From $20K/Year Salary to $20K+/Month Passive Income w/Ashley Hamilton

Ashley Hamilton had every card stacked against her in achieving financial freedom. She was a single mother with two children, earning just $20,000 per year working as a waitress, living in Detroit, one of the hardest-hit markets following the Great Financial Crisis. Sixteen years later, she’s making $50,000 per month in pure cash flow (and she has the receipts to prove it)! In Detroit, foreclosures were running rampant, houses were being repossessed left and right, but what could she do with almost no disposable income? Thanks to a $6,000 tax refund check, Ashley did what everyone told her not to do—buy a house during the crash. Fortune favors the bold, and Ashley was soon making $7,000 per year in cash flow from a single property. It was time to repeat the system and buy more rentals. With each tax refund, a new property was acquired, and get this—without using a mortgage. Ashley scaled fast thanks to her super-saver mentality, and now makes more passive income in one month than many people do in a year. She’s done it all with fewer rental properties, striving to have more cash flow instead of more doors. She’s walking through her portfolio, breaking down which properties make the most, and how to scale beyond financial freedom, no matter your starting point. In This Episode We Cover How to invest in real estate even if you have a low salary and little disposable income Why you don’t need a massive real estate portfolio for financial freedom The best piece of advice Ashley gives to new real estate investors The secret to scaling your real estate portfolio that 99% of people will ignore Breaking the generational poverty curse and giving your kids a greater life And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1177 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dave Meyer?

  This investor bought her first property when she was making only 20 grand a year. Now she generates $50,000 in cash flow per month just from her real estate portfolio. That is financial freedom and she achieved it by just buying the same types of properties over and over. And now she's using that freedom to completely transform her life and her health for the better. Let's hear exactly how she did.

• 0:31Dave Meyer?

  Hey, everyone. I'm Dave Meyer. I'm a housing market analyst and I've been an investor myself for the last 15 years. And on this podcast, The BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast, we teach you how to achieve financial freedom through real estate investing. Today's guest on the show is investor Ashley Hamilton. She lives and invests in Detroit and is one of the all-time most popular podcast guests we've ever had. Ashley started her investing career when she was struggling as a waitress with two kids and slowly grew to 10 properties when she first came on to the podcast back in 2019. Today, we're having her back on for an update because she has accomplished a lot. Ashley has grown her portfolio to 40 properties today, but she's focused on maximizing the

• 1:16Dave Meyer?

  cash flow she can get with a relatively manageable number of properties instead of just trying to scale to as many doors as possible. And most importantly, she's using her real estate and the time freedom it has allowed her to make huge improvements to other areas of her life. Ashley is going to share all about a huge personal health journey that was only possible because she took that first step and bought a property more than a decade ago. This is a super inspiring and fun story of how real estate can change more than just your bank account. Let's bring on Ashley.

• 1:52Dave Meyer?

  Ashley, welcome back to the BiggerPockets Podcast for your third appearance. Thank you so much for being here.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  Of course, of course. I'm super excited to be here and I cannot believe, three times, OMG, this one's gonna be the best.

• 2:04Dave Meyer?

  Yeah, I think we're gonna make it the best. We have big shoes to fill, though. You've had some great episodes on the BiggerPockets Podcast before, but maybe for people who haven't listened to those first two episodes, fill us in. How did you get into real estate in the first place?

• 2:18Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yes. So at age 23 years old, I found myself as a single mother of two kids under five. In 2009, I was 22 years old and had no financial backing, no business owners in the family, not even a homeowner myself. But I knew I wanted more and I didn't wanna, you know, feed into the statistics that had been labeled on me. So basically, I went to a Web and Her or like a free live event here locally in Detroit. And I didn't know anything about real estate, but it was trying to get us to invest in real estate. Long story short, I sat through the whole three-hour presentation and out of everything, only two things stuck out to me, right? Be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  And the other one was be willing to spend a couple of years of your life living how most people won't, so you can spend the rest of your life living how most people don't. So that was all I took away from it. And then after I left the presentation, I started to look around me and I see nothing but foreclosures, auction, hood homes, bank foreclosure, because again, it was 2009. So I took that as a sign, you know, everybody, I cut on the radio and everybody said, "Don't buy in Detroit. It's a war zone. You know, you'll lose your shirt. The market's in the tanker. Real estate is bad." And then I see all the foreclosure signs. I was like, "Well, hey, this is a sign to do the opposite and be greedy when others are fearful."

