I Started BRRRR-ing in My Mid-40s, Now I’ll Retire a Decade Earlier

Brian Waters was destined to work until he was at least 63 years old. Now, just five years after starting to invest intentionally, he’s got 16 rental units that can retire him a decade earlier! How’d he do it? A combination of easy, done-for-you out-of-state investment properties and the ever-profitable BRRRR method. Brian’s work isn’t sitting at a desk or crunching numbers. He’s a firefighter and is routinely one serious injury away from his career being over. With a family to support, losing his work wasn’t an option. So, in his 40s, he decided to pivot and go all-in on building a real estate portfolio. He bought a couple of properties in his home state of California before Southern California prices began to eat into his limited savings. So, things had to change. By being extremely clear about his plan, Brian began investing out of state, buying over a dozen properties without ever laying eyes on them. He tried a very beginner-friendly strategy that helped him build his out-of-state portfolio before moving on to the BRRRR method, where he gets paid to buy cash-flowing rentals in areas 99% of investors overlook. In five years, he’s completely transformed his financial future, using a method you can, too! In This Episode We Cover The best out-of-state real estate investment for beginners (completely hands-off) How to use the BRRRR method even when you’re living thousands of miles away from your investing market Using your primary residence’s equity to fund your first (or next) real estate deal What to do once you’ve run out of cash to invest (should you raise private money?) Why you do NOT need to wait until you're 65 to finally retire And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1198 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Dave Meyer?

  This investor had no exit plan from a demanding and dangerous day job. Working a full 30 years to vest his pension just didn't feel possible. But then he discovered real estate. And now, just five years later, he owns 16 investment properties and is on track to retire 10 years ahead of schedule. And he's doing this while investing thousands of miles away from his expensive California hometown. This is the path to financial freedom.

• 0:33Dave Meyer?

  What's up, BiggerPockets community? I'm Dave Meyer, housing analyst, rental property investor, and head of real estate investing at BiggerPockets. Welcome to the show. Today, we're bringing you the story of investor Brian Waters from Huntington Beach, California. Brian loves his job. He's a firefighter, but he's seen friends and colleagues struggle trying to reach retirement in a very dangerous line of work. So he started looking for a long-term backup plan, and he bought his first rental property during the pandemic. Now, he's amassed a very impressive out-of-state portfolio that puts him on path to financial freedom well before his 60s. On today's episode, Brian's going to share what he's been doing, like why he started investing

• 1:17Dave Meyer?

  with a turnkey company instead of riskier value-add properties, how documenting his journey on social media paid off huge when he needed capital to expand, and how he's proving every day that the burr is far from dead in Midwest American cities. Let's bring on Brian. Brian, welcome to the BiggerPockets podcast. Thank you for being here.

• 1:39Speaker 01

  Dave, thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited. It's good to finally get to meet you, and I can't wait to talk about some real estate.

• 1:45Dave Meyer?

  Let's do it. Tell us a little bit about yourself first. Where were you in life when you first got the bug or started thinking about investing in real estate?

• 1:53Speaker 01

  I was in my early twenties. I became a medevac pilot in Hawaii, a commercial airline pilot. I was living at home and I wanted to buy a house. I live out in Southern California. It's it's super expensive. So we'd talked to a real estate agent in the area and he kind of had the inside of this place. And I knocked on the door. A lady answered and asked her if she would be willing to sell her house to me. And she said, yeah, but I'm not ready to move. So we bought it. We've rented it back to her for a year. And then for the next over 10 years, I had roommates. I was a pilot. I was gone flying all over the country. So who cares who's in my house, right? So my mortgage was pretty much free and that allowed me to build all that equity, which later became the the golden goose to my investments.

• 2:37Dave Meyer?

  So what'd you do from there? After a house hack? I think a lot of people either stick with just house hacking over and over and over again. But what did you do after that first deal?

• 2:46Speaker 01

  So it was years until I actually got back into the real estate game. So I let that property just increase in value. I'm lucky Southern California about the home prices go up over time. But that kind of fast forwards me to to getting in the fire service and being a 33 year old with brand new twin boys and kind of almost in panic mode like, hey, I don't want to work till I'm 63. And also, I'm one injury away from actually having to retire.

• 3:13Dave Meyer?

  Yeah, that's scary. That's hard.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've been part of our peer support team for over 13 years. And you see a lot of mental and physical stuff going on. And I just had to come up with a plan. So the very next property was it was right around when COVID was happening. I had enough equity in my house that I was able to refinance. You know, I don't even want to say the rate because it's going to make people it's going to trigger some people. But it was it was very low.

• 3:38Dave Meyer?

  Does it start with a three?

• 3:40Speaker 01

  It starts with a two.

• 3:41Dave Meyer?

