$65,000/Year in Cash Flow From a 100% Remote Real Estate Portfolio

In just under six years, Bryan Field built a 100% remote real estate investment portfolio producing over $65,000 per year in cash flow. He bought properties sight unseen, chose markets that made the most money, and routinely reinvested his home equity. He started with zero real estate experience, and his first real investment went way over budget, but he bounced back and has already replaced a sizable chunk of his salary. Stuck in San Diego, Bryan knew he wanted to invest, but not in the million-dollar houses around him. The best bet? Move to a cheaper market (Arizona), buy a home, and try to invest there. A HELOC-funded house flip with a friend turned into a six-figure renovation, but they both walked away unscathed. After returning to San Diego with his newborn son, Bryan was determined to invest somewhere affordable, scalable, and profitable. Over the next few years, Bryan bought duplexes in South Dakota, seller-financed portfolios in Arkansas, and short-term rentals in Virginia. He used equity to make down payments, moved markets when he found better deals, and now makes over $5,000/month on his rentals alone, living in Southern California and investing from thousands of miles away. Priced out of your market? Feel like you’re boxed out of investing? If you’ve got a laptop, a phone, and some starting capital, you can repeat Bryan’s process! In This Episode We Cover How to use home equity (via a HELOC) to buy your first investment property Choosing a market with the best cash flow potential (and tenant pool) How to find seller-financeable rental property deals even in a market you’re brand new to Buying investment properties sight unseen confidently when you’re hundreds or thousands of miles away The creative investment Bryan made that is not a rental property but is in real estate And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠h⁠⁠t⁠t⁠ps://www⁠.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1324. 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?

  You can build a salary replacing rental portfolio all from your computer. That's what Brian Field did, buying rental properties throughout the United States in markets that made the most cash flow. His portfolio of less than 10 rentals produces over $65,000 per year in pure profit, and he never even saw most of his properties before he bought them. Brian wanted something that could help replace his nine to five job in the healthcare industry, but buying rentals in San Diego was not going to cut it when the average home price is a million dollars. So he went where the deals made sense. Arizona, South Dakota, Arkansas, Virginia. He's done long-term rentals, short-term rentals, and even seller financing to buy six

• 0:43Henry Washington?

  units with just $53,000 in cash. The best part? He did it all while working from home. The key to his income-producing rental property portfolio? A type of financing that many homeowners in America have access to right now. Let's hear all about that and more as we jump right in.

• 1:04Henry Washington?

  What's going on, everybody? I'm Henry Washington, co-host of the BiggerPockets Podcast, and today's guest is investor Brian Field from San Diego. Let's bring him on. Mr. Brian Field, welcome to the BiggerPockets Podcast.

• 1:16Speaker 01

  Thanks, Henry. Good to see you. Happy to be here, man.

• 1:18Henry Washington?

  Why don't you give us some background? Tell us what you were doing before you got into real estate.

• 1:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, before real estate, I've had a pretty lengthy career in healthcare staffing, so placing travel nurses across the country. And so I've had probably about a 10-year career with two or three different companies doing that, and it's certainly gotten me in a position to be able to buy real estate and jump that, make that leap.

• 1:43Henry Washington?

  Is that how you got exposure to real estate investing? Like placing travel nurses and other people's investments? Or was there something else that kind of gave you the bug?

• 1:51Speaker 01

  The bug was wanting to get out of the, the general nine to five workhorse and, you know, find alternative investments, avenues, things to get me out of W2 income and, and corporate employment. So I stumbled across bigger pockets, you know, on, online rabbit holes and found an interest for real estate. And so I started my learning journey, all the podcast books, et cetera, while I was still working there. And then, once I started investing, I was like, I put two and two together, like, hey, maybe this travel nursing could be a good niche for, for what I'm doing.

• 2:28Henry Washington?

  What year was it when you started like learning and researching?

• 2:33Speaker 01

  2017, 2018, and a couple of years down the road, we bought a primary house and used that to fund everything else that we've got.

• 2:43Henry Washington?

  Did you buy that primary with investing in mind? Like, did you plan on it always being an investment down the road? Or did it just happen that way?

