From a $200K Duplex to Replacing His 6-Figure Salary with Rental Properties

Real estate investing won’t make you rich overnight. But keep at it for long enough, and it will make you very wealthy. Philip Henry had been doing all the right things: buying a rental property every year, renovating it, raising rent, and then rolling his home equity into the next deal. Yet after nearly 15 years, he had very little to show for it, and the stress and workload were beginning to take a toll on his health and relationships. Right when others would have given up, the real estate deal of a lifetime landed right in Philip’s lap—a seven-figure, 31-unit rental property that would change his family’s future. Now, Philip is financially free, has quit his W-2 job, and is building generational wealth with rental properties. How did he do it? Today, he’s pulling back the curtain on the deal that changed everything and the strategies behind it: seller financing, other people’s money, and perhaps most importantly, the patience and persistence needed to win in real estate. In This Episode We Cover How Philip scaled from a $200,000 duplex to a $20,000,000 portfolio Replacing his six-figure salary with rental property income Taking down a $1,200,000 real estate deal without any of his own money How to use creative financing to bring zero to the closing table The secret to avoiding burnout on the road to financial freedom Why you should pitch seller financing on every real estate deal And So Much More! 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?

  Real estate is not a get rich quick kind of game, but it is a get rich for sure game. Keep at it and it will eventually make you wealthy. Most investors get out too early, usually right before the big payoff. For 15 years, investor Philip Henry felt like he was treading water. He was doing all the right things, buying multifamily property every year, renovating the units, raising the rents, and then rolling his equity into the next deal. On paper, he was building wealth, but it was not showing up in his bank account. The stress was mounting and the workload was taking a toll on his health and his relationships were suffering. But that's exactly when the breakthrough came, a real estate deal that would single-handedly change his life.

• 0:41Henry Washington?

  Philip bought it with none of his own money and then he created enough value and cash flow to replace his six-figure salary. Today, he's going to pull back the curtain on that deal and the strategies behind it, plus the patience and persistence it takes to win in real estate.

• 1:01Henry Washington?

  What's going on everybody? I'm Henry Washington, co-host of the BiggerPockets Podcast, and today we're bringing you an investor story with Philip Henry. So let's bring him on. Mr. Philip Henry, welcome to the BiggerPockets Podcast.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  Well, thank you so much, Henry. Appreciate it. Appreciate you having me on.

• 1:16Henry Washington?

  Why don't you go ahead and give us a little background? What got you into real estate investing in the first? What were you doing before that?

• 1:22Speaker 01

  Wow, well, originally from Canada, I went to chemical engineering and then moved to the US in 01 with my wife. And at the time, we had a new baby and started doing engineering work in Boston and then just started reading books about real estate. You know, you drive by a golf course and it's like noon on a Wednesday and someone's in there with a nice car and golfing and my dad always was working at that time. So I was like, something's different about what they're doing versus what my dad did. So anyway, that's how it started. And then I, I bought a two-unit. That was how I got off the ground.

• 1:57Henry Washington?

  How long ago was that?

• 1:58Speaker 01

  That was in 2003, I think.

• 2:01Henry Washington?

  Oh, man. Man, so you got, you got a long investing history.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:05Henry Washington?

  I know it was a while ago, but it was your first rodeo in the real estate game. So why don't you tell us a little bit about that deal? What did you buy? How did it go? And then how did that propel your investing career?

• 2:15Speaker 01

  So a lot of, a lot of the new engineers, new families starting up would get a single family home in Boston and then their mortgage poor and I just, you know, I was broke. I had, I had no money, started a salary with like 40 grand or something like that. And $200,000 price point, two-unit, we bought it. I think it was an FHA. I would come home from engineering school, go up into the second unit, sand floors, paint, rented that out for 800 bucks. So my costs went from 900 in an apartment to 450 and I owned the place. And then a year later I sold it and left the closing table with a check and it said like 50 grand on it.

• 2:56Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  I was like, I paid off my student loans and that's when I was hooked. I was like, there's no way. I just made a year's salary by living in a house. So.

• 3:05Henry Washington?

  So you did house hacking before it was cool, before it was a fancy name for it.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  You got it.

• 3:11Henry Washington?

  How did that change or shape what you ended up doing next?