• 3:39Dave Meyer?

  Yeah, a lot of people were fearful in 2009. Pretty much everyone.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. So that's kind of what started it. But again, at that time, I was making less than $20,000 a year as a waitress at Red Lobster. Again, single parent of two. I had no real education or anything like that, so I didn't have any funds or resources to get started with real estate. Actually, the only time that I had ever seen A thousand dollars in my bank account was at tax time, right? Um, once a year where the middle class and lower, you know, they'll get a tax refund. So um, I knew I was expecting a $6,000 refund in 2009. So I said, hey, I look to use that to buy my first property.

• 4:17Dave Meyer?

  And that was enough?

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 4:20Dave Meyer?

  How did you buy a first deal with a tax refund? How much was the deal you bought and what did you have to put down?

• 4:25Speaker 01

  So that's the caveat, right? Everybody was like, oh, that's a great down payment. But how did you qualify for a mortgage? Well, the thing is, the house was two, $6,300, like that was it.

• 4:34Dave Meyer?

  Oh, my.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  That was the purchase price. And obviously, when I say that, people are thinking like, well, it had to be a rundown property. It needed, you know, a full remodel, needed to be demolished. But no, actually, it was a three bedroom ranch home, uh, right on the same street as a park, close to Eight Mile here in Detroit, so a very tree line neighborhood. And it needed about 3,000 worth of work, like plumbing, paint and things like that. But and now today, this house is worth $130,000 today.

• 4:58Dave Meyer?

  Oh, my God.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:00Dave Meyer?

  I can't do that math in my head, but it's like 20 times the value, something like that. That's insane. Maybe the best uh, return on equity I've ever heard uh, on any deal. That's amazing, a very creative, obviously, way to, to get into real estate and use the resources that you have, even when they're limited, like you said, but figuring out a way to get started and take advantage of a time where a lot of people were scared. And I know everyone's probably thinking, oh, man, it must have been so easy investing when things were 6,300 bucks to buy a house. And yeah, in retrospect, it might be, but no one knew at that time that things were going to take off. Like, people thought that the bottom could take years. And actually, if you start in 2009, the bottom didn't come for four more years. So it is, you know, practicing what you preach and, and being greedy when other people are fearful

• 5:45Dave Meyer?

  and sort of having the vision to invest, even though things weren't as obvious as they might have seemed back in 2009.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure, absolutely. So that property, like I said, it cost $6,300. And the crazy thing about it is I was getting $7,000 a year in cash flow, just on cash flow. Right? And then.

• 6:02Dave Meyer?

  Yes.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  It did take a long time because actually I did not get my first mortgage in Detroit until 2019. So actually 10 years later, before banks really felt comfortable. To start lending in Detroit and before the values to start going up. So it did take quite a long time, but at the same time, like I knew, you know, I mean, the, the numbers just made sense. I owned it free and clear and even at seven grand a year, the expenses were very, very low because obviously if the properties worth six thousand three hundred, the taxes aren't a lot. The insurance isn't a lot, so it just made sense and I don't want to sound, you know, obviously we're talking about the past, but I don't want to discourage people that are watching this episode right now that. Well, I can never do that with six thousand three hundred dollars. Well, you can, you just have to use it as a down payment.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  There's first time home buyer grants all over where they'll give you up to twenty five thousand in down payment assistance. And then obviously you can use people like heart money lenders and stuff. I know a lot of the lenders that I use, they're, they're funding ninety percent of purchase, ninety percent of rehab. So you still could get into a property for around that price, you know, but you will be using leverage as well. So don't want to discourage anybody that's, you know, looking to invest now.

• 7:09Dave Meyer?

  Now imagine that probably changed your lifestyle quite a lot. Like you said, you were making less than twenty grand a year, uh, waiting tables. And your go to making seven grand a year in cash flow. It's like, you know, I would imagine be a windfall. Did you use that to supplement your lifestyle or did you just use that to buy more property?

