From a $35K Salary to Owning 3 Rentals (Starting in 2024!)

Renovating two rental properties, while working two jobs, all in your twenties. Flo Jacques took it on so she could replace her $35,000/year college admissions salary—and it was so worth it. The first year after graduating college, at age 22, Flo decided she was done being a renter. With just $15,000 down, she bought her first home to live in. But being an investor? That wouldn’t come until 2024—arguably one of the hardest housing markets in recent history. When she saw a panel on investing in real estate (and started having literal dreams about owning rentals), she knew it was time. The first investment property? A $70,000 neglected house in need of a big rehab and in a flood zone. What could go wrong? If that wasn’t enough, Flo then—midway through the rehab—decided to buy another rental to renovate—a duplex. She was managing two rental renovations while working two jobs. But now, Flo has some strong cash flow she created. Flo learned a lot, especially since she’s only in her twenties, but she is already on to the next deal: a flip with six-figure profit potential. In today’s show, Flo shares why she took the leap, the lessons she learned managing two renovations at once, a sure sign to fire your contractor, and why her new goal is one of the biggest we’ve ever heard. In This Episode We Cover How to renovate rental properties the right way (Flo made the mistakes for you) Why you’re not too young or inexperienced to take on your first real estate deal One sign you should fire your contractor (they will start to price gouge you) Hard money loans explained, and whether you should use this financing on your next rental renovation New rules of thumb Flo always follows when renovating a house Stuck in analysis paralysis? Why it’s time to take action and start investing And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1243 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.

• 0:00Henry Washington?

  From a $35,000 a year salary to owning three investment properties in just two years, that's Investor Flo Jacques's story. And it started with a simple decision at age 22 to buy a home instead of renting. Most people wait for the perfect time. Flo did not wait at all. Fresh out of college, working as a college admissions counselor, Flo had saved $15,000. And instead of letting it sit in the bank, she used it to buy her first home in North Carolina. That purchase wasn't her endgame. It was just the beginning. Over the next few years, Flo educated herself about investing and networked relentlessly. When she finally felt ready, she jumped in with a full gut rehab on a roach-infested

• 0:42Henry Washington?

  property in a flood zone. That first deal tested everything. Almost everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. But Flo didn't quit. She didn't even slow down. She adapted, problem solved, and a month later, she bought a duplex, then another property shortly after that. Today, Flo is building a portfolio focused on multifamily properties and has her sights set on real estate development. This episode isn't about waiting for the perfect moment or having a six-figure income. It's about taking action with what you have, learning fast, and refusing to settle for 40 years of a typical nine-to-five career. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Podcast. I'm Henry

• 1:27Henry Washington?

  Washington. I've been investing in real estate in Arkansas and Missouri since 2017, and my co-host, Dave Meyer, is here with me. It's still weird saying that. My co-host, Dave Meyer, is here with me. What's up, Dave?

• 1:39Dave Meyer?

  I love it. You have to do all the reading. I just get to sit here. This is the best.

• 1:43Henry Washington?

  Today's guest is Flo Jacques, an investor from North Carolina who went from a $35,000 a year job to managing and growing a rental property portfolio in just a few years. Flo's story is all about taking action fast, so let's jump right in. Flo, welcome to the show.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  I am so psyched to be here.

• 2:02Henry Washington?

  That's awesome. I'm glad you are here. Sounds like you've got a pretty interesting story. So why don't you start and tell us about your background and what you were doing just before you got into real estate?

• 2:12Speaker 02

  Just before I got into real estate, I was actually a college admissions counselor. So I was blessed and fortunate to purchase my first home at 22 years old.

• 2:21Henry Washington?

  Oh, wow.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  I remember being in my senior semester, like my last semester of college, and I had a good bit of money that I had saved from working multiple jobs. And something clicked and it was like, I wonder if I can buy instead of rent. And I remember at that period in time, I was also considering renovating homes. You know, I wanted to flip homes, build wealth through real estate.

• 2:43Henry Washington?

  What year was this?

• 2:44Speaker 02

  This was actually 2021.

• 2:47Henry Washington?

  Okay, okay. So you were curious about investing, curious about doing renovations. So how long was it between when you purchased a home to live in to when you actually decided to buy an investment property?