• 3:16Speaker 01

  Well, I think the first thing is it, it increased my belief. So like my belief that I actually could be a real estate investor, you know, that, that was huge for me. And then I got transferred up to Bangor and I did the four, I bought a four-unit right out of the gate, same way FHA, three and a half percent down. The seller carried closing costs, so I had very little in it. And I started with that. That was my next acquisition.

• 3:40Henry Washington?

  Okay. So you house hacked that one as well. The first one, it sounded like you had some renovation to do. You were doing some of the sweat equity. Were you doing the same thing on the next one or was it more of a turnkey deal?

• 3:49Speaker 01

  It was a little bit more ready to go, but it still needed a fair amount of love. So it was like, you come home from the end of the day, pick up some supplies and grab your hockey buddy and tell them there's a six-pack waiting for them and off I went.

• 4:03Henry Washington?

  When we talk about owner financing, a lot of investors understand, well, yeah, I can go to the owner and I can ask them to give me a loan since they own the property. But owner financing is bigger than that. Owner financing can be something just like that, where the owner just carries part of the loan, like the down payment. So, you know, with that being your second deal and, you know, how did you know to do that or how did that come about?

• 4:25Speaker 01

  So one of the things that usually stagnates people from getting off of their first unit is that, you know, your capital poor, you know, it's hard to come up with 20% savings to get another unit. So once I got that four-unit, I was tapped. And then another like kind of worn down landlord had a, and had a two-building, 11-units. And I don't know how I came up, like maybe it was a book I read and that it was an option. And he was a savvy investor. He had a bunch of units. So he, he said like, okay, yeah, I'd be willing to carry paper. And I was like, carry paper? What the hell's that mean?

• 4:56Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  But once we got through that, he was, he was very open to doing that. So I, he carried the 20% down payment that I needed, any, any carried closing costs. So I ended up taking another 11 units under ownership and I walked away with a small check for prorated rents at that, at that time. It needed a ton of work, but that's all I had for options.

• 5:18Henry Washington?

  Okay.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  But I bought those two buildings for 200 grand and they just appraised for like 950 and I had no, no money in the game.

• 5:25Henry Washington?

  My perspective on seller finance is that it has nothing to do with what you want and it has everything to do with what the seller wants. That's why it's called seller finance. And I have found it to be a more productive and successful conversation when I am focused on trying to figure out what it is that the seller needs. And then I try to structure the deal that gives them what they need. Now it's hard for them to say no. You said you wanted a down payment, I'm giving you a down payment. You said you wanted a 7% interest rate? I'm giving you a 7% interest rate, but all of the other factors of the loan, I'm tipping in my favor.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 6:01Henry Washington?

  And so I've found that to be the most successful strategy. How do you go about approaching somebody and offering seller financing?

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Really, it's to your point, you, you're trying to create a win-win. You're trying to like, understand the motivation factors of the seller. And I think it starts with a conversation, you know, like, hey, would, would the seller be open to that? Well, they're not really open to it. They don't really understand it. Okay. Well now, now you have another roadblock to get through. And so every deal is different, but in order to grow, when you lack capital, you have to be creative and, and you have to either leverage seller financing, get really good at approaching sellers with the idea of it, and then being really good at explaining why it benefits them as well and not just you. And then it's so funny, Henry, once you get a track record of success and you have a

• 6:48Speaker 01

  few deals under, under your belt, like there's a lot of people that have money that is in the market making six, seven percent. And if you can get a down payment for a place and, and tell them that you'll just pay them 11% on their money until you pay it back or for two years or for three years to get into a deal, which I've done too, it's, it benefits them, it benefits you, and it's just another tool in the belt. Yeah.

• 7:12Henry Washington?

  Your goal as an investor is to educate yourself, understand what are all of the ways that I could finance a deal so that when a deal comes across your desk and a seller is in a certain type of situation, you can go, ah, that's this type of loan. And I can underwrite it this way because it gives the seller what they need. It helps me get the deal done and it helps solve the problem for me, which is not having to spend a ton of my own capital. It's a tool in the tool, but I love that analogy. All right, Mr. Philip, I love the last name, by the way, Mr. Philip Henry. Thank you. I want to learn more about how you continue to grow and scale, but I want to do that right after we take a break.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Sounds good.

• 7:46Henry Washington?

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• 8:28Henry 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 incentives, 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.

• 9:10Dave Meyer?

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• 9:42Henry Washington?

