I Started Buying Rentals at 46. By 50, They’ll Replace My Salary.

Kent Long wanted passive income. The problem? All those gurus and guides online were only selling a fantasy. The one thing that seemed to actually generate income: real estate. When a property that could easily be split into two units came on the market, Kent jumped at the chance. Little did he know this $14,000 down payment would become an entire real estate portfolio that would help him retire early from his job. At 46, Kent bought his first rental property (just two years ago, in 2024). The purchase price? A mere $70,000. With a small renovation, this property began bringing in $3,000/month in rent and some serious cash flow. Now that there was home equity to pull from, it was time to repeat this system. Kent has now done this same type of deal four times, going from zero units to 10 units in just two years. He’s even gotten his young son involved, helping his 20-year-old profit nearly $50,000 from a similar deal! Kent’s close to replacing his income and fully stepping away from his 9-5, reaching early retirement, and dedicating all his time to real estate. He started in 2024 when most people thought real estate investing was past its prime—according to Kent, we’re still not even close! In This Episode We Cover The affordable real estate market where you can pick up rentals for just $70,000 How to turn a big single-family home into a cash-flowing duplex or triplex Using the BRRRR strategy to get paid to buy rental properties (seriously!) When it’s smart to use a HELOC (home equity line of credit) as a down payment How to pass down wealth and wisdom to your kids so they can reach financial freedom, too And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠h⁠⁠t⁠t⁠ps://www⁠.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1330. 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?

  Kent Long bought his first rental property at 46 years old, just two years ago in 2024. By the time he's 50, he'll have a real estate portfolio that will retire him early. He did all this while working a nine to five, on the road, three to four days per week, and without a ton of his own savings. Kent began looking for passive income streams, but all the internet gurus and guides turned out to be selling a fantasy. After hitting a breaking point, Kent saw a house on the market with enough square footage to convert it into two units. This would turn into the beginning of an investing career Kent never imagined. With just $14,000 down, Kent turned one down payment into four properties, making him $5,500 a month in cash flow.

• 0:44Henry Washington?

  And he did it all in just two years. Now he's close to fully replacing his salary with rentals, allowing him to retire from his job at age 50, 15 years before traditional retirement age. He did it all starting in 2024. So if you think you're late to real estate, this is your sign to get in the game.

• 1:08Henry Washington?

  What's going on, everybody? I am Henry Washington, co-host of the BiggerPockets Podcast, and today we're bringing you an investor story with Kent Long from Altoona, Pennsylvania. Let's bring him on. Kent Long, welcome to the BiggerPockets Podcast.

• 1:22Speaker 01

  Henry, I'm honored to be here. Honestly, BiggerPockets has been a huge part of my real estate journey.

• 1:28Henry Washington?

  Well, why don't you kind of start there? Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into real estate in the first place.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  Starting off, I was always looking for passive income. So unfortunately, just life costs so much money. So to like live normally, you have to have extra income coming in. So my initial like thought process was I read Tim Ferriss, Four Hour Work Week, and I started an Amazon business. So I, I made two products on Amazon and I had two different like manufacturers in China that would send stuff directly to Amazon. So ideally it makes sense, like then that's totally passive. You know, you watch all the YouTubers and they say how easy it is and you can make, you know, like extra thousand bucks per unit that you're selling. The kicker is it costs so much money to advertise on Amazon that you don't make any money.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  So then after that, I stumbled on BiggerPockets and started listening to just kind of real estate. I've always been like Mr. Fix It at home and can fix things. And my dad's a union carpenter, so I've always had like a background of, of building and fixing things. And then about two years ago, when I was going through kind of a bad divorce, I had an option and I could either rent, because my wife was stealing the house, or I could look at either flipping a house, kind of live-in flip, or buy a property that I could fix up and then pull some equity out. So that's kind of my initial dive into it.

• 2:54Henry Washington?

  But when did you start researching real estate? And then about when was it when you bought your first real estate deal?