• 2:59Speaker 02

  It was another three years.

• 3:01Henry Washington?

  Oh, wow.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. And honestly, during that time period, I was, you know, figuring it out, you know?

• 3:08Henry Washington?

  You were 22. Fair enough.

• 3:12Dave Meyer?

  You don't need an excuse to take three years to buy a property.

• 3:16Speaker 02

  Well, somebody told me, you should probably get your real estate license, start there. And so I said, okay, sure, you know, I'll start with my, um, getting that, learn the ropes of the business and stuff, and then build the funds to be able to buy, you know, because college admissions education just doesn't really pay. Like, we know that.

• 3:34Henry Washington?

  You weren't making $700,000 a year in college admissions?

• 3:37Speaker 02

  Actually, I purchased my first home on a $35,000 annual salary.

• 3:42Dave Meyer?

  Wow, good for you.

• 3:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. During that period, after I became licensed, I, you know, joined organizations, started building relationships with other professionals in the real estate industry. And through that, I also, you know, was attending some sessions that were investor focused. And I knew I wanted to build, you know, a portfolio and not work to the day I die.

• 4:02Dave Meyer?

  Like that.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  And so it was like, some spaces I was in was giving me the info. But like 2024 was really when I I was having some dreams that I was buying investment properties.

• 4:16Henry Washington?

  Oh, man. When you start having real estate dreams, that's how you know you're in.

• 4:20Dave Meyer?

  My real estate dreams are never happy dreams.

• 4:22Henry Washington?

  No, mine aren't either.

• 4:23Dave Meyer?

  Mine are always scary dreams. I have this recurring dream that I forgot about a property.

• 4:27Henry Washington?

  All the time. I have it.

• 4:29Dave Meyer?

  Like someone calls me, they're like, oh, there's a rental that you like haven't been to in three years. I have that recurring dream and I wake up terrified every time.

• 4:37Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 4:38Dave Meyer?

  Sounds like yours were more positive flow at least.

• 4:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, at that time, they were.

• 4:45Speaker 02

  At that time, it became very clear to me that I was being called to make a move. And a month later, I purchased my first rehab.

• 4:52Henry Washington?

  That's super cool because I feel like a lot of people are probably resonating with this story where it's like, education, education. When do I jump off the cliff? And what does that look like? So you bought your first deal. How did you find this deal?

• 5:06Speaker 02

  It was on the MLS. I mean, I'm a realtor, so I'm not opposed to the MLS. I know people hear off market, off market. But the thing is, just like off market, you can negotiate too.

• 5:17Henry Washington?

  You can just make offers.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  Make offers. Exactly.

• 5:21Henry Washington?

  You can just do stuff. It's pretty cool.

• 5:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, like, yes, the sellers are often delusional and yes, you are dealing with a realtor in the way of that. But yeah, so. So the funny thing is I had an investor client at that time who I was helping her purchase some investment properties. And she targeted cheap rehabs in the outer skirts of the Raleigh Durham area, like Rocky Mountain, North Carolina, Henderson, you know, those areas. She was interested about this property and another. So I called the listing agent and the listing agent said, yeah, we just listed like 19 of them. So. He had an investor who's in his seventies, letting go of his portfolio, you know? And so I said, oh, can you, where can I find the list of these properties?

• 6:01Speaker 02

  So I can send it to my client. At that time, I wasn't even thinking for myself. I was just like, yeah, I want to send these to her because she wants to browse through and make a decision on maybe a package deal. And so I sent her the options and I thought, hello, make it like, make an offer on one or two of these too. And I was like, oh, okay.

• 6:18Henry Washington?

  I have a whole conversation with yourself in your head.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  Literally, you know? And so when I sent her the list, I said, okay, whatever she doesn't offer on, I will offer on one or two of these. Like I had already selected. So I submitted her package for three properties, right? And then I submitted on two. That's how I found that first deal. On the MLS package deal, same thing with another client I jumped into.

• 6:43Dave Meyer?

  And what did you like about these deals? What was different about these than everything else out there on the MLS?

• 6:49Speaker 02

  Well, number one, it was 90,000, 60,000.