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• 10:26Henry Washington?

  $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 number 2042345. Cards issued per 2020 license from Visa USA, Inc. by Coastal Community Bank, NMLS number 462289, member FDIC, equal housing lender, subject to approval, terms apply. Visit aven.com for details.

• 10:47Speaker 03

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• 11:18Henry Washington?

  All right, we are back on the BiggerPockets Podcast. I am with investor Philip Henry, who has a wealth of experience, done some creative finance deals, and we're here chatting about those. Mr. Philip, now you mentioned that you bought a duplex house hack, then you did a fourplex house hack, then you did 11 units, and the 11 units was mostly all owner financing, correct?

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, the entire down payment, the 20% I required for a down payment, the seller carried that.

• 11:46Henry Washington?

  So what happened after that?

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I was a full-time traveling engineer. So I'm on the road, but I made like a kind of a small little tire. I said, I gotta get at least one multifamily a year. So I just kept adding one a year, one a year, one a year. So four unit, four unit, four unit. And most of it was that, until I had about 40, maybe 46 units or so. But, but what I found, like, you know, when I was at that stage, it wasn't that critical mass. I still had my, my six-figure engineering trap, but I'm traveling, all the staying at Marriott's, doing that. And then I have 46 units at home. So my wife's kind of raising kids and dealing with these calls. And it really, it started to put like some major,

• 12:29Speaker 01

  major stress on, on the relationship. It was, it was just a really, really difficult time. I don't have entrepreneurs, parents. I got a work ethic from my dad. I got compassion from my mom, but they did not, they are so conservative. They, they were wondering if I was a crazy, absolute lunatic and wasting my money and time, you know, and here, and I'm in a different place today because of those things.

• 12:55Henry Washington?

  It took my father probably four or five years of me doing real estate before he stopped asking me how my 401k was doing.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 13:05Henry Washington?

  I got rid of that thing so long ago, Dad. I'm good. I'm fine.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  Eight percent. My real estate makes 25 or 30%. No, no, thanks.

• 13:14Henry Washington?

  Yeah. I like this concept of buying one a year because it seems manageable. That sounds attractive to a lot of new investors. They know, that's not scary. I could buy one a year. Cool. Now let's talk about what it actually took to buy one a year. So you were buying one multifamily a year. Were you buying them all on owner financing? Or was this, was this like traditional financing?

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Every deal I go in, I propose seller financing. And 90% of the time, I was able to pull that off.

• 13:41Henry Washington?

  Okay.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  And so that, that allowed me to do that. And, and then just really like MLS, like things that have been sitting for a while. Like I was, I was big on because, you know, I wanted to find a motivated seller. Usually those are tired landlords or whatever. So I would go in and negotiate that. And, and then I would go into each unit. So one unit would vacate. I would go in, redo the unit, get someone else in there, increase rents, change the NOI, increase the value and then take, then I would have equity. Then I would just start to use equity for the next acquisition, next acquisition. So either equity or seller financing.

• 14:15Henry Washington?

  Love it. So almost like a little cross collateralization kind of style you were doing there.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 14:20Henry Washington?

  All right. So you're doing some of the work. You're getting these things up to speed because obviously the way we get good deals is we buy problems and those problems a lot of times are the, the property needs some, let's call it love. Next is you're obviously keeping these things as rentals. So who's managing these things?

• 14:36Speaker 01

  So I, when I, because I was a chemical engineer and I'm traveling all over, I didn't want to create another job. You know, I didn't want to have another job for myself. I mean, the whole thing about having financial freedom is the freedom part. You know what I mean? It's one thing, it's one thing that money coming in, but if you don't have, if you don't have the ability to do what you want, when you want to do it, with who the people that you want to do with. So, so yeah, no, I hired, I had a couple, couple, you know, full-time folks. And, and they take all the calls. They go, they schedule all the maintenance, do all the maintenance. And I, I still do the leasing and advertising.

• 15:10Henry Washington?

  So you do the fun part. You get it looking pretty and then you get to tell people how awesome it is and get it filled.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  You got it.

• 15:16Henry Washington?

  And then you're.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  I get to shake her hand, see who's going to be in my buildings, you know?

• 15:21Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's, I like to keep my hands on that part.

• 15:25Henry Washington?

  While you were in this stretch of one property a year, and you were doing all the things that I was asking about, like, how much time were you spending in and on your real estate business?