• 2:51Speaker 01

  Well, the story with that was, um, my wife and I were living in San Diego, priced out of the market based on what we were earning. We had some friends in Arizona, so talking to him about, hey, I'm interested in real estate investing, you're interested in real estate investing, we could work remote with our W2 job. So we actually were like, let's go plant roots there. Let's buy a primary house. And then from there, we can sort of pick our neighborhoods and work with our friend out there to flip houses, buy rentals. So we ended up buying that primary to go out there purposefully for real estate investing.

• 3:27Henry Washington?

  Tell us about the numbers on that. What that, what that first primary looked like?

• 3:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we bought it for $395. We had been making offers really sight unseen from San Diego with a Realtor. People were waiving all the contingencies, all cash. We were up against a lot, but we managed to, to find one. So we bought it for $395. We waived appraisal and inspection. And yeah, it was a nice starter home, three-bed, two-bath, 1,800 square feet, 1990 build, so pretty good shape.

• 3:58Henry Washington?

  You know, it's interesting hearing stories like this because, man, you essentially uprooted your life, moved to a different state, bought a house almost sight unseen. You never saw it in person. You saw pictures and videos. And you, and you did it all with real estate investing in mind. So, once you got to your house and you got settled, how long did it take you before you actually bought an actual investment?

• 4:22Speaker 01

  It took about a year of us being there before we bought our first investment. So while we had that whole year to save up our cash, um, we were also in this incredible equity ride that the Arizona or Phoenix market saw. So our house, a year later, appraised for $550. So my wife and I and our friend and his wife, we both pulled out HELOCs on our primary residence. At the time, we could do like 90 or 95% of the, the value. So we had these massive, each of us had like 100,000 in, in HELOC funds that we could access. And so with that, we combined forces and we bought a flip.

• 5:04Henry Washington?

  Awesome. Yeah. So tell us about that deal. What'd you pay for it? What did you have to put into it?

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we bought it, uh, for $345. It was on the other side of Phoenix in a little town called Sun City. So while we were investing in our own backyard, it was still an hour away for, from us. We did a full gut renovation. We turned an office into a bedroom, new flooring, new kitchen, new bathrooms, picked out all the tiles. All in all, we probably spent $130,000 in renovation and holding costs. So it was a pretty big one.

• 5:42Henry Washington?

  Were there problems or mishaps that popped up that really taught you something along the way? Cause that's a, that's a big renovation for new, for a new investor.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, uh, there were certainly some missteps, right? So one thing that comes to mind is the idea we had versus the idea the contractor had.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  We wanted to be very hands-on and choose all of our finishes and pick out the, the color coordination of how everything looked. And our contractor was builder grade, was going to do very basic, basic, basic. And so when we started getting into change orders, that's when we started butting heads. And we didn't expect to have any change orders. We thought, okay, here's the price, uh, that he quoted us and we could go pick within that price. And that just didn't turn out to be the case at all. So, um, lesson learned to make sure that you find a contractor and that you guys are both in understanding of the type of work that you're going to be doing.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  So yeah, lesson learned there, but certainly a fun one to go for our first deal.

• 6:46Henry Washington?

  $135. So I assume that's not what you originally budgeted. Did you go over budget because of the change orders or did you end up pretty close?

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Oh, we went way over budget. We were probably in this 75, 80,000 range.

• 6:58Henry Washington?

  Okay.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Renovation probably ended around 90 to 100, and then the extra holding costs, utilities, things like that. So definitely went way over what we had envisioned.

• 7:09Henry Washington?

  Kind of what you're talking about with the managing the expectations with the contractor? Like, honestly, that's, you know, a simple communication issue. We make a lot of assumptions as investors and contractors also make assumptions. And so I think the more open communication that investors can have with their contractors on the front end, the better you're going to be. Usually when I work with a new contractor, those are a lot of things that we're talking about on the front end. As they're giving me a bid, I expect and tell them, hey, I need you to tell me what your assumptions are with this bid. Is this bid assuming we're using a certain type of flooring or a certain type of tile? Is there a variance for me to change it?

• 7:53Henry Washington?