• 7:27Speaker 01

  Right. And thanks for asking that question because a lot of investors don't talk about that. Even to this day, like eighty percent of my income from businesses go directly back into the business. So when I was building from nothing, every dime I, I got, so for example, my rent was seven hundred dollars a month. I, I still didn't change my lifestyle. I used six hundred dollars of that to invest and save up for my next property the following year. So that was the plan, just buy a property every year using my tax return and then whatever I can save monthly. So that's, that's what a lot of new investors, I feel like, you know, don't understand. They buy a rental property and now they're like, oh, I can get a new car, you know, or I can go get the Tesla or, you know, start to use the money for a lifestyle and you can't do that when you're building.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  To me, my philosophy is the first three years, use all your income, you know, your profit and reinvest it into the business to build your solid foundation. And then you can start doing the lifestyle creep where, oh, I Can afford a nicer car now. Oh, I can afford, you know, to invest or save or do other things.

• 8:26Dave Meyer?

  That is amazing advice. I it's totally up to you. Like you could invest, buy one property and use it for lifestyle, but like the math is extremely clear. The longer you reinvest your money and if you can maximize your reinvestment and do that as long as you can, you will just get richer and it's not even close. Like if you look at a compound interest calculator, for example, and you just Google it, it's one of the most eye opening things I've ever seen in my life is like, if you just see how much the difference is, is even, you know, if you're making, let's say seven grand a year in cash flow, the difference between reinvesting all seven grand and reinvesting two grand of that can be the difference of hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars by the time you actually retire. And I know that sounds crazy, but it is

• 9:10Dave Meyer?

  really, really true. I recommend it if you haven't done this before, going to Google that. So Ashley, it sounds like a great scaling plan. You know, you're using your tax refunds, you're saving money. That's just good fundamental real estate. Like that's how most people do it. It's just taking what you got and putting it into it. But how did you scale quickly? Like, how did you go from buying one property a year to having a much more sizable portfolio like you do now?

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. So I have to give credit to the one and only BiggerPockets and my first interview with David Green and Brandon Turner, of course. Yeah. So at the time of my first interview, I had 10 properties free and clear. I was semi-retired, you know, all of them, I was living way below my means and I thought that was it for me because that was my original goal, not having any formal education, not knowing anything about real estate. I kind of just, you know, went in blindly. But after the first interview, you know, I got inundated with calls and messages and then I got David Green's book about the bird strategy and things like that. And financing was possible in Detroit now in 2019. So I basically just said, hey, I'm going to give this thing another try. I started buying August of 2019. My interview came out in May of

• 10:19Speaker 01

  2019. And from August 2019 to August 2020, in the middle of COVID, I bought 11 doors in just one year.

• 10:27Dave Meyer?

  Oh, my God. Picked a good time to jump back.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was like. collapsing time. So what essentially took me 10 years to do, I was able to do in one year and even buy one extra door. And the biggest difference was using leverage, right?

• 10:39Dave Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  Previously, all of my deals were cash. It was sheer savings, investing all the cash flow. And, you know, in working and things like that. But the second half was sheer leverage. You know, now, to be honest and brutally honest, to give you guys something to think about. So my 10 property portfolio was generating probably around four grand a month at that time. And cash flow. And then the 11 properties that I refinanced, they were only generating about $2,500 a month. So my free and clear portfolio was still kicking the butt of the leverage. But I was still able to get way more doors, a bigger net worth increase. So just that was to me a great case study that I even use today. Like, how did my portfolio perform with free and clear? And how has it affected me negatively or positively when I leveraged it?

• 11:25Speaker 01

  So I lost a little cash flow in there, but I was still making an additional 2,500 a month off 11 properties. You know, versus that four grand off the 10 properties free and clear.

• 11:34Dave Meyer?