• 15:35Speaker 01

  I would say probably 10 to 15 hours a week, 45 units at the time.

• 15:40Henry Washington?

  10 to 15 on top of a day job where you're.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  On top of a day job. Yeah. And that was, that's the hardest part. When you have these, these units, right? You're, they're, yes, they're kicking off cash, but you're reinjecting a lot of that cash to bring them up to stuff, right? And so you're, you know, your wife's like, okay, you're gone all the time. The account's not really growing, you know? And in my head, I know I'm getting equity. I know I'm building this future, but, but you don't see anything. And that's what's, that's the hardest part to be in. It's like, I'm doing all this work. That was a tough place to be.

• 16:11Henry Washington?

  Look, I appreciate the, the honesty and the transparency here because this is the reality. For almost every real estate investor, at some point, you start to realize in the beginning parts of your journey, that I am not reaping the fruits of the amount of labor that I feel like I'm putting in.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  You got it.

• 16:32Henry Washington?

  People say real estate is a long-term game, right? And we hear that and we understand it. We go, yeah, you start now and then in the future, you're wealthy. Like, that makes sense. But no one talks about what that feels like when you're actually in it. It's a long-term game. What people mean when they say it's a long-term game, what they're saying is the financial benefit to what you're doing doesn't really hit you until a while in the future. And if you want that to happen, you've got to remain capital heavy enough to stay afloat in the meantime. And yes, you're buying assets that produce cash flow. And yes, you're getting cash flow from every single unit. And then you look at your bank account and

• 17:17Henry Washington?

  you're like, where the heck is that cash flow? And that's because I get in trouble for saying this, but I stand on my business, cash flow is a myth. It's a myth. You absolutely shoot for it. You underwrite for it. You don't buy a deal unless it's going to produce it. But cash flow is hard to chase because yes, your property is producing $200, $300 a month in net cash flow. But if you've got an HVAC go out in year one, that's $8,000. You've only made $2,200 in cash flow. And you've now spent $8,000 on an HVAC unit. And so if you're trying to live off that $200 a month of that property, and you put a new

• 17:57Henry Washington?

  HVAC in it, you can't do it. The money's not real. It's real in the future, but on a day-to-day basis, it is so hard to predict living off your cash flow. And that's what makes this business so hard is because in the first five years, you feel a whole lot of that, and you don't feel a whole lot of your bank account growing. But then, once you get past five, you start to get to 10 and 15 years, things start to look a little different in that bank account.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  They sure do. And that is so, it's so crazy because that, I almost feel like the universe is saying, do you want this or not? Because there's, there are dark places in there when the, when there's no money in the account and the HVAC unit goes and you're like, do I have to put this on the cardigan? I don't know if it's going to be able to handle it. Your wife's like, what's going on? Sell it all. Get out of this business. This is a stupid idea. And then you, that's when you gotta, that's when faith comes in. And because when you get, if you can get through that pain, what I can tell you is the other side is a beautiful place.

• 18:58Henry Washington?

  It's so amazing. And I know, I know I'm preaching here, but man, you're speaking my language. Look, folks, there's a lot of ways to invest in this country. There's the stock market and there's crypto and there's futures and there's all these things you can invest in. Real estate is the only get rich for sure. If you buy assets and you don't sell them, either because you want to, or you're forced to, because you couldn't remain capital heavy enough in the hard times, you will become wealthy. The goal is you gotta stay in the game. How do you stay in the game? You buy good deals, you underwrite correctly, and you make sure you got some capital in the bank account to cover you when things go, go hard, because they will get hard. But it's the only get rich for

• 19:43Henry Washington?

  sure. But you've got to maintain. And, and I like, I like the honest and open conversation about those moments. You know, I've seen people in the past six to 12 months posting, multiple people posting on social media about, I used to have a real estate portfolio. I had $40, $50, $20, and I wasn't making any money. But when you dive into their story, they were only three to seven years in the business. They hadn't hit the money part yet. That's why I mean, no, you weren't making any money or didn't feel like it, because it takes time to get there. But if you stay, if you, if you can stay, I promise you, the wealth comes. And that's a pretty cool guarantee.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  It sure is. I will, I will say, and, and what's so cool about it is that as you're going through the journey and as you're going through all these challenges, you get better at cash flow management. You get better at identifying challenges when you're underwriting or looking at a deal. So then, when you have an opportunity for a big, life-changing acquisition, you capitalize on it.