• 6:55Henry Washington?

  The price. The price. Got it. Yeah.

• 6:58Speaker 02

  Exactly. So if you've ever heard of Rocky Mountain, North Carolina, people call that area murder city, you know, like, I don't want to say it's a dead town, but it's a very large renter population, you know, but a lot of investors target it because real estate is cheap there. What really stood out to me was getting a single family home for under a hundred thousand.

• 7:18Dave Meyer?

  And what was the rehab budget for this?

• 7:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. So the rehab budget for this, we originally had it for 75,000.

• 7:25Henry Washington?

  So you paid 90? Is that what you said?

• 7:27Speaker 02

  So we went under contract for 90, but we actually ended up closing it at 70,000 because I found out that it was in a flood zone, which the listing agent did not disclose, you know, and I was ballsy enough to still move forward with it, you know? So my first property was in a flood zone. I didn't do my due diligence, nor was it disclosed. And that's a material fact that was supposed to be disclosed, you know?

• 7:51Henry Washington?

  So you bought the single family home. You're working on the renovation. You said you did go a little bit over budget. This was a fix and flip? Or were you planning to keep this one as a rental?

• 8:00Speaker 02

  Keep, because my whole goal was to build a portfolio. So my mindset was buy and hold, you know, BRRRR method.

• 8:07Henry Washington?

  So you're working on this project and a renovation. And then I'd like to know what happens next, but we'll talk about that when we come back. As a real estate investor, the last thing I want to do or have time for is to play accountant, banker, and debt collector. But that's what I was doing every weekend, flipping between a bunch of banking apps, bank statements and receipts, trying to sort it all out by property and figure who's late on rent. Then I found baseline. And it takes all that off my plate. It's BiggerPockets official banking platform that automatically sorts my transactions, matches receipts and collects rent for every property. My tax prep is done, my weekends are mine again. Plus, I'm saving a ton of money on banking fees and apps that I don't need anymore.

• 8:50Henry Washington?

  Get a $100 bonus when you sign up today at baseline.com/bp. BiggerPockets Pro members also get a free upgrade to Baseline Smart. That's packed with advanced automations and features to save even more time.

• 9:04Dave Meyer?

  Summer bookings sound great until someone slips by the pool, gets hurt on your dock or damages your property during a long holiday weekend. A lot of short-term rental investors don't realize their standard policy may leave gaps when it comes to short-term rental activity. That's why investors use Steadily. They offer landlord insurance built for real estate investors, including short-term rentals. And if you're a BiggerPockets Pro member, you'll also get 5% off your landlord insurance premiums. Visit biggerpockets.com/landlordinsurance to learn more.

• 9:36Henry Washington?

  Here's a strategy that most W2 employees have never heard of. Normally, if you want to write off a rental property against your regular income, you need real estate professional status. That means tracking hundreds of hours a year. Rent to Retirement just launched a program that skips all of that. It's called the STR loophole tenant placement program. Here's how it works. You buy one of Rent to Retirement's Class A new construction investment properties. You set up an Airbnb listing and self-manage it for the remainder of the year. Rent to Retirement then rents the home as a short-term rental to establish it as an STR for the year. No furnishing required, making this the easy button to save five or six figures in taxes this year.

• 10:18Henry Washington?

  And because you're the sole manager, there's no hourly minimum to meet. That lets you use a cost segregation study to accelerate the depreciation and potentially write off over $100,000 against your income. Even on your first rental, add in cash back up to 13% of the home price, which exceeds $60,000 on some properties. With this massive cash back incentive, investors are seeing total Returns up to 126% new construction A-class properties and inventory is limited. Learn more at biggerpockets.com/retirement or text REI to 33777. Again, text REI to 33777.

• 11:00Henry Washington?

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• 11:42Henry Washington?

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• 12:04Speaker 03

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• 12:33Henry Washington?

  All right, we're back on the BiggerPockets Podcast with Flo Jacques, and we're talking about her first investment property and transitioning to her second. So what was next?

• 12:42Speaker 02

  So, you know, I closed on that. I knew that the rehab budget was assigned. That was being worked on. And then I had like another burst of hmm. This duplex downtown Durham, I'd love to have it, you know? And so I'm like, I have the funds, I can take on another project.