  That's a really important trade off for everyone to think about because there again, there's no right answer here. To me, it really kind of comes down to where you are in your investing career. If you're trying to grow. It's often worth it to give up cash flow to acquire. If they're good units, like great units that you want to hold on to for a long time because 2,500 a month. That's still a lot of money, you know, it pays for a lot of your life, but that will probably become five grand or, you know, 10 grand a month by the time you truly retire and it's worth it. But of course, there are risks sort of in trade offs to carrying on that debt. My recommendation, it sounds like you believe the same thing is like, as long as it's cash flowing and you like real cash flow, like not just like pretend

• 12:18Dave Meyer?

  social media cash flow, but like if you have real cash flow. That allows you to take on debt in a responsible way. So that even if, like you said, if there's a rent freeze or you know, something adverse happens, which does happen, these things do happen. Like if you can withstand that and use debt at the same time can be a very powerful tool to scale.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  I definitely agree with that, and especially what you said about real numbers. Versus social media like that is so important. The bigger pockets calculator like, you know, I've had people say, well, I've used a bigger calcul- pockets calculator, but I don't have any cash flow. So I just did the numbers myself. And I'm like, wait a second. No, that's not real cash flow. Right? You have to have the real cash flow. And then I've also had people say, well, it's negative cash flowing, but the appreciation or, you know, and that's great. But again, just like Dave said, like, once there's a rental freeze or just the inevitable happening, whether it's life or anything like that, you know, you cannot sustain, you know, having negative cash flow. So making sure that you use the real numbers for sure and that you're cash flowing, even if it's a hundred bucks a month, it has to positively cash flow.

• 13:21Dave Meyer?

  I couldn't agree more. I think people got into the appreciation, no cash flow thing in 2020 or whatever, which is a very unusual time in real estate. Like you can't, that's probably not going to happen again, maybe in our whole lives. Like we, we don't know, but it's very, very unusual from a historical perspective. So like, I wouldn't personally count on that.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 13:41Dave Meyer?

  I want to catch up though, Ashley, with what you're doing today, but we got to take a quick ad break. We'll be right back. They say real estate investing is passive, but if you've spent a Sunday night buried in spreadsheets, you know better. We hear it from investors all the time, spending hours every month sorting through receipts and bank transactions, trying to guess if you're making any money. And when tax season hits, it's like trying to solve a Rubik's cube blindfolded. But that is where Baseline comes in. BiggerPockets Official Banking Platform. It tags every rent payment and expense to the right property and schedule each category as you bank. So you get tax ready financial reports in real time, not at the end of the year. You can instantly

• 14:24Dave Meyer?

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• 16:42Dave Meyer?

  Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Podcast. I'm here with investor Ashley Hamilton, who is just catching us up on her origin story, if you will, and how she got started in Detroit in 2009, scaled to 10 units, then in 2019, started using leverage, got another 11 units. What does your portfolio look like today?

• 17:01Speaker 01

  So today I only own 45 properties.

• 17:05Dave Meyer?

  That's a lot.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  That's a lot, right? But if you're looking at social media and stuff, you know, I feel like a small girl in this, in this realm of real estate investing for social media. But what's most important is of that 45 properties, I'm cash flowing $50,000 a month.

• 17:20Dave Meyer?

  What?

• 17:20Speaker 01

  And I'll break it down. And I'm the queen of receipts. So like, bring me back on and I'll open up some sheets for you or send some appraisals. But I love to show my receipts. And that's what kind of spearheaded this next journey that I'm on, being able to maximize cash flow without increasing the doors. So I own the 45 properties. After my second interview with BiggerPockets in 2023, I doubled down with Airbnb. So right now I have five properties in the city of Detroit on Airbnb. And I know I say Airbnb because you can say short-term rental, but I'm not going to lie, just with all the businesses I have, I'm strictly on Airbnb. So I can probably make more. So right now I'm making $20,000 a month solely from, you know, Airbnb. And that's, I show it on my page every month, like the beginning

• 18:05Speaker 01

  of the month, I show what the previous month did and what the new month is expecting to do. So that's public information and it's not hidden. And what I would like to say is even though I started in Airbnb in 2023, I started with one unit, I still use the same principles I did in my investment journey. So I have not taken a salary from my Airbnb earnings, even to this day. And like I said, I show I made $22,000 last for the month of August. And none of that went to me because it's you, I'm literally funding the sixth property strictly off the revenue from the five Airbnbs.

• 18:36Dave Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  So in about two months, though, the good thing about it is I'll be completely, you know, free of all debt from the Airbnb portfolio, just because I'm generating so much.

• 18:45Dave Meyer?

