Ryan Chakroff
Real estate student Ryan Chakroff is working to solve the housing crisis in resort towns
It’s a longstanding problem in resort cities around the world, including Colorado ski towns — middle-income workers like teachers, firefighters and nurses can’t afford to live in the communities they serve.
Colorado- and Florida-based K2 Developers is stepping in with a solution: purchasing aging hotels and converting them into workforce housing. With Ryan Chakroff, a current student in Daniels’ Master of Science in Real Estate and the Built Environment (MSREBE) program, as its director of acquisitions, K2 recently purchased the Steamboat Hotel and Steamboat Mountain Lodge in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The company received a special ordinance from the town of Steamboat to use the properties as dormitory-style housing for ski area workers during the 2021–22 ski season; at season’s end K2 will upgrade the building and convert each hotel room into a micro–efficiency apartment with its own kitchen.
“In these resort communities, it’s very hard to provide affordable housing for service-based employees,” Chakroff says. “There’s an issue everywhere with people having to drive 45 minutes to an hour to work. It’s very fulfilling to help find a solution to the problem.”
Following his passion
Working with K2 is an exciting change for Chakroff, who was a broker at the Denver office of real estate firm Marcus and Millichap for four years before going to work for the development company founded by Andrew Korge and Dan Kessler — the two “K’s” in the company’s name.
It was fortuitous timing for Chakroff, who quit Marcus and Millichap in February 2021, before joining the MSREPE program at Daniels. He started at K2 in early April 2021.
Chakroff came to Colorado from Miami University of Ohio, which was close to his hometown of Columbus, Ohio. He moved to Denver with a love of skiing but no job — and quickly found himself selling exchange-traded funds. But his family is in real estate and he always had an interest in the field, which is why he went to work for Marcus and Millichap. His position at K2 allows him to pursue his interest in the principal side of real estate, which also is why he enrolled in the MSREBE program at Daniels. He has taken just 12 of the 48 credits he needs for his degree, but he says he appreciates the opportunity to move at a slower pace and apply what he’s learning in the classroom to his day job.
Jeff Englestad
“I think it’s advantageous in a way that you take the program a little slower,” he says. “It’s not like undergrad — you’re not trying to rush out and get a job. You can take it at your pace, and you can apply what you’ve learned in the classroom to the real world in a much more direct way. It’s not just trying to cram numbers and get good grades; you’re actually applying what you’re learning in the classroom to the outside world immediately, which has been extremely helpful for me.”
Sharpening skills to move up
One of Chakroff’s teachers at Daniels is Jeff Engelstad, professor of the practice at the Burns School of Real Estate and Construction Management. He says Chakroff is a great example of someone already working in real estate who came into the program to sharpen their financial skills and learn how to underwrite, then found a new opportunity where they can use their enhanced knowledge.
“Most of our grad students are already in the business,” he says. “I don’t think you wake up one day and say, ‘I want to go get a graduate degree in real estate.’ That doesn’t make sense. Most people are already in the business, but they know that there’s so much more to it than what they’re doing. Once they get in and they start having some success in the courses, I think they get more confident. And they look at an interesting job and they say, ‘You know what? I could do something like that.’”
Making a difference
Engelstad says he’s pleased to see a current student working for a company like K2 that has a mission to help companies and workers address the housing issue that has become a major problem in resort towns across the country. That social-good component, he says, is a welcome trend in the field.
“Twenty years ago, everybody wanted to go into real estate development because they could make a bunch of money,” he says. “And now it’s like, ‘I want to get into real estate development because I can change the world.’ It’s a very refreshing change that has taken place.”
A great article about the work that Ryan Chakroff is doing. It is filling a long term need for workers in resort towns. Could be expanded in time to alleviate the shortage of affordable housing in cities like San Francisco where workers sometimes commute for hours a day by a series of busses to get to their jobs. Congratulations, Ryan, from your grandmom’s sister. Betts