  And when I do the scope of work, it might say LVP flooring. And then at the end of that, I'll put who's responsible for picking the materials, right? So we say it on, so I'll put my name, LVP flooring, Henry. That means I'm going to pick the flooring. And so I can at least have a budget to go pick what I want based on that bid. So that way I know if I pick something that's more expensive, then my bid is going up from the beginning. But man, it saved me a lot of time and effort just putting the who's responsible for making the selection. Cause yes, I want to pick what style floors we use. I don't want to pick the drywall we use, right? Like, I need, I need you to go pick that, right? So having that conversation on the front side really helps clear a lot of those things up.

• 8:37Henry Washington?

  All right, those are great lessons to learn on a first deal. Cause you got to remember, your first deal isn't just about profitability. Your first deal is about learning how to do this business. So you paid $345, you ended up at about 130 on the renovation. What'd you sell for?

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Uh, just under 500 at $497.

• 8:55Henry Washington?

  And if my math is right, it shows that you were profitable, maybe not hugely profitable, but profitable. So what were you able to walk away with net profit?

• 9:02Speaker 01

  It was around 25,000, split between my partner and I, and we just kept it and sat on it and we're hoping to roll it into another deal.

• 9:11Henry Washington?

  All right, first flip, I'm going to call it a success, man. Made a little bit of money, learned a whole lot, because that's a big renovation to pull off, ended up walking away with some cash. So I'd love to dive into what the next step looked like right after the break. 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.

• 9:54Henry Washington?

  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. 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 incentives, investors are seeing total returns up to 126%. New construction, A-class properties, and inventory is limited.

• 10:38Henry Washington?

  Learn more at biggerpockets.com/retirement or text REI to 33777. Again, text REI to 33777.

• 10:49Dave 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.

• 11:21Henry Washington?

  Quick word about a new pro perk you'll want to know about. Aven, if you're a homeowner, there's a good chance you're sitting on equity that you're not using. The problem is tapping into that usually means a cash-out refi, a traditional second mortgage, or weeks of paperwork just to get approved. Aven built something different. It's a credit card, but it's backed by your home equity. So you get a lot of the rate benefits of a HELOC with the flexibility of a card you can use anywhere. Rates are typically well below a standard credit card. Approval is fast and mostly online, and you can use it for anything. A renovation, paying down high-interest debt, or just have more breathing room in your budget. And if you're a BiggerPockets Pro member, there's an extra reason to check it out. Get approved for the Aven card and you'll get a $400 statement credit

• 12:04Henry Washington?

  after spending $400 on your Aven card. Enough to cover your entire annual pro membership. Head over to aven.com/biggerpockets to see if you qualify. Aven Financial, NMLS #2042345. Cards issued per 2020 license from Visa USA, Inc. by Coastal Community Bank. NMLS #462289. Member FDIC, equal housing lender, subject to approval, terms apply. Visit aven.com for details.

• 12:26Speaker 03

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• 12:57Henry Washington?

  All right, we are back on the BiggerPockets Podcast with investor Brian Field, who just told us about his successful first flip with a pretty hefty renovation price tag. But you made money, you learned a lot along the way. So I'm assuming you wanted to repeat that process, but what actually happened next?

• 13:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, so as life happens, my wife and I had our son, and we ended up going back to San Diego where we were still priced out of the market. So the good news is we ended up renting out that primary. So we technically had our first rental after the flip, and we were cash flowing like 750 bucks because we had-

• 13:39Henry Washington?

  That interest rate.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, so and rents were skyrocketing because people were, you know, not able to buy houses because of all the competition. So moved back to San Diego, had a rental in Arizona, and our course of action sort of led us to out of state where we could buy some more cash-flowing assets at a little bit lower of a price point. And so we started researching where to buy and ended up getting our next couple of rentals that way.

• 14:06Henry Washington?