• 3:02Speaker 01

  My job, my nine to five, I travel a lot. So I'm in the car between two and four hours, three to four days a week. So, you know, it would just be podcast after podcast, you know, whether it was entrepreneurship, and then eventually about three years ago to two and a half years ago, really just diving into BiggerPockets and just constantly listening to it in, in the car. So in July of 2024, I was looking at my first property. My real estate agent at the time had a property that used to be a duplex and it was converted to a single family, but all I literally had to do is put a door on it. So you walk in, it's, it's, you know, the first floor would have been one apartment and then there was another door that went upstairs for the second apartment.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  So literally just putting a door on it would make it a duplex.

• 3:50Henry Washington?

  What city was this?

• 3:51Speaker 01

  Altoona, PA.

• 3:53Henry Washington?

  Altoona, Pennsylvania. And how much did you pay for this large, single-family home that was a duplex, turned into a single that you wanted to turn back into a duplex?

• 4:03Speaker 01

  But I actually turned it into a tri. We'll get to that. So purchase price is $70,000.

• 4:09Henry Washington?

  70 grand? Was it just sticks? Like, was it livable?

• 4:13Speaker 01

  All new LVP in the first and second floor and the third floor, all LVP already done, and everything was freshly painted.

• 4:21Henry Washington?

  Is this just prices in this market? How'd you find this deal? Was it on the market? Was it off-market deal?

• 4:26Speaker 01

  It was on the market for a while. So that house fell through a couple of times. They, they sold it twice, maybe, and the loan didn't go through right or something happened. So then the seller would just needed it kind of off his plate, but it was only, at most it was, it was on the market for 80 or 90. So.

• 4:44Henry Washington?

  Wow, that's just, I just didn't realize the price points were, were that low.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Well, the price points will get better and you're going to be, that's, that's in the high end of what I pay.

• 4:54Henry Washington?

  Okay, all right, all right. So you paid 70. It was a single that used to be a duplex. You ended up converting it back to a multifamily. How much did it cost you to renovate this property to get it turned into, I guess you said a triplex now?

• 5:09Speaker 01

  $10,000.

• 5:11Henry Washington?

  Okay, did it cost 10 grand because you have the skills to do all the work yourself? Or did it cost 10 grand just because it was in pristine condition and you didn't have to do much?

• 5:19Speaker 01

  So I didn't have to do a lot, but I do all of the work. So, you know, the, the idea is, you know, I have a, you know, a background of, you know, redoing kitchens and redoing bathrooms and I can do flooring and painting and everything else, but that's all that I had to put into it to convert it into a tri. I had a little bit of cabinets I had to add into the kitchen. Um, and then there were some cabinets up on that second floor that I used in the third unit, which was in the back.

• 5:48Henry Washington?

  Can you estimate what you think the renovation would have cost had you had to hire a contractor?

• 5:52Speaker 01

  I mean, I always double it. So it's 20 to 30, you know, 20 to 30 grand.

• 5:56Henry Washington?

  That's fair. That's fair. Okay, cool. That paints a good picture of about the level of work that needed to be involved with this property. And so then you converted it to a triplex. I know I'm probably getting ahead of myself, but I'm so curious because of that price point. What are the rents for the individual units?

• 6:12Speaker 01

  So they basically added a, they added a business off the backside of this house. That unit, I furnished it and then there's like a makeshift kitchen back there too. And I get 850 for that, that little unit. And it's, it's as big as like a whatever hotel room.

• 6:29Henry Washington?

  Okay, so you're cash flowing off one unit. All right, what else you got?

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Right. So then on the first floor, one bedroom, I get right around 900 a month for that.

• 6:40Henry Washington?

  And the third unit?

• 6:41Speaker 01

  1,250.

• 6:43Henry Washington?

  What?

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Cause it's three bedroom and this is off of a $70,000 home.

• 6:49Henry Washington?

  $70,000, single family, $10,000 renovation, which includes sweat equity, which is fine. And you're able to bring in 850, 900 and 1,250 for a total of $3,000 a month in rent?

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:05Henry Washington?