• 13:01Henry Washington?

  That couldn't have been $90,000.

• 13:03Dave Meyer?

  No.

• 13:03Henry Washington?

  Downtown Durham duplex?

• 13:05Speaker 02

  No, not at all. I saw it, prayed about it, and I took a minute, you know, I took a couple of days and, and then everything started feeling right. And so I went and put an offer on it. That one was, I closed it at 287,000.

• 13:18Dave Meyer?

  Oh, whoa, that's way cheaper than I thought you were gonna say.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:21Dave Meyer?

  Where were you getting the money from at this point? Were you working in admissions or were you making money as a, as an agent?

• 13:26Speaker 02

  I was doing both. I was a college admissions counselor up until, um, early 2025 as well as, I did real estate. I wasn't like the top producer agent killing it with deals really. But my mortgage on my first home was like $700 a month, you know? So I saved, I was, I mean, just like at 21, I decided to buy a house. It's because I had 15K saved, you know, I've just been a saver.

• 13:52Henry Washington?

  I think that that's just a good habit to have, the fact that you're a saver, because it helps you to be prepared when opportunities arise. And it sounds like you have no problem capitalizing on opportunities when they arise. But still, you had a job, you had to scrounge up the money in order to save up. So what did the financing look like, both on the first one and then on the duplex? Was this conventional loans? Were they construction loans?

• 14:14Speaker 02

  What I did was hard money. All of my deals actually so far have been hard money. And so from a lot of communication, asking who people know, who do you recommend? I landed with this lender, this hard money lender, and their terms were great, 100% financing of the purchase and rehab.

• 14:33Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 14:33Speaker 02

  Up to 75% of the ARV. And so I was like, oh, so you'll fund the rehab and the purchase 100% so long as it meets the 75% or 70% formula? Perfect. So, once I found that lender, all I had to do was pay origination fees, closing costs, that sort of stuff. And, you know, so that's really what empowered me to do that multifamily a month after closing on the first one. Because so long as you have liquid cash, you're like, I could do two at the same time. They're taking care of the purchase and rehab.

• 15:02Dave Meyer?

  Well, I love the way that you're approaching this. I am sure there are people listening to this who want to do the exact same thing, get 100% financing on a duplex or a reno. How did you approach lenders? With no offense, like you didn't have any experience either. So like, how did you get people to lend to you in that for these deals?

• 15:22Speaker 02

  I think this lender is a gem, to be honest, because they don't have a experience requirement, actually. But most other lenders did. They, in order to lend to you at 100%, they need you to show five deals or something like that. They have a loyalty program though. Your first three deals, you know, you pay, it's like 12.99%, 2.99% origination fee or something like that. After your first three deals with them, then it goes down to 10.99% interest rate and 1.99 origination fee.

• 15:53Dave Meyer?

  Good for you for finding that. Honestly, like, just doing that little bit of legwork sounds like enabled you to really start your portfolio quickly.

• 16:01Speaker 02

  Exactly. Yeah, I just needed the financing and then I was ready to go, you know?

• 16:05Henry Washington?

  Yeah, I have a very similar situation. I found a lender when I first got started that was basically telling me how they could fund all my deals without me having to spend a ton of money. And so the goal became to figure out how to go bring in more deals so that I could get them financed. And so I understand going shopping because you're like, hey, I got a checkbook, I'm gonna go shopping. But with hard money, it's a short-term loan. And you said these were rental properties. So I'm assuming you had to refinance out of this, this short-term loan at some point?

• 16:32Speaker 02

  Correct. The duplex finished first, which was funny, you know, even though I bought it second, it finished first. That was also a six-figure rehab too. That's, that was supposed to be 65. I think it came out to like 130,000 or something.

• 16:47Henry Washington?

  Oh, wow. That was...

• 16:48Speaker 02

  It was, I mean...

• 16:50Dave Meyer?

  That's a miss. That one's a miss. That's okay. I mean, it happens.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, maybe it was slightly undergranted. I did account for like, I had to furnish it because that one I made it into like Airbnb mid-term rental condition.

• 17:03Dave Meyer?