  What went into your evaluation of markets to consider to even invest out of state? Because I guarantee you, there's people listening right now who are in San Diego who want to invest out of state and are not quite sure where to start.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  So this is going to tie back into my corporate W2 job in healthcare staffing. So COVID was wild. We were working with hospitals across the country. I could see all the travel nurses going to all these different places. My wife also worked in the industry. And so that's what fueled our market exploration was where are we sending nurses? And kind of the aha moment for us. My wife had this account, a hospital in South Dakota. She was booking a lot of nurses there, and they were canceling because they couldn't find housing. So a light bulb went off. We started researching, you know, how can we invest in this market

• 15:02Speaker 01

  to provide housing for nurses that don't cancel? And they can go serve the patients and be a win-win, right? So that's, that's how we got into the exploration of the different markets, was where, where are the nurses going outside of California? And, you know, more of the affordable markets.

• 15:19Henry Washington?

  First of all, that's really cool. A really smart thing to do because you're leveraging your expertise to try to pick a market. And in terms of affordability, what did that mean to you? Like, what did a property cost in that market?

• 15:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we bought our first duplex there at $130,000.

• 15:38Henry Washington?

  $130,000? Is that like a duplex that needed a ton of work? Or is that like a duplex that's turnkey?

• 15:43Speaker 01

  It could have been lived in right away, but we renovated it. And we actually did a partial burr, so it worked out in our favor. And, you know, I think $130, what did we put into it? Another 30,000 or 40,000 in just the flooring, kitchens, paints, fixtures, a lot of the basic stuff. And then we reappraised for hire, took out some cash, and ended up renting it out.

• 16:11Henry Washington?

  Sounds good, like buy something for 130, spend 30 on a renovation, and then rent it out. But you didn't live there. So what was the process like of even finding contractors and managing a renovation from that far away?

• 16:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I've always been about referrals, right? So I naturally, when you're looking for investment properties, I'm on Zillow, right? And I'm looking at places and I'm thinking the numbers, right? Look okay, but I'm not sure. And so I just called a couple of different real estate brokers, started telling my story, telling them what I wanted to do, narrowed it down to one or two brokers and had them both looking for deals for me. And they helped it pencil and make sense. And so from there, that person also ended up having a property management leg. And then they, they had a ton of different contractors. So really, it was the broker agent that referred us to everyone we needed out there.

• 17:10Henry Washington?

  So you paid 130, you put about 30, 35 in it. So you're all in 160, 165. What kind of rent were you getting out of this thing?

• 17:20Speaker 01

  So they were both two-bed, one-bath, and we got about 900 a unit for those, so 1,800.

• 17:26Henry Washington?

  That's a solid deal, man. It's a solid cash-flowing deal. Now, you place travel nurses. Did you not want to do a furnished rental in this?

• 17:36Speaker 01

  So this was the caveat that we learned after doing the renovations. The Realtor, investor Realtor was like, you know, you could get really good rents for this completed unit for a long-term tenant, and you don't have to do the management headaches of every month or three months turning over a new tenant, and you don't have to buy the furniture. So we were like, oh, we were super happy and excited to place travel nurses, but it just penciled out more for us to do long-term tenants at that time after the renovations. And it was, you know, hands-off. We, she was going to be the property manager, so we just ended up taking that route.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  And it was probably for the better, too, that we didn't have to invest the extra in the furniture and all that, so.

• 18:22Henry Washington?

  I like that. I like that you evaluated it after you bought it. You didn't just throw furniture in there and hope for the best. You said, hey, long-term tenants, I'm going to get good enough rent, you're cash flowing. That's, that's awesome, man. Great deal and way to pull off a out-of-state renovation while you're living in San Diego with a wife and a new baby. That's a, that's impressive on its own. So what did you do next? Did you keep buying in, in South Dakota? Or did you move to somewhere else and buy somewhere else again?

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I took a chapter out of your playbook, Henry. And I've listened to you guys for so long. I know you're in Arkansas. I had been listening. I started looking in Arkansas. Your Fayetteville market was a little bit overpriced for you.

• 19:05Henry Washington?

  It's expensive. It's getting more expensive. I gotta shut up. I keep talking about it and the prices keep going up.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, you had mentioned, though, I think it was one of your podcasts about sleeper markets. And you guys kind of pull data, and you had mentioned, mentioned Jonesboro, Arkansas.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  You actually led me to invest in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

• 19:28Henry Washington?

  All right. So let's hear it. Jonesboro, Arkansas. What did you end up looking for? And then what did you end up actually buying?