  On an $80,000 all-in purchase?

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:09Henry Washington?

  That's a good stinking deal. Wow. Congratulations on that. That's impressive.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, we always want to hit that home run in the first one.

• 7:17Henry Washington?

  All right. So how did you, how did you structure the financing for this? Was it a, did you pay out of your pocket? Did like, is it a conventional loan?

• 7:25Speaker 01

  It was a 30-year conventional loan.

• 7:27Henry Washington?

  So you put down 20%, 25%?

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, 14 to 20,000.

• 7:31Henry Washington?

  What's your debt service? So what are you paying the mortgage on that property?

• 7:35Speaker 01

  Wow, I mean, I, I, so.

• 7:37Henry Washington?

  It's so low, he doesn't even know, guys. Look, look, he was like, I don't know, 50 bucks, eyes.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  All of my loans are like, like between four and $600.

• 7:47Henry Washington?

  $600 a month mortgage, bringing in $3,000 a month. Even you put $14,000 down after a few months, you got your money back. That's.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:56Henry Washington?

  What a deal. What a deal. Now, I'm very curious now as to what the numbers look like on this second deal and we're going to dive into that after this quick 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. Rent to Retirement then rents the home as a short-term rental to establish it as an

• 8:40Henry Washington?

  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.

• 9:19Henry Washington?

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

• 9:30Dave Meyer?

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• 10:04Henry 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 after spending

• 10:48Henry 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 202 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.

• 11:09Speaker 03

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• 11:40Henry Washington?

  All right, we are back on the BiggerPockets Podcast. I am speaking with investor Kent Long, who has just shared his very first real estate deal with us and it was a banger. So Kent, tell me about this next one.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  So first property, fix it up, basically added two units because it was a single family, turned it into a tri. Because I turned it into a tri, I got to be able to pull, I mean, it's 80% of the appraised value. So then I was able to pull out a $78,000 HELOC.

• 12:10Henry Washington?

  Well, I want to, I want to caveat one thing though, because I just want to make sure that we're, we're clear on the terms. I love this strategy, by the way. So you essentially did a BRRRR, except you, it's a, I call it a modified BRRRR. It's a, it's a BRRRR. It's instead of a refinance at the end, it's a HELOC at the end. And so you actually didn't pull money out. You just got access to a line of credit. I like this strategy more than the BRRRR. And the reason I do is because when you refinance, you're getting a new loan at a higher amount, which then lessens your cash flow. But because you just pulled a line of credit, you gave yourself access to the equity, but you didn't get a new loan at a higher amount. Your loan stays the same and you only pay more when

• 12:54Henry Washington?

  you borrow the money against the HELOC. So he was saying he pulled money out. He didn't necessarily pull it out. He got access to it. I think it's a fantastic strategy. I'm glad you went that route. So you've now got access to this $70,000 line of credit. And so that gives you buying power, right? So what did you do with that?

• 13:10Speaker 01

  I bought another single family, right around 1700 square feet, and I was going to turn it into a duplex, but I bought it for $30,000.

• 13:19Henry Washington?

  So you paid cash from your line of credit. So you pulled out 35,000. Again, why I like this strategy, because he didn't refinance, he didn't get a new loan. He was able to use $35,000 of the 70,000 he had access to. So you're actually only paying interest only payments on 35,000 versus having, if you did that refinance, you're essentially paying for all the money at once. So you pull out 35,000, you pay cash for a house that you want to convert from a single to a multi. Now, were you specifically targeting single families that had the potential to be multis? Or was this just coincidence?

• 13:55Speaker 01

  Ideally, I wanted duplexes or tries. They're the easiest to renovate. I mean, that's, you know, the whole BRRRR process is, is easier for duplexes. The whole idea of duplexes and tries is I like one renter to pay the mortgage and one renter to pay me. So, you know, when you look at, when you look at multifamilies, it's just the cash flow and that's ideally was always, has always been my goal.

• 14:17Henry Washington?

  So 35,000, how much did it cost you to renovate this one?

