Sharon Fila has been a real estate investor for 49 years. Starting in 1976, she and her husband bought 14 properties including duplexes, houses and a 10 unit in the highly inflating Seattle real estate market of the late 70’s. This supported them and their growing family while her husband completed dental school at the University of Washington, and selling those properties provided the financial means of opening a new practice in 1982 here in Utah. During the mid and late 1980’s, they began buying houses in Utah—mostly by means of assuming then assumable FHA or VA loans. A BYU graduate, she started law school at BYU in 1975 but quit to start a family. In 1992, at the urging of her husband, she took the LSAT again and applied to the University of Utah law school. She graduated at the top of her class in 1996, while managing a growing rental business and keeping up with their 5 children—in elementary, junior high and high
school. She enjoyed practicing law at a regional law firm in Salt Lake on a part time basis but ultimately went back to the freedom and satisfaction of running their own landlord business, which now includes 40 units—mostly houses. Now, after 49 years, she and her husband are rethinking their plans for the future. She is pleased to share lessons learned and lessons she wishes she would have learned sooner.