  Wow.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  And then I have 15 Section 8 rentals, obviously. Started in 2020, converting, you know, all of my new rentals into Section A. And that was strictly because the rental freeze, Section 8 was guaranteed. They were given incentives and they were given about $200 more than market rent at that time. Yeah, so my Section 8 portfolio, it generates 25,000 a month. And then the reason I say that because with Airbnb, even though it's generating to 20,000, I have cleaning fees and stuff like that. And just my regular, you know, rental portfolio, that's just normally cash and some Section 8. But that's the portfolio and out of the 45 properties, I only have four multifamilies, which are duplexes. So most of them are single family.

• 19:28Dave Meyer?

  Huh. You've invented and succeeded at a totally different approach to real estate investing that I've ever even thought about. Like, I think everyone goes through this stage where they are starting and they use leverage to grow. And then later in their career, they deleverage and pay down their mortgages so that they can get to free and clear. But just from circumstances or intention, like you did it the exact opposite way, which is so awesome because you've basically, with free and clear property, that's as every, listen, everything is risk. But a free and clear, single-family rental is about as low risk of an investment in the world as you can probably create. And so you've created an income for yourself with almost no risk.

• 20:13Dave Meyer?

  And now you're able to take on a little bit more risk because you have your, essentially your lifestyle is just paid for on these low-risk assets. It's so cool. I'm so jealous.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Don't be. That's okay. And like, I have so much, like, I mean, because obviously it's all self-taught, but it's mostly listening to the market, listening to the knowledge, and weeding out the, you know, the smoke and stuff like that and just figuring it out. Like, one thing that I noticed about my journey, I didn't know anything. And that's what kind of got me to be more brave. Because if you, if you were in real estate before and you lost everything in '09, you would be scared or more cautious to invest. But, or if you had family members that did that. I didn't have anybody that was a real estate investor, so I really didn't have those naysayers. So I just took it on. I didn't know what I was doing was really risky. But that, that's exactly right where you. Where you're getting at, I am able to take a little more risk now because I do have that nest egg, you know, building up.

• 21:05Dave Meyer?

  That's honestly super cool. I love it.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  Really quickly, I just wanted to talk about just some things that I've done. Just this is very new to me. This is the last year. So again, and this is my market. I'm in Detroit, obviously, but I've seen this across plenty of markets. There's opportunities. So in Detroit, the most popular asset class is a three bedroom, one bathroom home. But I found out that in section A, they're paying $2,000 a month for four bedrooms and they have like 20,000 families that just are in smaller units because there's not a lot of four bedrooms in Detroit. That was number one. So I studied for my builder's license, so I'm a certified licensed builder in the state of Michigan. Yes. So that taught me what a legal bedroom in Michigan was. And I said, wait a second, I can convert basements into legal bedrooms. All I have to do is add an egress window, which was about three to $5,000.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  So, long story short, to date, I've turned five of my three bedroom, single family homes into four bedrooms by adding a legal bedroom in the basement. So with the five properties alone, by me adding the fourth bedroom, I've been able to generate $1,300 a month in additional cash flow.

• 22:09Dave Meyer?

  Wow.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  Additional cash flow just off that. So basically what a three bedroom would rent for about 1,500 here. A four bedroom would rent from 18 to 2,000, just depending on the demand, right? So that's a huge jump. Probably cost me about 14 grand to install these new, you know, basement bedrooms, but that's the math on it. You have 14 grand and you're getting about 200 to 400 dollars more a month in cash flow.

• 22:31Dave Meyer?

  Okay. So even if you just did, if you took the average there, you're making 30. So it takes you like five years to repay that. So it's like a 20% return on investment. That's worth, I mean, that's worth it all day.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  And your appraisals coming back higher because now you have a finished basement. They may not include it as a bedroom, but a finished basement. My appraisals have been blowing me away lately. I really want to make sure I talk about the property that appraised, the duplex that appraised for 135 in May 2024, that just praised that 360 one year later.

• 22:58Dave Meyer?

  Why? 200 grand?