• 14:21Speaker 01

  20,000 all in.

• 14:22Henry Washington?

  What are you getting in rents on those units?

• 14:25Speaker 01

  A thousand for the two bedroom on the upstairs and then 900 for the one bedroom.

• 14:31Henry Washington?

  So $30,000 purchase, $20,000 rehab, all in for 50, bringing in $1,900 a month. Again, that is a fantastic cash flowing deal. Did you finance this one the same way or did you do it a little different?

• 14:47Speaker 01

  So when I went to get that refinance, that's when I went the commercial, like the commercial loan route, um, which I really, I just, I love it. Um, it's just so much simpler, so much quicker. Um, so then it got reappraised at 110. So I pulled like an $85,000 loan out on that and was able to pay off $20,000 of credit card debt and pay down that $30,000 that I initially invested.

• 15:16Henry Washington?

  Okay. Cause you paid cash, right? And you probably funded the renovation out of your own pocket. So you're all in 50, but it's 50 cash. So then you went and you got a loan on the property itself for 80. That gives you some cash in your pocket to pay off, uh, your debts. And an $80,000 loan bringing in $1,900 a month is still phenomenal cash flow. Plus you were able to pay off credit card debt, which essentially increases cash flow too, right? Cause now you're not paying, you're not paying those credit card bills. That's awesome, man. And I know a lot of people are listening and they're, and they're thinking, man, well, I can't buy, you know, $30,000 houses. Well, A, you can because you can invest out of state if you want to. And B, there's markets like this

• 16:00Henry Washington?

  all over the country. So don't just believe the lie of if you're paying less than a hundred thousand dollars that you're getting some piece of crap that, that is going to, you know, cost you more to fix it up than it is to sell it. There are plenty of markets where the price points are lower. There's obviously risk to those things. Usually markets with lower price points like this don't have a ton of appreciation. So I'm curious, uh, is that what it's like in your market? Do these properties appreciate with the national average or do they kind of just sit flat?

• 16:28Speaker 01

  It would sit flat. I mean, when I, when it comes to risk, like, you know, I like to think of it as lower risk than anything else because the money that I'm putting into it, the amount of money that I would invest into a $30,000 house compared to a $300,000 house. I'm just mitigating risk just in, just in the initial price point.

• 16:47Henry Washington?

  It's a sliding scale, right? It's a, it's a seesaw. Typically, if you're in a market where you're getting tons of appreciation, cash flow is none, negative, hard to find. Inversely, when you're in a market where you can get phenomenal cash flow, I mean, we're talking a debt service of 600 bucks, bringing in $3,000. That is phenomenal cash flow, but you're not going to get a ton of appreciation, right? That's just how real estate tends to work. So you need to figure out, if you're listening to the show, to figure out what your strategy is, you have to set your own goals and then buy properties in a market that allow you to meet those goals, right? There's going to be ups and there's going to be downs. There's going to be risks and you want to be rewarded for

• 17:28Henry Washington?

  the risk. I think that this is a decent strategy if you're trying to build up cash flow, heavy cash flow market. Before we move on to this next deal, Kent mentioned that he used a HELOC on his first house to fund his second property. And if you're a BiggerPockets Pro member, we have a new perk with our HELOC partner, Avon, that can get you a $400 statement credit. So go and check that out if you're a BiggerPockets Pro member. All right, Kent, I, I love these deals. I think this is a, a, a good strategy in what seems to be a very highly cash flow heavy market. You're from the market. You live in the market. So you understand that market. I think that that's a smart investment plan. Paint us

• 18:07Henry Washington?

  a picture here in terms of time. The first deal was 2024, uh, in July. How long was it between that one and this deal?

• 18:16Speaker 01

  I got this deal done in February of 2025.

• 18:20Henry Washington?

  So about seven months later, you did this next deal. Okay. That's a reasonable timeframe. You did one deal, learned some lessons. You go and do another deal. That's great. Okay. And how long did it take you from deal two to deal three?

• 18:32Speaker 01

  It took a little bit longer because that's when I got my son involved.

