“It all started with a bike.”

Some of you may have balked at the fact that Ryan truly got started in this industry at the ripe age of 11 years old. However, if you’d met Ryan you would be more surprised that it hadn’t happened earlier. Ryan is definitely the type of person that can never sit still, and I can only imagine this was even more elevated when he was young.

With a family of four growing boys, Ryan’s parents had the bright idea of buying houses to renovate and rent as a way to keep their boys busy and to teach them some lifelong skills. This is how Ryan got started, up on a roof at the age of 11 helping his family with one of their first big projects.

After re-roofing a small single family home, Ryan had earned enough money to buy a long-coveted bike. Because at the age of 11, what else would you need to do with $250. This was the pivotal moment, and Ryan was immediately hooked. He’d found a way to earn money doing something he actually enjoyed. Not many people find their passion at the age of 11, but this guy is always a little ahead of the game.

Every step of his life after this moment has been an intentional movement towards creating Pocket Properties and making residential rehabs his full-time career.
 
After that first job, Ryan began taking over managing his family’s residential renovations; coordinating the designs, buying materials, leading his brothers through their daily tasks and essentially learning every bit of this business before even graduating high school.
 
From there Ryan left his hometown to pursue a career in Construction Management at Boise State University. Ryan graduated in just 3 years, because like I said he’s always a little ahead of the curve. He was quickly snatched up by a large general contractor and began working on projects all over the world, moving up the ranks every year until finally landing in New York City as a Superintendent on the first cable-stay bridge build in NY.

Even as his heavy-civil construction career took off, Ryan couldn’t get the idea of pursuing residential renovations and owning rental properties out of his head. He began religiously saving money and bought his first property just 30 minutes north of Manhattan. Working his day-job and renovating this 2,000 square foot house from top to bottom, Ryan kept his passion alive and kept himself very busy.
 
Despite keeping himself busy from sun-up to past sun-down, Ryan still found time to meet new people and somehow met a girl that was more than willing to dive into this renovation world by his side. After passing this test, Ryan knew Emily was here to stay and they’ve since finished his East Coast Colonial, moved to Boise, ID, renovated The Boise Treehouse and The Park in Our Backyard, launched Pocket Properties and continue to keep themselves busy with their ever growing list of projects.
 
And if anyone was wondering, Ryan does still own the bike that started it all. Although we aren’t sure if this is for sentimental reasons or due to his hoarder tendencies, we’ll try to believe it was the former.