  How are you managing this? You were working full-time. You said you were, you didn't even have that much time necessarily to be an agent. Then you're managing two construction projects that...

• 17:12Henry Washington?

  The same time, how were you going about that?

• 17:14Speaker 02

  So I actually had contractors doing the work and so I will be honest, I was not visiting those properties, which was a mistake I made. You know, when I look back, you know, you know, weeks going by not, not paying attention, just trusting them, like just send me pictures, you know, that sort of stuff. So, you know, whenever I could, I would, but I really wasn't. So yeah, I mean, I, I went forward with just having them pay for like materials and labor. And so all I'm doing is wiring or whatever the costs.

• 17:45Henry Washington?

  So this, I assume it was a general contractor. They brought in all their own subs.

• 17:49Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 17:50Henry Washington?

  They were sending you pictures, communicating each week and you were just wiring money saying, oh yeah, that's great.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, pretty much.

• 17:57Henry Washington?

  So went, went okay on the first one, went, went slightly over budget on the second one. But with the overages, were you able to go ahead and pull off the refinance?

• 18:08Speaker 02

  Yes, I was able to pull off both refinances. I will say that these stories are, this is a little wonky. Like, you know, for the first property, I had a contractor, he was licensed and everything, really sweet guy. He didn't have the crew to handle that scope. We had to like rehab the entire foundation. That was like literally full gut. We tore down the foundation, rebuilt it. That was like, we rebuilt every single thing in that house, like roach infested and everything. He didn't have the scope to do that level of work. I ended up firing him and having the guy that was doing my duplex to come and kind of step in. Then things went off with him where he was a greedy gouger

• 18:48Speaker 02

  and was insane with his prices. So I got rid of him and then the third contractors who really finished that job. They weren't licensed, but they had, they worked under licensed people, had their subs and whatnot. So that's for that first house in the flood zone.

• 19:04Henry Washington?

  Before we move on to talking about what came next for you, given the situation with these contractors and given the situation with how you found these properties and the size of renovations you took on, what advice do you have for people who are maybe considering buying a property in that same price point? Who had, that have a heavy Because I think people often forget that, yes, you can buy cheap houses, but a lot of the times they are tied to large renovations. And it's not necessarily a bad thing, but it sounds like you learned a lot of lessons. So what did you learn or what would you do different if you were brand new again, looking at properties like this?

• 19:39Speaker 02

  I would definitely structure the deal a lot more conservatively than I did because I can, I structured it initially at 75%. And then in a market where homes are dirt cheap, a highly renter market, which meant there were a lack of sales and comps to justify this new, completely renovated home to be 230,000, which is what it appraised to be. But because there were some challenges with comps, when I went to refinance, the underwriter asked, hey, can you tell me why you use these comps instead of this? Even though the appraiser was like, well, this is pretty much new construction. Like you didn't have to replace the roof or the exterior, but you did everything brand new inside, new electrical, new everything, you know?

• 20:24Speaker 02

  And so that question ended up bringing the appraisal price down 26,000. So that's the lesson that I learned there. Structure deals more conservatively, especially if you're targeting those cheaper housing markets.

• 20:40Dave Meyer?

  Those are great lessons. Thank you, Flo. And lessons we unfortunately all sometimes have to figure out. But now that we're now a year and a half or so into this, where did these two rental properties net you at the end of the day? After you refinancing, are they cash flowing for you? How are they performing?

• 20:57Speaker 02

  Yes, they're doing pretty good. So the, for that first one, we had that one rented out to a group home tenant. There's a lot of interest for some reason in that market for group homes, you know? I had that rented out for 1595. So I was, yeah, I was cash flowing very minimal. I'm telling you that that flood zone insurance is really eating into it. But I was just happy that the mortgage was being covered. And you know, sometimes that's all you can be happy with, you know? As far as the duplex, both are Airbnb on VRBO Furnish Finder, that sort of stuff. So, yeah. They've been, that one's cash flowing between eight hundred to a thousand per month.

• 21:36Dave Meyer?

  Wow, on a $200,000 purchase, right?

• 21:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, two hundred, two eighty seven. Yes, that one appraised for four sixty two five.