• 20:47Henry Washington?

  Yep.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  And you only need one.

• 20:49Henry Washington?

  Well, Philip, it's not a surprise that your last name is Henry because you could be a podcast host. That is a great transition to what I wanted to ask you next was about the big deal that you did shortly after this, this one that we were talking about, but I want to dive into those numbers right after the break.

• 21:05Dave Meyer?

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• 21:49Dave Meyer?

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• 22:17Henry Washington?

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• 23:02Henry Washington?

  So when it's time for your next Toyota, you could trade in for more from a great deal today to a great value tomorrow. A Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places.

• 23:17Dave Meyer?

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• 23:59Dave Meyer?

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• 24:42Dave Meyer?

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• 25:26Speaker 03

  The action's on the court. And as the official beer sponsor of the NBA, Michelob Ultra is getting fans closer to the game with a chance to win courtside seats, merch, and more. Visit michelobultra.com/courtside to enter. Michelob Ultra Courtside, 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Open to US residents 21+. Begins on October 1st, 2026 and ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details.

• 25:58Henry Washington?

  All right, we are back on the BiggerPockets Podcast. I'm speaking with investor Philip Henry, who's sharing some knowledge and wisdom about a real estate investment career that has helped him shape the business he has today. He's done a lot of owner finance deals, which is pretty incredible. But before we took the break, you mentioned being able to put yourself into position to do that, that big deal that changes everything for you. So do you have one of those deals? And could you tell us about it?

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Yes. So after I had 46 units, like I said, my wife and I, it was like this inflection point in our marriage, you know, like the, the stress was heavy. And, you know, we had, we had discussions, you know, like you come home from a, you know, a week away and try and blend back into my family. And they, it was like they had their thing going on. And it's like, I was disrupting it, you know, it's like, as long as there's money coming in and I felt like I was an ATM machine, she felt like she wasn't being heard or listened to or understood, or my presence wasn't there. I was always distracted. And so when, you know, I, I knew that I was close. You know what I mean? I knew that if, if I could get another good deal on this, the building that I'm in that right now is a 30, it was a 31,

• 27:09Speaker 01

  it's a 32 unit now. But, so I chased this, this guy who owned it. I would find out where he was having a beer and I would sit by him. Oh, hey Larry, what's going on? Good this year. Are you, you know, like I was

• 27:22Henry Washington?

  Are you saying stalk the owner of a building until he sells it to you? Is that your advice here?

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Everything's on the table, man. Everything's on the table. But no, I was like, I basically was like, this guy, this, the deal came to my direction. I'm like, okay, this is a 31 unit. I don't, there's no way I'm going to be able to enter into this. Like this is a new level for me. So we finally get to a point where like, it was a $1.2 million asset at the time in like 2017, right? 1.2 million bucks. He carried 10% paper, which was 120K. And then I had an old engineer that I had really good relationship with. And he said he would, he would chip in the other 120. And that's how the deal went. So I had no money. I borrowed 120 from a guy 10 years elderly than me, had some capital.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  The seller chipped in and then one by one, like the units vacate, I come in, new granite counters, redo it, rent it. And then 32 times. And we just, you know, we just got an appraisal, 5.2 million.

• 28:26Henry Washington?

  Wow.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Did a, did a whole re-amortization, took a million bucks out tax free. And then I'm, you know, you're driving by, Henry, and you're like, I own that thing, man. That's, it's just such a crazy thing. Cause you're like, when I grew up, I was like, man, who, who owns that? Like, who would own that? And, and, and it's just like, it's an, it's amazing thing that, you know, if you, if you stick with it long enough, and you, and you stay diligent, and you learn, and you grow, and you keep doing it, a deal will come your way that will change your life.

• 28:56Henry Washington?

  That's incredible. So I mean, I've got a couple of questions about it, but on its surface, that's amazing. You said you had the seller carry 50% of the down payment, and you had a private investor for 50% of the down payment.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  For me, I just, I did a five year balloon. So I, so I basically said, you know, hey, carry it. I knew that I could turn this thing around and, and then, and then have enough equity to be able to pay, pay him off. And we didn't really have a time limit on the private investor because, you know, hey, he's making 11% on his money. So he, he was happy. He was like, you know, he'd keep throwing me a check every month, right?

