LOUISVILLE — Terri Luebs, a Boulder-based investor in probate properties, ponders the offer. A divorcing couple are selling their condo for $70,000. It would make a nice rental, bringing in $500 of positive cash flow per month. But the lender wants $20,000 down.
“I’ll pass,” she says finally, electing to conserve her cash for another deal.
The condo is then up for grabs and Michael Cranna, a Loveland investor sitting across the table, snaps it up for his growing portfolio of properties. Business has been equally brisk in his real life, negotiating short sales in the north metro Denver area, he says.
Make-believe investing mixes seamlessly with talk of the real thing when it’s Cash Flow Game Night at the Marketplace Bakery. Every couple of months, on a Friday, the owners rearrange the tables and chairs in their Louisville cafe and let Re/Max broker Rob Kelly bring in 15 or 20 of his clients and friends.
“We network and learn from each other and have a lot of fun,” said Kelly.
The action unfolds on the colorful surface of “Cash Flow 101,” a board game created by Robert Kiyosaki, author of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money that the Poor and Middle Class Do Not.”
The Louisville crowd is one of many groups nationwide — there are at least two in the Denver area — that gather regularly to play.
As players advance around the board, they encounter different financial scenarios, from which they can learn real-life lessons. Their goal in the game is to move from the “Rat Race” segment of the board to the “Fast Track.”
People who show up for Cash Flow Night are not big wheeler-dealers, said Kelly. They are willing to learn and invest in their education, patiently planning to “get rich slow,” he said. “That’s the way it tends to happen, in my observation.”
Ruth and Jim Eastman, one of the couples participating in the Louisville game night, have taken real-life classes on buying bank-owned foreclosures. They bought four homes around Longmont and flipped two, profiting by $9,000 and $13,000. The two others are rentals. This night, they’re seated at separate tables.
Three players in Jim’s game have pulled the “downsized” card, temporarily losing their jobs and income. It is a painful reflection of reality in a room where people have lost real jobs at Sun Microsystems, Corporate Express and Google.
“Leverage and luck” are the keys to success, said Irv Stern, who in real life is partnering with another player, Al Leland, in a fix-and-flip deal.