• 21:44Dave Meyer?

  Oh, wow. Nice.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  So that one turned out really well. Yeah, that was, that's a lesson I learned for targeting slightly more expensive markets, right? Because then they have more crops.

• 21:57Dave Meyer?

  And when you did the refi, for just for that example, on the duplex, you built a ton of equity. That's awesome. When you did the refi, did you pull cash out to use for your next deal like a BRRRR? Or did you keep cash in to preserve your cash flow?

• 22:11Speaker 02

  So I actually did pull cash out of that one. I actually pulled cash out of the other one, too, like two thousand. You know, it was like two thousand. To be honest, I was like, I mean, I know this, this is something very real out there. I was also drowning in the losses of these going over budget. So I needed cash out to recover a little, you know? Yeah.

• 22:33Dave Meyer?

  There's no right answer. I'm just curious because I think people say, you know, you can't do a BRRRR. But clearly you created a deal that you could pull substantial amounts of cash out of.

• 22:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:43Dave Meyer?

  It's up to you whether you want to keep money in. That improves your cash flow because you're borrowing less money. But then you, you know, have to save up to buy your next deal. So I, I think it sounds like you're only at the beginning of your career here. So pulling money out and focusing on a next acquisition, doing more BRRRR kind of deals where you can build equity. Makes sense to me that you would prioritize that over cash flow right now.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  Right, exactly. So, yeah, that one turned out well.

• 23:08Henry Washington?

  Well, Flo, it sounds like you became a real life real estate investor. You, you, you went through the ropes of buying cheap property. You went through the ropes of a hundred thousand dollar renovation. You went through the ropes of contractors not doing what you wanted them to do, spending too much of your money. I mean, you got, you got put through the wringer, but at the end of the day, you have a couple of properties. So I'd love to transition and talk to you about what you did next, but I'd like to do that right after this break.

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• 28:13Henry Washington?

  All right, we are back again with Flo Jacques, talking about how she has been through the real estate investment wringer, but has come out clean on the other side. So Flo, after these two deals, so you bought a single family and now a duplex. First, do you still own the single family?

• 28:32Speaker 02

  I still own both, yes.

• 28:33Henry Washington?

  Okay, okay, so you still own the properties. And have you purchased anything else since then?

• 28:38Speaker 02

  Yes, so right before the year ended, December 1st, 2025, I closed on a single-family half-acre lot in Raleigh, North Carolina.

• 28:48Henry Washington?

  I love Raleigh. Okay, and is this a home you're going to live in? Is this a rental? Is it a flip? Tell us about it.

• 28:54Speaker 02

  So actually, I decided I wanted this one to be a flip. Although in my mind initially, when I started this journey, I thought I would just burr the rest of my life, you know?

• 29:09Speaker 02

  Literally, but I, you know, I'm like, you know what? I could use some, I could use some extra capital right now, especially after those two rehabs, honestly. So this one I actually found off-market. That's my first off-market deal.

• 29:21Henry Washington?

  Oh, okay. Off-market, so tell us about that. How did it, how did it come to pass?

• 29:27Speaker 02

  You know, I attended a private money lending conference back in October after BPCon. So I was at BPCon and I flew back from Vegas on a red-eye and literally headed to Atlantic Beach, North Carolina for this private money lending conference. And that kind of reignited this like, okay, Flo, get back on the saddle, you know? And so I think a month after that conference, I landed, you know, this deal. I found investor lift, you know? That off market platform wholesalers are on there, you know, and so I was just browsing and working out the deals. You still got to do your own calculations because those people are liars. Yes. And so that one, it seems like a lot of investors were passing on it because the ceiling doesn't meet code.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  It's under seven feet and Raleigh requires a minimum of seven feet. And so to me, the strategy is when others are not buying it, that's your opportunity to negotiate and win it, you know?

• 30:23Henry Washington?

  That's absolutely true. I think everybody should have a buy box and should have some sort of deal breaker. And it's different for every person and it's different in every market. Like I've heard people like Leka, who's on this show frequently, who said she will never buy a property to flip that's on a double yellow line road because the houses on busy roads don't sell. I flip those houses all the time. It's different in different markets, but I pay a lot less for them because I underwrite them extremely conservatively. So everything that you need to fix on a house, no matter how catastrophic, is just a dollar amount.

