I then needed to put together a local team of support and figure out how to make it up the mountain in the snow, how to mitigate water from a well, how to get resources when there was no mail service, and how to become my own property manager. Hard lessons, but so worth it.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I don’t even know where to start. From our lodge property, you can snowshoe at the end of our street, or right outside the back door. You can watch the stars and see the Milky Way from the hot tub. You can wake up to the quiet of the space, or head into the little town for people interaction. There’s white water rafting, natural hot springs, ice skating, sledding, dinner sledding tours, cross-country skiing, hiking and mountain climbing all within our area. You can also fly fish and gold pan right in town. But really, just sitting on the back deck and watching the sunrise is super special. Millonzi’s is our favorite restaurant, and the ice cream parlor in town can’t be beat. We even adore the goat milk shop in town! Of course, there’s Breckenridge 21 miles over the pass, and we are just down from the Continental Divide.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
When I was a little girl, my dad told me, “Stephanie, you can do anything you want in life.” I replied, “Yeah, but I can’t fly”. So, later in life, my father became a children’s book author and he wrote/illustrated a page for me. In his “Really Weird Creatures” book, he depicted a sort of bird creature that was extra large and had tiny wings. The line of the page read, “And Floops try to fly though they can’t, but they might…..” I’ve always felt that both of my parents encouraged and supported me to do what makes me happy, and they always made me feel like I could fly.

As I began this journey into property management, my husband also surrounded me with love and emotional support. As a finance professional, he made sure that my idea was structurally sound and that I had thought through the details of the investment(s). I couldn’t have done this without his listening ear as I vented about failed offers, delayed inspection reports, travel, and emotional let-downs of the high-market competition.

Lastly, I have to give a shout-out to the local folks in Fairplay, CO. I’ve figured out that as a small business owner, your success is dependent on the team you create. Locally, I found friends at the remote work space in town. They pointed me in the direction of various contractors. I also found a great house manager, who handles all of the general maintenance and clean up. I found other local folks, like electricians and builders, who were so nice and could construct things at 11,000 ft with no issues! The general resources like the rec center, the folks at the grocery store, the sporting goods supply store, and the community church kept me sane while I traveled back and forth across the country, each month. The locals guided me on what it was like to have a place in the sky and to live in the cold weather (and why an all-wheel drive vehicle is a necessity). Fairplay has become a happy place for me- and the locals are a big part of creating that for me.

Website: https://airbnb.com/h/mountainviewkrewe

Instagram: @treelinelodge

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-trek-creative