• 29:33Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  But, but yeah, so, so I did the same. Soon as I knew I had the equity, I, I pulled it out, got it appraised, and then took some money and tossed it their way. And then it was 100% owned by me.

• 29:44Henry Washington?

  So when I quit my job, it was hard for me to give up the safety net. I was very scared, even though I knew I had done the math. I was making much more money on real estate per hour than I was making in my day job, by a lot. But it was still extremely scary to leave. And I actually had to have a friend of mine who was an entrepreneur, had been an entrepreneur, kind of pushed me over the edge and said, hey, I had the same fear, but once I took the leap, it was way better than I thought it was going to be. Like, don't worry about it. You're going to be fine. How did you get comfortable with the idea that you weren't going to have that safety net anymore?

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Oh, man. I, I don't know. I, I felt like if I didn't make this change and, and be present and be home with my family. So it was, it was just like, I didn't want my legacy to be a dad on the road all the time. The money didn't, the money wasn't really as important at that point. I needed to make change. So I, but it was, there was a lot of fear because, you know, I had this six figures and yes, I had replaced it, but now I was so comfortable with that along with my six figures. You know what I mean? It's like, okay, now I

• 30:48Henry Washington?

  You're losing something. Yeah.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. You're still losing something. So even though I gained a fair amount of cash flow from this 31 unit, I was letting go of a six figure salary. But in my mind, I said, listen, if you were part timing this thing, and you got to this point, Imagine if you have 100% focus and you're able to stay in this business, what you could do. That allowed me to flip houses. It allowed me to grow the portfolio strategically. So yeah, when I quit, I had a 15 year engineering career and then from 2017 to now, I have five, if not 10x my net worth from those years.

• 31:27Henry Washington?

  All right, Philip, I want to get a little vulnerable if you're going to be willing, but you have every right to say, hey, I don't want to go there because it is personal. But you did mention that you had some struggles with the wife and the family and not being present enough as you were building this and the bank account not being where you want it to be. I'm very curious if you'd be willing to share with us kind of, you know, what some of those conversations were like. And then how did you as a couple navigate through those difficult times?

• 31:57Speaker 01

  I think this is, this is like a huge passion of mine because number one, staying married is hard. It's really, really hard and raising children is hard. And when you combine raising children with trying to be, trying to have a passionate, a connected marriage, and you're also trying to build a huge business for your family and for your future and for your legacy, it's, it's, it breaks a lot of people. It breaks a lot of men. And so I had to start to search internally. Why are these arguments continuing? Why are these disconnections continuing? Why am I sleeping on one side of the bed looking one way and she's on the other side? I'm, I'm five feet away from my wife and I feel like I'm alone.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  And that is a very, very difficult place to be for a man. And I think a lot of people quit in that spot. They quit, they get divorced, they, they call it a day, but then the next relationship stops at that same exact point. You want deeper connection, you have to go inside and get deeper connection with you. And, and I think the more you can get comfortable with all the things, forgive yourself, love yourself more. So the more you love yourself, the more you can love the spouse that you're with and the more that you can pour into your children. So I had to go away for a while and I, I joined like kind of a mastermind of men, entrepreneurial men. I, I had to get around people that were experiencing deep marriages, people that understood

• 33:21Speaker 01

  how to communicate better. What does a wife need? Love language. I started to like invest in understanding how are these conflicts happening? And those are the things that when you start to layer those on top of each other over and over again, you start to rebuild and reconnect the marriage. And you can do it. Anybody can do it. But when you don't know and you, you feel hopeless because you're just, man, I've been trying all this stuff. I've read about, you know, what's going on?

• 33:47Henry Washington?

  I love that vulnerability and, and, and the key there, and the key there to what you said was self-awareness and, and not placing blame. Right, wrong, or indifferent, what I've learned, or at least what I think I've learned on this journey of entrepreneurship and marriage is that if things aren't going the way I think they should go in the home, or that I expect them to go, or that I want them to go in the home, 90% of the reason why that is, is something that I can fix and I can control because it's probably something that I can do differently. But it takes a lot of humility and self-awareness to be able to take your frustration out of situation

• 34:33Henry Washington?

  and maybe even your frustration with somebody else in a situation.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 34:37Henry Washington?