• 30:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 30:57Henry Washington?

  And so it tells you how much you need to pay in order to fix the problem. So I'm assuming that's the lens you were looking through. Can I fix this problem if I get it cheap enough?

• 31:06Speaker 02

  Correct. Exactly.

• 31:08Henry Washington?

  So how'd you do it?

• 31:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. So this time I was much better. At this point, I'm a full-time real estate professional. I no longer work.

• 31:15Henry Washington?

  Get your contractor's license now.

• 31:16Speaker 02

  Exactly. Well, you know, I've thought about that, you know, where I have really thought about that. But um, yeah, you know, now that I'm like a fully like full-time real estate professional, I don't work that job anymore. And so I have more time to take my time and do my due diligence. So I invited the contractor, walked it through with him. He gave me a budget and so hopefully he doesn't listen to this episode, but the budget I saw the contractor is very different than what I actually borrow from the lender.

• 31:44Henry Washington?

  That's just called being a smart investor, dear.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  You know? Especially after the lessons I learned, right? Going over budget and stuff. So um, you know, once I was clear on how much he was going to do it for, I budgeted for contingencies, a very good bit. Also paying myself, I also started budgeting to pay myself for my time and energy. Projects. And so it was, it was, I, I worked backwards from there. This is the rehab budget. I actually structured it at 65% ARV.

• 32:13Henry Washington?

  Okay.

• 32:13Speaker 02

  For this one. So I purchased it for 120 and the ARV on it is 337. And that is actually a conservative appraisal.

• 32:22Henry Washington?

  That's a stellar deal. That's almost a six figure net profit.

• 32:25Speaker 02

  Yes, that's correct.

• 32:27Henry Washington?

  That's a stellar deal. So did you have to pop the top and raise the, raise the roof?

• 32:31Speaker 02

  We're literally, we are doing that. We are literally doing that right now. I've been back and forth on the phone with the power company, turn the meter off, install, install temporary meter pole. Like we are actively working on this right now. We are actually a little two months behind the ball. Thanks to that contractor who I really wanted to fire, you know, but I'm like, you know what? I've worked with him.

• 32:53Henry Washington?

  So just to be clear, it had slower than seven foot ceilings. And so for you to be able to sell this property, you've got to get to at least seven foot ceilings on your renovation. So you're raising the ceiling height, but all the same level. You're not adding a second story to the.

• 33:06Dave Meyer?

  Literally raising the roof.

• 33:07Henry Washington?

  Literally raising the roof. I love it.

• 33:13Dave Meyer?

  All right. So Flo, we're 18 months into your investing career, Flo. Can you just like summarize what your portfolio looks like today?

• 33:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. So currently I do include my primary home because I bought it to be an investment property three months after, but that didn't work out. I'm still here, you know? So I'm, but I am very proud of it because it's hard to find a home in Cary, North Carolina. It's one of the more expensive places to live in North Carolina. So I consider this condo as well as the single family in Rocky Mount, the duplex in Durham, and this single family half acre lot in Raleigh. So that is my portfolio, two years from 2024 to date.

• 33:53Dave Meyer?

  Nice. Good for you. I mean, it's a really well diversified first couple of deals, right? Like you've done a little bit of everything, but it sounds like the goal is still long-term cash flow. Maybe you like do some flips opportunistically, but still want to be a, a buy and hold kind of investor.

• 34:13Speaker 02

  Yes. My goal. Is to continue to build the portfolio. I haven't exactly figured out my freedom number. I think maybe when I figure that out, I'll know exactly how many properties I want to have. But I will tell you this, though, my life as a licensed real estate broker, investor, the goal is to eventually develop.

• 34:32Dave Meyer?

  I love that goal. That's awesome. What about development appeals to you? Cause I'm terrified of it.

• 34:38Speaker 02

  So I want to be a developer because I want to build communities. I spoke to somebody this morning about her, her son is special needs. She wants to build a community for special needs families to, you know, it's just thinking about providing solutions to communities and things like that. So I don't have it all figured out, but I do know I want to build, you know?

