In January of 2020, I received a phone call from my daughter Elizabeth, who at the time was a freshman at the University of Northern Colorado. She was living with four other girls in an on campus dorm, and her call came with great urgency.
"Dad," she said, "we're trying to rent an off-campus home for our sophomore year and we found the perfect place!"
"Hold on," I said. "What are you even talking about?"
As it turns out, it's relatively common for college students to secure fall semester housing at UNC as early as November - December of the previous year. At this point, all of the best places had already been claimed, although I wasn't even aware she planned to live off campus as a sophomore.
My wife, Sherry, and I agree to come up over the weekend and look at the "perfect home" she and her roomies had found. The parents of the other girls also made the trip up to Greeley, wondering what amazing opportunities would await.
Let's just say the house they picked out wasn't exactly one I was going to sign off on.
Built in 1902, it had six bedrooms, including three in the basement with no egress windows. One basement bedroom had no windows at all. It was a roughed up student rental, full of dirt and grime and a leaky roof. There was no garage and little parking. The home also had a Federal Pacific "panel of death", and I could tell just by looking at the outlets that this home had plenty of electrical hazards.
The point is, a professional real estate agent looks at property a little differently than a 19 year old freshman college student.
The other parents weren't thrilled with what we were looking at, either, and in the end - much to the disappointment of our daughters - we all agreed that more adult supervision was necessary.
The following week, I told Elizabeth I would back up to Greeley and look at rental properties with her. And what I discovered in week two of our search is that there are a lot of slumlords in Greeley, and a lot of houses that you would be reluctant to spend a night in, much less a semester.
After discussing things with Sherry, the following week we opened up the possibility of buying a small home for Elizabeth and letting her choose her own roommates. So we scheduled a handful of showings, mostly small split level homes built in the 1950s in close proximity to campus.
Many of the homes suffered from the same ailments we found in so many of the other Greeley homes, and if you've spent any time in Greeley (the economy of which is basically powered by a slaughterhouse and a university), you quickly come to realize there's not a lot of pride of ownership in much of the older housing stock.
As we were wrapping up our early February Saturday afternoon search, for no good reason I decided to drive through a looping street which ran directly behind the UNC Campus. And as fate would have it, while we were prowling the neighborhood we just happened to see a man planting a FOR SALE BY OWNER sign in front of a clean looking split level home.
Intrigued, we pulled over. And much to our delight, what we found was a recently remodeled 3 bed, 2 bath house with hardwood floors, fresh vinyl siding and a brand new roof. It had a lower maintenance xeriscaped front yard and a fenced in backyard with mature trees (which at least the potential to be nice with a little TLC). The owner had recently had a heart attack and passed away, and his brother was now charged with selling the home on behalf of his estate.
The short of is that this home was head and shoulders above anything else we had looked at, and we quickly approached the seller with a full price offer. He agreed, and in that moment Elizabeth was perhaps the happiest I had ever seen her. Sometimes, things just feel right.
Our closing date was scheduled for Friday, March 20, 2020.
Well, by this point you probably know what's coming next. On Friday, March 13, 2020 - one week before closing - the University of Northern Colorado called a Covid-induced emergency and sent more than 10,000 students home. On Sunday, March 15, states began implementing shutdown orders and the work from home era officially began.
With the world spinning off its axis, and despite the fact we had sailed through inspection and appraisal with no issues... who wants to own a home in Greeley behind an abandoned college campus during a global pandemic?
So in the first of many 2020 heartbreaks, we terminated the contract two days before closing, forfeiting $5,000 in earnest money and leaving it to the seller to figure out what to do with his newly renovated home in the midst of a global pandemic.
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Fast forward nine months, and it's December of 2020. Elizabeth has been home since March, now experiencing her sophomore year remotely, but there's talk of the college campus opening up for at least some in-person learning after spring break.
The owner of the home we had fallen in love with had pivoted over to reluctant landlording, renting his home out a family after stay-at-home orders effectively shut down the real estate market in March.
As we talked about plans for 2021, Elizabeth asked "Dad, do you think there's any way we can still buy the house behind campus?"
Well, truth is 2020 had been a year of heartbreak for a lot of us, and that was certainly the case for any college student watching their university experience slip away.
"Let me try calling Mark and we'll see where things stand", I said. And the next day I picked up the phone to try and kickstart what had ingloriously flamed out nine months earlier.
Long story short, we did revive the deal, but with some conditions.