• 19:35Speaker 01

  I was looking for small multifamily and I was specifically trying to get seller finance deals at this time.

• 19:41Henry Washington?

  Okay.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  I wanted to use a combination of our HELOC and, you know, seller financing because interest rates were at this time back up to the six, six and seven percents, I believe.

• 19:52Henry Washington?

  Yep.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  So nothing was penciling super great via traditional financing or DSCR even. So I made a ton of calls. I was cold calling owners of buildings via LLC search online. I was Google mapping buildings that I saw multifamily and finding out their LLC and calling them and saying, hey, I'm looking to invest. I was wondering if you had anything you're potentially trying to offload. And after a couple hundred calls, I, I found an agent investor who was willing to sell or finance me some of her properties. So that's, that's exactly what happened next for us. So.

• 20:31Henry Washington?

  That's super cool, man. I, I love that you picked up the phone and you made calls and you landed something. So talk us through what that deal looked like that you landed.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. So luckily an investor friendly agent who owned many of her own properties. And so she had some stuff that she was trying to offload so that she could move on to her next project. And she helped package a few properties that she was willing to get rid of. We discussed seller financing pretty early on. Since she was an agent, it made it easy for me to be like, well, I'm looking for this, this, and this. And she was like, oh, we do seller financing all the time. So she packaged a couple of the properties together. It ended up being three single family houses and a triplex. It was about $53,000 down.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  So makes the, the property values altogether $530,000.

• 21:31Henry Washington?

  Did you go out there and look at these properties like, like, cause this is a market you've never been to, right? It's not even a place you have ties to. So what, like, how did that process work?

• 21:40Speaker 01

  I did not go out there. I think what put me a little bit more at ease was that this person was also an agent. And so there's a bit of that like trust that kind of has to come with being an agent. And I don't know if you'd call that a fiduciary or whatever, but right, there has to be some level of trust with that person. They're an agent, their license could be at risk, et cetera. So I, I trusted and I got videos and pictures and I did inspections on all the houses. After everything came back, I felt comfortable. We were mostly occupied at that time too, with tenants in place. So I was cash flowing day one as well. So it all just worked out that way, but not a whole lot of negotiating back and forth.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  She had a good term sheet. I adjusted it a little bit and we met in the middle and again, 10% down. Our interest rate was about 5% and we were cash flowing a couple hundred dollars a door for that too.

• 22:35Henry Washington?

  What did your debt service or your monthly payment end up being? And then what were you bringing in monthly?

• 22:42Speaker 01

  So we were grossing about $3,800 total between all those units. And then my monthly mortgage was about 1,900. That included taxes and insurance.

• 22:52Henry Washington?

  Awesome.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we were, we were cash flowing after saving for reserves and maintenance and everything about, you know, a little over 1,200, $1,300 a month on that deal.

• 23:04Henry Washington?

  Sounds like a, a, a great owner finance situation. If you want owner finance, folks, Brian just gave you a formula. Cold call high equity owners and just talk to them. If you do it over and over again, and you start building some rapport with the people you're on the phone with, you might land yourself with a deal. That's awesome, Brian. So this is what the third market, you've got a formula that's working. You just, you just repeated this process again, then in, in Arkansas, right?

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Uh, I mean, yes and no. So we did buy another duplex that we did BRRRR in Arkansas.

• 23:39Henry Washington?

  Okay, okay.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  So that one, you know, we bought it under value. We did put another 30, 40,000 into that and then did a cash out refi. So that, that brings our total in Arkansas up to seven units.

• 23:52Henry Washington?

  Okay. So purchase price was what?

• 23:54Speaker 01

  We bought it for 115, initially appraised for 135. So we had equity on the purchase.

• 24:00Henry Washington?

  Okay. So you're all in, again, similar to your very first deal, 165. And then you refinanced, what did it appraise for when you went to do the refi?

• 24:09Speaker 01

  207.

• 24:10Henry Washington?

  Okay. So you're able to pull out a good, a good chunk of your money and do a traditional BRRRR deal.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. We pulled out probably just over our renovation cost out. So we still had a couple thousand left in the deal, which was equivalent to our, um, our, our down payment.