• 18:36Henry Washington?

  Okay.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  Into this real estate journey. First one was a home run. The second one was going really well and it was gonna like, I knew that it was going to work out because I already had kind of the cash. And another duplex, while I was working on my second property, another duplex came up for $44,000.

• 18:55Henry Washington?

  Okay. This was on the market listed?

• 18:57Speaker 01

  This is on the market listed for 44,000. All right. I, I had to get there immediately because I knew when, when duplexes come up in El Tuna, they go quickly.

• 19:05Henry Washington?

  How old was your son at the time?

• 19:07Speaker 01

  19.

• 19:08Henry Washington?

  Okay. Okay. Awesome.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  So he's a 19 year old. Um, he was in college, but like over the summer, he was going to fix a duplex up, basically do the same thing, pull equity out of it. And then, you know, do one property a year for the next four years while I was in college. So I got the house for $44,000. So, you know, I put 15, $16,000 down on it.

• 19:30Henry Washington?

  Okay. Did you use the HELOC to put the money down or did you?

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:33Henry Washington?

  Yeah. Attaboy.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  I did a commercial loan on this as well because I'm working with a local bank. So again, I think it's benefits like to be working with like your local banks because they'll, they know the area. They know how to make things work.

• 19:46Henry Washington?

  So typical structure of a loan for a local community bank, if you're doing a fix and flip or some sort of construction loan, it's 85% of purchase, 100% of rehab. So you got to put 15% down. So that was your 15% down payment you were talking about. You borrowed that from your line of credit on deal one. How much did the renovation of this duplex cost you?

• 20:08Speaker 01

  I think we took a $15,000 renovation loan with this commercial loan. So as you're doing the work, they'll pay you back, but we really needed about 25,000. So it was again, a big property and the flooring is what, we didn't figure it out, right?

• 20:23Henry Washington?

  Okay.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  And then the caveat to all this, uh, we're lucky as in my dad is a union carpenter and would come down two to three days a week and help him fix this property up.

• 20:35Henry Washington?

  So you got the whole family involved, grandpa, dad and son, all working on this property. That's super cool. So total budget was about $25,000, it sounds like on the renovation of this duplex. You paid 44, you've got 25 in it. So you're all in for just under $70,000. And what are you renting those units for?

• 20:56Speaker 01

  1,200 and 1,200.

• 20:58Henry Washington?

  That is awesome.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was fantastic. And then he, we refinanced this and he was able to pull out $72,000 out of his first property.

• 21:09Henry Washington?

  As a 19 year old.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Wow. He was, he turned 20 till he, till he refinanced it, but at 20 years old, we went to a lawyer and they wrote him a check for $70,000.

• 21:22Henry Washington?

  How scared did that make you?

• 21:24Speaker 01

  No, he's, he's the most frugal kid you'll ever meet. I knew he would. He doesn't, he won't spend a dime of it.

• 21:30Henry Washington?

  Oh, I can't imagine getting a $70,000 check at 19. I was not that responsible.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  No, he does great with his money. So, um, he did pay me back. So I, you know, I put the initial investment in. So, and I had to fund some of the flooring and some of the kitchen renovations. So he was able to pay me back $18,000. But then he's still sitting in the bank with over $50,000.

• 21:54Henry Washington?

  So what made you, you know, want to pull your son into this deal? What, what brought that about?

• 22:00Speaker 01

  Just financial security. It's, you know, it's financial future. Like it's making one, you know, giving him the opportunity to be successful.

• 22:10Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  Later in life. I mean, you know, he's going to have this property for the next 30 years, just cash flowing, you know, 1,500 to $2,000. And he can pay it down. He could sell it, you know, like you've, you've always talked about having multiple exit strategies. So you, and that's what you have whenever you, you know, when you buy these properties, as long as you think about different ways of, do you want the cash flow? Do you want, you know, you want the HELOC? You need more cash? You're going to do another deal? So we kind of talked through all that, but because I was so fortunate on my first two deals, and because the price points are so low, it's, it's just, it's, it's, you know, we're kind of mitigating that, that risk, which is great.