  And go, all right, what did I do to put us to where we're even having this conversation? And what can I do to get us out of it? And I don't, I don't know if that's just our responsibility as men or husbands or, but I've just found that like when I take my, my feelings out of the situation and realize that my wife isn't my enemy. She's not trying to make me mad. She doesn't want to hurt my feelings. She doesn't want to make me angry. She wants me to be a good husband. She wants to be a good wife. And so when I realized like she's not coming from a place of trying to harm me, it really helps me get out of my own feelings and figure out like what things I can do to change.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  I love that. What I've learned is that the stories in your mind, as soon as you have an emotion of anger or frustration, you have, it only comes from a story. What story you're telling yourself creates the emotion and from the emotion, you start to take action. Like you shut down. Oh, she doesn't appreciate me. What do you do? What's the action you take? You shut down. Does that, and then what are the results of that? Well, does that, does that bring you closer or does that bring you further apart? And, and so when you start to realize that's the way that it works, what story am I telling? I gotta reframe the story. How about like she's had a hard day and she's just looking to confide in me and I'm appreciative of that. And then what act, what action am I going to take? I'm going to be more, more open. I'm going

• 36:03Speaker 01

  to be more loving, going to be more patient, more kind. And then that brings you closer together and it takes practice. It takes intention and you have to have hard conversations. I see so many people that avoid hard conversations with the people they love the most because they are difficult. At least my experience talking to men, it's like when we're connected to this woman, we're, we only are vulnerable to usually very few people. And one of those people is our wife. So it's one of those things like we're, we're, we're just, we're opening our heart to this one person that we've chosen to live our life with.

• 36:41Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  And yeah, so it's the story, the feelings, the action, the results. Change the story, change the results.

• 36:49Henry Washington?

  Man, that's, that's incredible. I, I, I agree with you. And whenever you start your marriage retreat for real estate investor couples, you know, just send me, just send me, send me the link. I'll sign up.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  Sweet. Will do. Will do.

• 37:04Henry Washington?

  All right, Mr. Philip. First and foremost, I want to say thank you for the openness and honesty, both around the deals that you were doing and how you did them, what went well and what didn't. But around marriage and life and some of these real conversations that a lot of people are having.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:21Henry Washington?

  Before we go, can you wrap up? Give us an overall, what does your portfolio look like? And are you looking to do anything cool or crazy next?

• 37:29Speaker 01

  Sure. So right now the portfolio is about a little over 20 million bucks, a lot of commercial, about 50% commercial, 50% residential, ski condo, a place in Florida that we Airbnb. So I think, you know, not, not to digress, but I think you can, you can, you can get these places and then book out your two weeks.

• 37:49Henry Washington?

  And then you can have fun.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Have someone else, have someone else pay for it. Go to the ski place, go to the place on the beach. And meanwhile, now you own these assets and they're just part of your portfolio. So it's just another thing that I've done. And right now I'm in the position of some of my assets, I want to parlay them. So I'm at a place in my, with the equity that I have, I'm, I'm starting to look at 1031 exchanges. So to parlay all those profits, all that equity into bigger deals as I move down to Florida, I'm looking to get bigger deals and leverage the equity that I have in those. So that's the plan.

• 38:23Henry Washington?

  And if anybody wants to find out more about you or learn from you, is there a place where they can do that?

• 38:28Speaker 01

  They can. On, on Instagram, it's Philip M. Henry with one L. And then I, I wrote a book describing some of the strategies. It's called The Running in the Snowstorm and it's on Amazon. And then, and then I coach, I coach men, faith, family, fitness, fortune. So I have like a, it's, it's, it's four pillars. I feel like there's very, very few role models that are fit, are connected, that have purpose, have a, have a thriving marriage and, and have financial abundance. And I, I look to, to plan my life and I invest in each one of those quadrants.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  And because before I used to invest in one and that was production and I would just leave the other ones behind. And that is not an abundant life, I can assure you.

• 39:21Henry Washington?

  All right. Thank you so much, Mr. Philip. Thank you for sharing your story with us. And if you're listening to the story and you're thinking, man, I would love to be able to share my story with the BiggerPockets audience. Well, you might just get to do that. You can head on over to www.biggerpockets.com/guest, fill out the form and we'll go through it and you may be able to just be here, just like Philip, sharing your story with us in the near future. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast. We'll see everyone on the next episode.

• 39:48Speaker 04

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