• 24:26Henry Washington?

  Great BRRRR. All right. So I've got questions on why you decided to shift to a new market once again, but I want to talk about that right after the break.

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• 29:28Henry Washington?

  All right, we are back on the BiggerPockets Podcast with investor Brian Field, who lives in San Diego, decided to invest in Arizona, did a flip, went back to San Diego, picked an out-of-state market, why not South Dakota? Did some deals in South Dakota and then decided, you know what, Arkansas sounds awesome. Did some deals in Arkansas and after you successfully pulled off a couple of deals in Arkansas, you thought, you know what, let's change it all up again. So what did you do next?

• 30:00Speaker 01

  I was doing everything I could to help my wife retire from her job and, you know, it made sense for us to keep those properties, but look into a higher cash flow play. Short-term rentals, everybody knows what those can do and we found a new market and invested two short-term rentals in Norfolk, Virginia.

• 30:22Henry Washington?

  How did you end up with Norfolk, Virginia as your destination for short-term rentals?

• 30:27Speaker 01

  I took a look at my living situation in San Diego and said, what coastal markets are like San Diego, but don't have the same house price tags? So I started looking everywhere from, you know, Florida, all the way up the East Coast. And I learned through that exploration that Norfolk has the largest Navy base, I believe, in the world.

• 30:52Henry Washington?

  They sure do.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  And I learned that Norfolk had prices in the low 300s. And so that made the cash flow, you know, light bulb just tick off in my brain. I did some, some research, um, air DNA numbers, um, pulling out just random addresses that were listed for sale. With this pencil, with this pencil, and things were cash flowing really, really well. So I just, um, decided to make the move there.

• 31:18Henry Washington?

  All right. So tell us about the first deal you bought in Norfolk.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  We had a opportunity to buy a single-family house, uh, turnkey, fully renovated. And it had already been operating as a short-term rental. We hired an interior designer to actually, uh, go in and we put wallpaper up. We did some cool artwork and things like that and really revamped the inside, but leaving like the core furniture inside. And so we bought that for, uh, $325, uh, used a straight DSCR loan on that. And it's cash flowing net about $25,000 a year. So almost 2,000 a month with some seasonality.

• 32:01Henry Washington?

  Man, that is phenomenal. What a great short-term rental deal. And you've still got it. It's still operating and it's still killing it.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  We bought one more, the same exact style, uh, as, as that house. Same price range, turnkey, uh, not furnished, but we went and furnished it. And then, um, you know, now we've got two identical within a mile going, um, on short-term rentals out there in Norfolk.

• 32:27Henry Washington?

  All right, man. Brian, this is a really cool story. I love that you definitely aren't afraid to take a very educated risk. Sounds like you've been great at doing your homework in selective markets. Sounds like you've been great in building out-of-state teams, managing renovations out-of-state. These are all things that people who want to get into real estate investing think about that scare them away. And I love that you have executed these things and executed them successfully. This is all something that anyone can do with the tools and resources that are available out there for us right now, especially now that we have AI that can even help us even further.

• 33:11Henry Washington?

  So tell us, what's next? Are you going to continue to grow and expand in any one of these markets? Or have you, have you done something else?

• 33:20Speaker 01

  Uh, we actually did make a very big pivot, but a parallel one to say the least. So being born and raised in San Diego, still somewhat priced out of the market, because all of my investments are, you know, out of state and back down to almost no cash reserves or savings. I started looking into small businesses, but I wanted to stay in the real estate niche. I found a home inspection company here in San Diego that was for sale. And, uh, that's what was next for us is we recently, on New Year's Eve of this year, closed on a home inspection company locally here in town. So now I'm the, the owner and operator of, of a small business that is in the real estate niche.

• 34:02Henry Washington?

  Man, that is really cool. Congratulations on that new business venture. Congratulations on the success you're already having in that new business venture. I do have, um, one last topic that I want to cover with you, uh, about your real estate business before we get out of here. But before we jump into that, can you give us a recap of your overall portfolio? How many units do you have? Where are they situated?