• 22:52Henry Washington?

  What was it like working on this property with your dad and your son? Seeing something go from what it was when you purchased it to this, this investment property that's producing income?

• 23:03Speaker 01

  It's fantastic. I mean, it's nice, you know, where are my son? And then my dad comes out and helps out. I mean, we just have a good time. My nephews would come down and do some painting. So, you know, like almost have like a, a, a party and just hang out and then,

• 23:15Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  you know, we just feed everybody and, you know, get free labor. It's fantastic.

• 23:20Henry Washington?

  All right, Kent, thanks for sharing that story. That's super cool. Getting your family involved and still pulling off another amazingly, well cash flowing deal. I'm assuming there's some more and we'll dive into those deals right after the break.

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• 28:28Henry Washington?

  All right, we are back on the BiggerPockets Podcast. I'm speaking with investor Kent Long, who has pulled off some pretty amazing cash flowing deals. Now we're on to what looks like deal four-ish, if you want to count deal three, it was your son's deal technically, but you helped him with that. So deal three and a half. So what'd you do with deal three and a half?

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Found a duplex. I believe it was on the market for 65 and I got it for 55. In pretty good shape. The kicker was there was tenants on the first floor already. So ideally I'm going to keep them. And then I actually, you're not going to love this. I paid a contractor to do the work.

• 29:08Henry Washington?

  No, I love that. I think you should absolutely do that.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  So I got a $25,000 renovation loan with my commercial loan. The $25,000 it's paid for the second floor renovation. So painting, putting in a kitchen and flooring.

• 29:24Henry Washington?

  Did you leave the tenants on the fourth floor at market rents or did you have to raise rents?

• 29:28Speaker 01

  So their rent was $450 a month.

• 29:31Henry Washington?

  Okay.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  So I came in and was like, you know, again, I took this from one of your previous podcasts is not just jump them up to market rate. So, you know, like I just slow rolled them. I'll, you know, increase you a hundred bucks a month for multiple months. And I need you to eventually get to 750.

• 29:51Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  750 is still a little below market, but they're paying all utilities. And while that renovation was going on, I, they were covering the mortgage.

• 30:03Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  Cause it's a $55 loan.

• 30:05Henry Washington?

  Tenants aren't stupid. They understand that you have a mortgage and taxes and insurance. Now they may not want to pay more rent, but they understand. And I have always found that if I just sit down and am honest with people, share the plan and give them a say in how we get there. They're so much happier. Market rents are X. That's the first thing, right? It's to show them. If you move, you're going to be paying 850 a month for the same property. Or I can let you stay here for 750. That's where I got to get you to. Can you help me come up with a plan to get you there? If I've got to tweak your rent every month, how much can we afford to go up every month?

• 30:46Henry Washington?

  And when I give them a say in it, they don't feel like I just did something to them. They feel like they got to work with me to keep them in their home, which is always a better strategy. So purchase price 55 renovation 25. So you're all in for $80,000 and you got the one tenant on the first floor up to 750 a month in rent. And what were you able to get in the second floor?

• 31:12Speaker 01

  A thousand dollars for the second floor, two bedroom.

• 31:15Henry Washington?

  All right. So 1750 gross rents on $80,000 of debt. This is a recent deal that you found in an affordable market that produces a ton of cash flow. There are markets like this all over the country. I love that you're using strategies like lines of credit and community banks to grow your business. That is exactly how I grew my business. And I like the pace at which you're doing these deals because it seems like you're doing about a deal every six months or so. Is this your only job? Or are you working some other job at the same time?

• 31:49Speaker 01

  So my nine to five is a, as a regional manager, as an occupational therapist, I oversee 18 skilled nursing facility therapy departments.

• 31:57Henry Washington?

  So you're doing this part-time with a full-time gig where you're traveling a ton. How much time you're putting in on a, you know, weekly or monthly basis into your real estate business?