• 23:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I swear to God. So May of last year, it appraised at 135. June of this year, it applies at 360. Now, all I did was I turned it to an Airbnb, so it was furnished when I had the appraisal. But I just literally replaced all the windows and the siding on the exterior and furnished it. Really nothing major inside and I added a bathroom in the basement. That was one way, you know, that I've been able to sustain and get more cash flow without buying more properties. I've also been converting duplexes because I own four multifamily properties, but they're two families. They're not like four or five. And I've been converting them into triplexes, but you may can even convert it to fourplexes and that's by adding a apartment in the basement.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  Right? Again, legal basement. Now that I know what a legal bedroom is, like I'm going crazy with this stuff. But if you're in a market that don't have a basement, you can maybe finish an attic on a duplex because that's an opportunity as well. And basically, so now again, in Michigan, uh, normally if your property is zoned multifamily, they don't say two, three or four. It's anything four units or less is the market, you know, two to four units in our zoning. So if it's already zoned multifamily, you can go up to four units without having to get a variance from the city. Without having to really go through all the headaches, without having to put fire suppression systems. So that's what I've been doing. Like, how do I maximize this without having to break the bank by doing all this variances, waiting time and fire, you know, all that stuff?

• 24:23Speaker 01

  So my duplexes are already in multi-family zone areas. So hey, just throw up a third apartment in there, a studio or one bedroom in the basement. And now I'm getting, you know, average rent maybe is eleven hundred, but I can charge nine hundred for a basement apartment. And now I just increased. So if I'm getting twenty-two hundred in rent for two units, now I'm getting thirty-one because I added nine hundred dollars for that basement apartment. Still one tax bill, still one insurance bill, still one mortgage payment, but now I have three units.

• 24:50Dave Meyer?

  That makes a lot of sense. And when you're considering these things, do you analyze it the same way you would analyze a different kind of investment? Because like we were kind of doing the back of the envelope, twenty percent return math or like, how are you prioritizing these projects and deciding where to put your money?

• 25:05Speaker 01

  Absolutely. So number one, um, when I started, and I think that's what helped me so much. When I started this in real estate investing, I knew it was a long haul. I knew it was for the long haul. I want my wealth to last ten generations because that's what I feel like we've been missing. We weren't. Has sound generational wealth. So I always think of it, hey, this is gonna be my forever home. Uh, my kids are gonna own this. So I don't necessarily think like, oh, you know, what the appreciation is gonna be. I'm looking at the neighborhoods though. And by me being in Detroit, I know that, you know, as long as it's clean, safe and decent, that there's gonna be a, a big demand for the area. So that's basically what I'm looking at. Which properties are in the best area? Or, you know, I'm a licensed real estate agent. So I can see if I see, if I'm just scrolling on Zillow

• 25:50Speaker 01

  and I see a home and a zip code that I owned that sold for 160. And I'm like, wait a second. I paid 50,000 for a house that year. Then I'll start researching. I realize, oh, the value has increased significantly. So now let me put another bedroom in there or another apartment in there.

• 26:03Dave Meyer?

  This is why I hate the idea of door count and like people comparing how many units they have. Because like, let's just say you had 20 grand. You could go buy another unit that produces 2% return or 5% return, or you could do what Ashley is doing and that produces a 20% return. What's better? The 20% return is better. Like there, it's just math. Like that is just a better way to use your money. And if you just like get out of this social media mindset of comparing how many units you have, you can actually just make more money and have less stress, which is exactly what Ashley has accomplished here.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  That's the goal. And I actually learned this because I never, you know, not saying like that, I never kind of worry about other people's portfolio and stuff, but I always felt like the little, the little girl in town, because I didn't have as many doors. But when I met, I was in a mastermind with a guy who owned 150 doors and I was making like eight grand more a month than him. So I'm like, at this, at this point, it's like big bank, take a little bank with me. That's just a game that we were playing. But I'll match your doors, but match my cash flow. And I want to see, I know nobody with 45 doors are doing what I'm doing at 50 grand a month. But for sure, like let's match the cash flow. I guarantee you, I'm competing with these people that have 150 doors that aren't making this much.

• 27:13Dave Meyer?

  You know, it's funny. I, I wrote this in my book because I have the great privilege of speaking to investors every single day.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:19Dave Meyer?

  And I don't have data on this, but anecdotally, I will say that there is no correlation between how happy people are and how many units they own. None. It's like oftentimes more. People I know have a lot more units, they're miserable. People have like 10 paid off units, they're pretty happy. You know, like I, I think like that is a, a really important lesson is that it's not about unit count, it's about like the quality of life and if it allows you to sort of live the life that you want, which is something I do want to talk to you about actually, because I understand real estate has allowed you to pursue some other interests and go on a new journey other than just real estate, which I want to hear about. We've got to take one more quick break. We'll be right back.