• 34:28Speaker 01

  So right now, um, we stand at seven long-term rental units. All of those are in Arkansas. So we have sold the Arizona single-family that was rented at one point. That was where my HELOC also was. Um, and we sold that, that Aberdeen duplex to help fund this business and some of those short-term rentals. So right now, the, the total unit mix is seven units in Arkansas.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  And two units, the, the two short-term rentals in Virginia.

• 35:00Henry Washington?

  And as a practice, would you say you like being diversified across multiple markets? Or would you recommend people stay in one market?

• 35:09Speaker 01

  We feel super comfortable and stabilized right now. So the, the short-term rentals have their peak seasons. The long-term rentals are kind of the buffer when the short-term rentals have a slower season. And it's nice to be in a couple of different markets. I would have, you know, loved to have held the other properties. But for us, um, repositioning and harvesting what was available to us was, um, something that we took advantage of to get into the business. And, um, you know, I think it's nice to have some diversity. Absolutely.

• 35:39Henry Washington?

  And do you have a total cash flow that your portfolio is producing or it may be broken out by long-term and short-term?

• 35:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the, the two short terms, uh, the big ones are about $50,000 a year net. So each of those is about 2,000 a month on average. And then the long-term rentals per month cumulatively on those seven units is about 1,400 a month.

• 36:01Henry Washington?

  Man, that's awesome. That's a great, just solid cash flowing real estate portfolio. The one thing I wanted to circle back on was this tool that you used that really sounded like it kind of started everything, which was this, uh, line of credit that you had access to. What do you say to those people who maybe have that as an option or considering that as an option?

• 36:21Speaker 01

  I would absolutely 100% redo what I did by leveraging my HELOC with one condition. And everyone really needs to understand this. If you are not paying down that HELOC, whether it's your BRRRR money that's recycling back in and/or your W2 job or some other type of income, if you keep racking up on that HELOC, you will never get out of it. So if you're going to do it, you need to have means to pay it back. So for us, the strategy was BRRRR. We took out cash from those refinances. We put it back into the HELOC to pay it back down, but we didn't have it fully paid down ever.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  So we also rolled in our excess W2 income to help pay it down as well. So that would be my one piece of advice if someone was going to use a HELOC is to make sure that you have means to pay it down. Realistically, the smartest way is to flip, pay 100% of it back. If you're BRRRR-ing and you're not paying 100% of it back, you still need to have maybe, you know, rule in that cash flow or other means of income to make it paid off.

• 37:32Henry Washington?

  I like the idea of leveraging a HELOC to help you get started investing in real estate. Conceptually, I think it works. Where people screw up is they don't do enough research about what types of deals to buy and they go out and they buy a bad deal. If you aren't comfortable enough with the market that you're investing in to know what a good deal looks like, don't touch your HELOC to buy a deal. Because if you buy a bad deal with your HELOC, now you've got to lose money on that deal and you have to focus on paying back a HELOC. And if you leverage your personal house for that HELOC, you're putting your personal home, your family in jeopardy.

• 38:16Henry Washington?

  So you've got to buy good deals. But if you can buy a good deal, I think a HELOC is a good strategy and you've got to have discipline to be able to pay it back. But if you don't have the fundamentals down yet, I'd encourage you to stay away from doing it until you have fundamentals down and you're more comfortable. Brian, this is a really cool story. Thank you so much for coming on the BiggerPockets Podcast and sharing how you've grown your real estate business and now how you've acquired a whole new business that's in the real estate industry. Super cool. If you're listening and you think you've got a cool story that you'd like to share on the BiggerPockets Podcast, well, you can head on over to biggerpockets.com/guest and fill out the form.

• 38:58Henry Washington?

  And we may select you to come on the show and share your story, just like Brian here. Brian, it sounds like you've been a fundamentally sound real estate investor. You've analyzed markets, you've bought deals out-of-state, you bought deals sight unseen, you managed renovations third-party while you're, you had a, a new baby at home. Like all of these are things that people say they can't do, or it's too hard to do. And you've done it well and you've done it with grace. So thank you for sharing that story with us.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  Happy to do it. Thanks, Henry.

• 39:27Henry Washington?

  All right. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast and we'll see everybody on the next episode.

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