  It starts with a two? Oh, man. Yeah.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  Just don't hate on me for that. But I was able to pull out some money and I wanted to get into real estate because I love my children to death. And as a father, I didn't want to have to have them live in Timbuktu and not be around me. So selfishly, I was looking for property where I could buy early and kind of make them have to have to be around me forever. So as I was looking around Southern California, I found a house that was for sale. And I call it the firefighter special because the realtor was a fireman, the seller was a fireman, and I was a fireman. And so the seller, he was three years from retirement, and he wanted to to sell his house. But he wanted to live in it for three more years because his son was in high school and finish off. And so I was like, that was my first rental and that property is still one of my better

• 4:28Speaker 01

  properties today. But what happened eventually is I looked at my bank account and I was like, well, I can no longer afford houses in California.

• 4:36Dave Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  It's crazy. So my next journey was into the out of state stuff.

• 4:41Dave Meyer?

  Now, Brian, I want to hear how you scaled because I've sort of gone down a similar path where I started in a more expensive market. At a certain point, it gets super hard. And so you have to come up with a new strategy. You don't have to go out of state, but it sounds like you did. We're going to hear about that, but we do have to take one quick break. We'll be right back. Stick with us. Managing rentals shouldn't be stressful. That's why landlords love rent ready. Get rent in your account in just two days. That's faster cash flow, less waiting, no need to message a tenant. You can chat instantly in app, so you have no more lost emails or texts. Plus, you can schedule maintenance repairs with just a few taps. So you're not playing phone tag.

• 5:20Dave Meyer?

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• 6:05Dave Meyer?

  to get a quote today.

• 6:07Henry Washington?

  Here's a strategy that most W2 employees have never heard of. Normally, if you want to write off a rental property against your regular income, you need real estate professional status. That means tracking hundreds of hours a year. Rent2Retirement 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 Rent2Retirement's Class A new construction investment properties. You set up an Airbnb listing and self manage it for the remainder of the year. Rent to Retirement then rents the home as a short term rental to establish it as an STR for the year. No furnishing required, making this the easy button to save five or six figures in taxes this year.

• 6:49Henry 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. Quick word about a new pro perk you'll want to know about.

• 7:34Henry Washington?

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• 8:17Henry Washington?

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• 8:34Speaker 03

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• 9:07Dave Meyer?

  Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Podcast. I'm here with investor Brian Waters, who is just talking about how he turned his primary residence into a small portfolio in Southern California. But Brian, it sounds like he hit the point most people in California do where it's just not really logical to keep going, at least if you want to buy rental property. So what was your solution to that challenge?

• 9:28Speaker 01

  What I decided to do, instead of going into the flips or the burrs, which I later got into, I decided to go the turnkey method. And for me, that has been an amazing transition to out of state properties.

• 9:42Dave Meyer?

  People call turnkey different things. Some people say a property that you buy directly that is just fixed up and nice is turnkey. But you're talking about buying from a turnkey operator?

• 9:53Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely.

• 9:55Dave Meyer?

  So maybe you could just tell our audience a little bit about what that entails and why you were attracted to it.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  So number one, this is a great strategy for an active, hardworking, W2, super busy person. I'm a firefighter, I'm a dad, I coach full-time football for my kids. I don't have a lot of time to go do this stuff. And those other strategies aren't wrong, but what these turnkey providers are, there's companies all over the country and they internally do everything. They go out and door knock, they market, they cold call, they find the houses. Once they do that, then they go out and have their own construction teams that fix the properties and they put in new flooring, new kitchens, new bathrooms, new water heaters, new roofs, everything. And then what they do is they turn around and they have a property management company that finds a tenant.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  And signs a lease, then they put it on their website. It never goes to the market and investors can go buy it. So I love this strategy because literally they give you the numbers. You already know what it's rented for. You already know that all the major CapEx items like the roof and water heater is brand new. Those are going to be deferred for later. You have a good quality product and you could run the numbers because you know what the price is, you know what the insurance is, you know what the rent is, and you just have to analyze it. And that's what I did. And I absolutely love that strategy for beginners.

• 11:17Dave Meyer?

  Yeah, I, I think what you said is so important that where you are, the kind of investor you are will usually dictate if this is a good strategy for you. Like if you're busy and you're out of state, this is a great idea. This just makes a ton of sense, right? Like being able to go out and buy something, get the benefits of a value add opportunity, but not having to go out and source all of the contractors or subs yourself, knowing that the repairs and CapEx and maintenance and all this stuff is going to be a little bit less is really appealing. But I have, I have some questions because I think this is a really interesting option for our audience. I'd love to dig in on. So did you know the market you wanted to invest in? Did you go out and find the turnkey operator first? Or how did you find a deal that you were comfortable with?

• 12:02Speaker 01

  So what I did is I, I called multiple turnkey providers and this is kind of a buyer beware for all the listeners. There's some really, really good ones out there and there's some really bad ones, right? So I am a big believer of follow the herd mentality. So I was talking to other investors through forums, through Facebook groups. The cool part about that is, is you're, you're protected in a, in a lot of senses here. You know, you're protected by the inspection report. You're protected by an appraisal. You already have a lease signed and people will argue, well, you're not going to cash flow on these. I want to tell you a little bit about some of the incentives these people are offering, which is actually blowing my mind when I talk about it.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  So a few of the ones out there that are really good, they will buy the rates down to 5.5% 30 year conventional fixed, which is amazing.

• 12:50Dave Meyer?