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• 31:01Dave Meyer?

  Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Podcast. I'm here with investor Ashley Hamilton, who has built an incredible portfolio over the last 16 years here and has now shifted from acquiring new doors to optimizing her existing portfolio. But Ashley, I understand that you've sort of reached this point of financial freedom. And I'm curious how that has changed your life outside of real estate?

• 31:24Speaker 01

  It has changed my life in many more ways than I can even describe or even know. I'm still finding out new ways to change my life like last month. But number one, I was able to break generational curses, right? So when I first started, I was 22. My parents never owned a home. Uh, we didn't have any college graduates, no business owners. And I'm happy to say that I was thirty six years old when my son graduated high school and I had two first generation college students. You know, in my family, like we were able to go to college and what's more important, they had college funds, so they did not have to take out any student loans. They don't have any student loan debt to this day. So to be able to break generational curses, if that was all that I could have gotten from this, like I would have been satisfied there, right?

• 32:04Speaker 01

  Because now my family can look forward and actually be able to have an advantage in life versus starting off with a disadvantage like I started. So that was number one. Yeah. And at the same time, again, I found myself thirty seven years old with, I was an empty nester, two kids in college and I'm just sitting here in this house and I'm like, I'm financially free, I'm a multimillionaire. What's next for me? Like, I don't even know who I am. I had never lived alone before because I was a single parent at nineteen, at seventeen. So I live with my parents and then I got an apartment with my kids. So I didn't know who I was. And actually, my mom like had a call me and she was like, kinda like, hey, quit the pity, right? Pick your head up. You're a thirty seven years old multimillionaire. Like, I don't care what you do, just go live your life. You don't have any kids. I would have loved to do that.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  And I'm like, you're right. So obviously, the first thing I wanted to do was to be a healthier individual. I was overweight my whole life. I was high blood pressure, prediabetic and things like that. So um, I decided to adapt a plant-based lifestyle. And I was a hundred percent strict. I was working out six times a week and cooking all of my meals and everything like that. And um, I just have to say, like, obviously, you know, it's, it's a great way to live, but everybody can't do that. But I had the luxury of not having any kids here by myself and already financially free without working a job. So, you know, it did take work, but it helped me be able to sustain that lifestyle.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  So, long story short, um, after about a year of doing that, I've lost a hundred pounds, over two hundred pounds in my whole life, but a hundred pounds for sure.

• 33:34Dave Meyer?

  Congratulations. That's unbelievable.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  Thank you so much. Yeah, ninety percent of the people did not recognize me at BPCon last year.

• 33:41Dave Meyer?

  Unreal. Wow. Well, good for you. I, I mean, being healthy is in a lot of ways a luxury, you know? You need some money and you need time to be able to do it. Having the time freedom and the financial freedom, I imagine sort of helped along that journey.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely. For sure, because it bought me back my time. But I really want to make sure I touch on this, Dave, because I feel like a lot of people don't talk about this. But so when you're a real estate investor, now it's time to figure out how to save money. And we all know like taxes and insurance, how to protect yourself, especially with the insurance. So the first thing I did is once I had a million dollar portfolio, I wanted to go on, get life insurance. Just in case something happens to me while I'm building, the kids will be safe. They won't have to worry about these mortgages and I didn't qualify for life insurance. I was overweight, high blood pressure and people don't understand it. I mean, the trashy kind, it's like 20, 50,000, but I needed, you know, two or three million dollars to cover everything. And I couldn't qualify for that.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Um, so that's, that's why I said I'm just learning stuff like recently, like the following year I was able to go and get an exam. And now I'm happy to say I have term life insurance and whole life insurance that I qualify. And even my heart rate was the same as an athlete. I'm like, what? So let's talk about that more as far as health and wealth. You know, it goes hand in hand, but as investors, as entrepreneurs, um, if you look at the, the who dies from heart attacks most is CEOs, right? And business owners at a young age, right? The youngest age. So you're getting the 40 and 50 year old execs that are dying from heart attacks, even if they look healthy on the surface because of the stress and everything that's involved.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  So being able to qualify for our life insurance is a big item that we, I feel like we take for granted and we don't speak about it enough.