Because 3% interest rates had hypercharged the Covid era real estate market and home prices had rocketed upward in 2020, Mark asked for another $25,000 above our 2020 price.
Because eviction moratoriums destroyed property rights and made it almost impossible to remove a non-paying tenant, I insisted that we delay closing out over three months, to the end of March, making the deal contingent on the renters being out at the end of their one-year lease at least 7 days prior to closing.
I agreed to the higher price, and Mark agreed to the extended closing... and so we were under contract again with a 110 day escrow period.
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Fast forward to March, and the tenants did move out at the end of their lease, freeing up the home for us to close. But on the flip side, UNC announced that in-person learning would not resume until August, so we once again were looking at any empty house but with full maintenance and mortgage responsibilities.
I took the first few weeks of April to make a number of upgrades - replacing plumbing valves and connections, replacing the central air and water heater, and updating numerous electrical issues through the house. I also added 1.5 tons of river rock to the front yard, installing a vinyl perimeter fence to the front yard for a bit of extra security.
To cap it all off, we painted the front door lime green, per Elizabeth's request.
After 14 months of fits and starts, shut downs and cancellations, forfeitures and lost deposits... move-in day was at hand.
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Did I mention I am a real estate agent? And did I mention that 2020-2021 was the most insane, overheated, mind-breaking, inventory-starved real estate market in modern history?
Why does this matter in the context of this story?
Because one of the ways you can sell enough houses to make enough money to buy one for your own daughter is to go the extra mile. To solve problems. And to love your clients so much that when they sell their home in Thornton but can't find another place to live because they keep losing out in bidding wars... you suddenly get the bright idea to kick your daughter out of the house she just moved into and put your clients in Greeley until they can find another place to live.
Which is pretty much what happened next.
Cooper and Jennifer are dear friends who have been excellent clients. In fact, I had helped them with four transactions in about six years prior to moving them into the Courthouse.
Elizabeth, to her credit, took displacement like a champ, and moved back in with us at our home in Arvada. Cooper was a cop in Boulder and Jennifer had an office job in Broomfield, so around the chaos of an unplanned relocation and the frenzy of an insane housing market, Coop and Jen were both commuting 50+ miles to work each way, each day.
We continued looking at homes and writing offers before work, after work, and on the weekends... losing, losing and losing some more. Did I mention how much brain damage real estate brokers accrued during the Covid era?
Cooper and Jennifer were grateful to have a roof over their heads, though, and Elizabeth was still doing okay at home with us. But the school year was fast approaching and Elizabeth had now recruited two roommates, who were also patiently waiting to get into the Courthouse.
As the calendar rolled over to July, Cooper and Jennifer came to the conclusion that perhaps Colorado living was no longer the answer for them. And so they took a long weekend, flew to Phoenix, found a home that fit their budget and went under contract.
I was happy for them, of course, but a lot of time and effort was also sunk into trying to find a path for them in the world's craziest housing market. That's how it goes sometimes. But ultimately they were happy with their decision and that's what matters most, so at the end of July - four months after we had closed on the Courthouse, Elizabeth was finally able to move in.
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The rest of story simplifies from here. For almost four years, Elizabeth has lived in the Courthouse with her good friend and main roommate, Serena. They had a friend named Laurel who lived with them for two years and another roommate, Julia, has been with them the past two.
The house has outperformed on every level. It has been a safe, clean, low-maintenance property which really hasn't required a lot of upkeep at all, save for cutting the weedy grass in the backyard in the spring and summer and then raking up a TON of leaves every October and November.
Elizabeth graduated with her bachelor's degree in 2023 (as did Serena) and she was quickly hired by Centennial Elementary School in Evans as a first-grade teacher. Serena has worked in the healthcare and nursing fields and will be entering the University of Colorado's Anschutz PA Master's program in Denver in August.
Elizabeth immediately jumped into a graduate level education program at UNC Greeley in the fall of 2023, which she pursued around a full-time elementary teaching schedule. In May of 2025, she earned her Master's Degree in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learning.
Just a short time later, she was hired for a teaching position in Bozeman, Montana, where she will be moving in July.
The Courthouse provided a foundation for four years of growing up, spreading wings and learning how to adult. Now, it's time for Elizabeth (and Serena) to fly.
Our hope in sharing this narrative is that you don't simply view the Courthouse as a home, but as a place where growth, progress and transformation can happen. It's where students become adults and shy freshmen evolve educated leaders.