• 32:09Speaker 01

  I, I wouldn't even say it an hour or two a week. And if I do three or four a month, maybe?

• 32:16Henry Washington?

  Yeah, I like this. I like the story because most real estate investors are mom and pop folks, just like you and just like me to some level where you do a few deals here and there, you get them stabilized and then you move on to the next one. You do it in your spare time. It's not something that's you're taking all of your focus and you're able to still produce good income and cash flow when things are done the right way. I love that you're leveraging the community banks. I love that you're leveraging HELOCs and lines of credit, but this is just basic real estate investment strategy. Like this isn't new. Like this is literally things that have been around

• 32:56Henry Washington?

  for decades. Anyone can do this kind of strategy. So your goal getting into this was to buy assets, produce passive income. Where do you feel like you are on that roadmap? Cause you're still self managing, right? So there's some work involved there. You're doing some of the renovations here and there. So there's some work involved there, but you're also producing a good amount of income. So how many more deals do you think you need to do before you can really start to remove yourself from some of those things?

• 33:25Speaker 01

  My initial goal was to do 10 in five years, and I think I'm going to get eight done in probably maybe three and a half years.

• 33:33Henry Washington?

  Before we get out of here, let's kind of give everybody a recap of your portfolio. So how many deals have you done? How many doors do you have? How much cash flow is it producing?

• 33:44Speaker 01

  I have four properties, two duplexes, two triplexes, and then their cash flow and $5,500 a month currently right now. And that's in a two-year timeframe.

• 33:54Henry Washington?

  That's pretty cool. And that includes your fourth deal, which looks like you bought a duplex for around 90 grand and you turned that one into a triplex?

• 34:03Speaker 01

  Correct. That one was the biggest renovation and then the biggest workload for me for sure. The duplex was already done. There was new floors, some carpeting. Both of those rentals were ready to go when I bought the property. I put two renters in there immediately and then I'm getting 950 each for both of those. And then the first floor was an old corner store and it was a disaster. Like it was, it was dirty. It was, there was an old deli fridge still sitting in there that I had to like use a sledgehammer to get out of there because it was so big. And then I took about two dumpster fulls of garbage to even get that first floor cleaned up and I converted into a three

• 34:47Speaker 01

  bedroom, one bath on that downstairs unit.

• 34:51Henry Washington?

  And what was the budget for that renovation?

• 34:52Speaker 01

  About $30,000 I put into this.

• 34:55Henry Washington?

  So you're all in for 120 and you rented that back unit for how much?

• 35:00Speaker 01

  1,200.

• 35:01Henry Washington?

  So that puts you at total rents, gross rents of about $3,100. $3,100 on $120,000 of debt is phenomenal cash flow. And so this one was an on the market duplex again as well.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  Correct. Yeah. I just got it refinanced and I'm able to pull 83,000 out of it. And then I'm paying my HELOC down to zero with that. And you start all over again.

• 35:27Henry Washington?

  So after all of these deals, what's the goal going forward? Are you going to try to get to 10 in your timeframe? Or are you going to evaluate yourself after you, after this eight?

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Ideally, I would love to get four more in the next year and a half. And when I turn 50, you know, a year and a half from now, just kind of be done and then retire my nine to five job.

• 35:50Henry Washington?

  All right, Kent, thank you so much for sharing this story. This is such a cool story. What amazing deals. Like I love that you've done this in a recent timeframe. I love that you're buying the properties on the market and I love that they're producing cash flow that is getting you to your goals seems like ahead of time to where you can actually leave your nine to five. I love that you were able to bring in your son and your dad and have everybody work together to build wealth because that's truly the dream. Those bonds and those memories last forever. And it's pretty cool to be able to share that with your family. So thank you for sharing that story.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I appreciate the time. Thank you so much, Henry.

• 36:26Henry Washington?

  Thank you very much. And thank you guys for listening to this episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast. Again, if you have a story you would like to share on the podcast, then you can go to biggerpockets.com/guest and you can apply to share your story with us right here on the BiggerPockets Podcast. As always, thank you for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.

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