• 34:59Henry Washington?

  All right, Flo. Well, this is an incredible story. Before we get out of here, is there anything you want to share with us? Maybe something that real estate allows you to be able to do now?

• 35:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think my life is like full circle, right? Like I got my background, like my education, you know, social studies, teaching license, my master's in school counseling. So this kind of like education thing that I thought I did just to not ever actually do is now fully present in my real estate investing career, where I, I help other people get the information I was desperately seeking when I wanted this information. So I've been teaching real estate investing classes, just free, just like inviting people and that sort of stuff. So it's been phenomenal just bringing that to the community.

• 35:43Henry Washington?

  I love that. I love that you're now able to provide help to your community through your experiences. And that's something that real estate allows us to do because when we have something that we know is going to bring us income, then it allows us to be able to focus on things, especially like people who want to start businesses. First couple of years in business is hard. You may not make money. And so being able to lean on your real estate and start a business or start a passion project or a nonprofit is super cool. So I'm glad you're, you're able to give back to your community.

• 36:15Dave Meyer?

  Totally. And I just love that. It's kind of like an intersection marrying like two different parts of your life. Like for you, teaching and real estate, you found a way to. Incorporate both of those. I've done that. I know Henry's done that as well. It's really cool that you don't just have to be a real estate investor. There are ways that you can use this industry to pursue things that you really like as well. It's awesome to hear that you're doing that flow. So early in your real estate investing career. Congratulations.

• 36:41Speaker 02

  Thank you. Thank you.

• 36:42Henry Washington?

  All right. Well, we'll have to have you back so you can tell us all about the flow estates after you get finished developing those. And then I'm sure you'll be teaching people how to be a real estate developer.

• 36:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, we'll see. Never know, right?

• 36:57Henry Washington?

  All right. I think that was fun. That was a cool story to listen to. I think we often hear the opposite from people where it's, I just researched for years and then

• 37:06Dave Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 37:07Henry Washington?

  I finally took some action and Flo was like, I'm just gonna go buy something.

• 37:11Dave Meyer?

  I'm diving in right now.

• 37:12Henry Washington?

  I'm just gonna buy something.

• 37:13Dave Meyer?

  I love it. It's a great approach. I think it shows that creativity and just determination still net good deals in 2024. Like, you know, I was, she started in a difficult time. 2024 is maybe the hardest market in the last seven or eight years, you know, and she just went for it, found great deals, educated herself and pulled it off.

• 37:38Henry Washington?

  And think about the confidence she now has. Cause if you were able to successfully invest in 2024 and 2025, whether you got beat up along the way or not, she's still here now talking about deals that were, that are positive in a lot of ways. Like that breeds a lot of confidence. As the market shifts to a more favorable real estate market, like you gotta be feeling good.

• 38:03Dave Meyer?

  I hope everyone listening listens to Flo's story and realize that deals still can be done. Like this is someone who started with very little experience, very little capital in a super expensive market and pulled off three deals in 18 months. Like if Flo can do it, everyone out there, if you educate yourself, you can do it as well.

• 38:21Henry Washington?

  I mean, she did several things that people say you can't do. She went and she got a hundred percent financing on her first deal.

• 38:27Dave Meyer?

  That's true.

• 38:28Henry Washington?

  And yeah, yeah. She went over budget on her renovation. She had to fire three contractors, but who hasn't had to go through something? Some of those things. I think we're all going to go through some of those things. What I think is a good part about this story is single family real estate. Yes, you can have challenges, but no one's going to die if it doesn't go perfectly. Right? Like you're not going to go bankrupt. If you feel like you have enough of a financial backing to take a couple of lumps along the way, like taking the action and learning the lessons can be far more valuable than trying to learn all the lessons upfront and then getting into a deal where you're still going to take some lumps. All right, folks, we're going to get out of here, but if you enjoyed Flow Story, I recommend that you check out the BiggerPockets Podcast, episode 1105 with Deandra McDonald.

• 39:11Henry Washington?

  It's another investor story and one of our most popular episodes from the last few years. That's episode 1105 from last April and we'll link it right here on YouTube as well. Thank you so much for watching. We'll see you on the next episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast.

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