• 35:22Dave Meyer?

  It is really cool to hear how this has evolved for you because I think it's, you know, a lot of people, again, focus on unit count and how much money you're making or even cash flow. But like, at the end of the day, no one really does this for cash flow, right? Like you want the thing that cash flow will get you, right? Whether that's more time, a healthier lifestyle to pursue, a hobby that you're really interested in. Like that's the thing that most people want. But unfortunately, it does seem like a lot of people lose sight of that and you kind of just like keep building. Keep grinding and then never actually go after the thing that you really wanted in the first place. Which but it sounds like you have really like been able to do both at the same time, which is super impressive.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  And I would just say it's because like so I I encourage myself to learn every single day, even from a two year old. I'm I always want to learn, but I never stray away what is good for me. So even when I did in 2019, when I decided to start leveraging my portfolio, I didn't go out and put mortgages on all 10 of my free and clear properties because that wasn't me. I still wanted to have freedom. So it's easy to when you hear podcasts like this or social media say, I'm gonna do what Ashley's doing, which you should, right? It's smart. No, I'm just joking. But you should, but you should still conform it to what your ultimate goals are.

• 36:43Dave Meyer?

  I love it. I absolutely love it. Well, thank you. It sounds like we share a similar philosophy about approaching real estate. You've already accomplished a ton, Ashley, but like what what's next for you? Are you going to continue sort of just optimizing the portfolio or what are your goals these days?

• 36:57Speaker 01

  I'm continuing to optimize my portfolio. I I do plan to buy because I always wanted a mixed use apartment building. Um, so I'm going to build it myself because I I just haven't been able to find one. So that's what I will be able to use my license in in Michigan. I would say that's probably going to be in the next three to five years. But to be honest, I'm just making sure that my investment strategy is bulletproof. So I was literally doing inventory the other day and I have about 36 TVs, 12 king sized beds because all of my Airbnbs, right? 26 queen sized beds. And I'm thinking like, well, what if short term rentals slow down? What if we go into a recession? What if Airbnb stops operating in Detroit? Or what if our, you know, our leaders say it's not allowed anymore? So what to do?

• 37:39Speaker 01

  So I'm actually continuing my journey into group homes, you know? And I know um, my my girl is on the show, Lynette, I believe her name is. Yeah, she's been on here before talking about that. But that's just a natural pivot. So I've partnered with someone, which is my first time ever. And we're going to turn one of my rentals into my first group home. And um, everything looks good. She has about 15, so she's experienced, she's doing it. And we're going to just split the revenue 50 50. But even with that, it's slated. To make thirty five thousand a month and I'll be profiting about seven thousand a month. So on a regular rental that I would have charged eighteen hundred. So I feel like I'm just gonna learn everything about it, document everything, we'll get the one group home up and running. But that's just like my backup plan, just in case the short term rental thing doesn't work

• 38:24Speaker 01

  and I don't want to be stuck with all this inventory. But other than that, just continue to optimize as I do tenant turnovers. Hey, can I add another bedroom? Can I add an addition? Can I add an apartment to what I already have? But that's literally the goal.

• 38:37Dave Meyer?

  I love it. Well, good for you. I would love to have you back on soon to hear how it's evolving because I'm sure, although it's a great plan, it sounds like you're always optimizing and finding new ways to to improve your portfolio and your lifestyle. And so, thank you for sharing this update with us. We're gonna have to catch up with you again in another year or so.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I cannot wait. But as always, I see you all the time. I come to BiggerPockets BPCon every year. So for sure, you can catch up with me there. Probably have ten more doors by then. I don't know.

• 39:06Dave Meyer?

  That would be pretty impressive because that's like a month from now. But there are still tickets. If anyone wants to grab one, you can go to biggerpockets.com/vegas. You can see Ashley, me, and a ton of other great guests from the BiggerPockets universe in Vegas this year at BPCon. Ashley, thanks so much for being here.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  You're more than welcome. I appreciate it. It's always an honor to be featured on BiggerPockets. I love it.

• 39:28Dave Meyer?

  Absolutely. And thank you all so much for listening to this episode of the show. We'll see you next time.

• 39:33Speaker 05

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