  That's awesome.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  They have a one year tenant. Guarantee where if the tenant moves out, they're going to pay you that rent that was talked about. They often will have lower incentive property management fees of 5%. We're investing in these states that have low property taxes. And again, the CapEx items are all taken care of. So I'm very conservative when I underwrite stuff, but every single one of these cash flows.

• 13:14Dave Meyer?

  Well, good on you for doing your due diligence because I think that's the real thing that people get hung up on about. Cause you're right, they're especially like in 2021, 2022, they're, everyone was calling themselves a turnkey rental company, you know? And I would just encourage you all to look for people who have a track record, you know? There are great reputable companies who do this. I'm sure they are frustrated by some of the people in the industry that give them a bad name. But there are very good, reliable companies that do this. And I love that you called the investors too. These businesses, they're different than traditional home sellers. And I think it's similar to something we've talked about on the show recently, which is that new construction is becoming more appealing. Because builders just have a different business model.

• 13:58Dave Meyer?

  They need to move inventory. And the same thing is true with turnkey operators too. They're doing volume and they're willing to buy down your rate to sell something a month faster. Whereas home sellers, Brian gave us two examples, people are like, I'll just wait three years. You know, it's just like a totally different mindset. And so if you're the kind of investor, one, who can move quickly, two, might buy at volume, might buy more than one. People will potentially work with you and give you really great deals. So Brian, how did you actually ultimately pick a deal? Did you, did you settle on the operator first or the market first? Or what order did you go in?

• 14:33Speaker 01

  I settled on the market first, which was Memphis. And Memphis was a market that a lot of people were talking about. Never been there, still have never been there. But I asked around different people who had used them. Some of these investors had multiple ones. And when I interviewed them and talked to them, I mean, these people sometimes are turning over hundreds of properties. And so I was using them as the subject matter experts in that area.

• 14:56Dave Meyer?

  That's great. And have you scaled that up since then?

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I currently have a total of 16 properties, 15 of those are out of state. And I've kind of spread my wings a little bit to other markets as well. The first Six properties minus the California one were all turnkey. At that point, I kind of opened the wallet again and was like, oh, where's all my money? And so I had to start getting creative and that's, at that point, I felt like I'd really learned a lot about the industry. Even though they were easier to do, I understood how to analyze stuff, how to find stuff. I'd started really digging into the bigger pockets communities and, and understanding. And so then I transitioned into the BRRRR stuff.

• 15:35Dave Meyer?

  And so how many turnkey properties do you have total?

• 15:38Speaker 01

  Nine turnkey totals and then the rest are all BRRRRs.

• 15:42Dave Meyer?

  And you've never seen any of them?

• 15:44Speaker 01

  Never even been to the state that.

• 15:46Dave Meyer?

  That's incredible. Yeah. So I mean, you must have good reporting then, right? Like that to me would be the thing that I would be nervous about. I invest out of state too, but I've just hand selected the property management. Clearly you're happy with the property management.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. And they, they use all the, the fancy online portals where they send you stuff. And, and truthfully, it becomes easier by the fact that it's away from me. It, it have to have better systems and I have to have a better team to do it. So I can go to the fire department and take care of the community, or I can be on the football field, coaching my kids' stuff and not have to worry about, hey, the tenant called me and first off, I'm not even good at that stuff. I'd go over there and probably break more than I would try to fix, right?

• 16:27Dave Meyer?

  So, oh, I know all about that. Yeah.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Right. So by the fact that it's far away, I'll wake up in the morning and like, hey, you had a little plumbing leak. Don't worry. It's fixed. The tenant's happy. We're good. I'm like, cool. Thanks.

• 16:36Dave Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Moving on.

• 16:37Dave Meyer?

  Incredible. Well, good for you. I know it is a big leap for anyone listening to this to invest out of state, but I completely agree with you, Brian. It forces you to just take a different position on the team. When I lived and invested in Colorado, I did so much myself just because I could. I lived down the road and it just seemed silly to go hire someone to do that. And that worked well. Like I, I don't regret doing that. But as soon as I started investing out of state, I'm like, oh, I could concentrate on what I am good at, which is like finding markets, analyzing deals, doing asset management and find people who are way better at property management than I am. I wasn't doing myself any favors fixing stuff. Absolutely not. And so I, I think it's, you know, it's almost like this forcing function that allows you to just like mature as an investor.

• 17:23Dave Meyer?

  If you do things out of state, but you, you know, it takes a certain personality and not everyone's going to be comfortable with that. I do want to hear more about how you moved on to BRRRRs and what you've been up to recently, but we got to take one more quick break. Stick with us. For my wife's birthday, I wanted to make her a new website for her landscape design business. So I researched a lot of different options. I tried out a couple, but honestly, it was really overwhelming. It was pretty time consuming and still, the site wasn't coming out the way I wanted it to. Then I tried Hostinger and everything was super simple. I asked Hostinger's AI to build a clean site for her business and it had a working version up in minutes. No coding or designer needed. Plus, its AI

• 18:06Dave Meyer?

  agent helps with SEO, website copy, and email marketing after launch. You get domain, website, email, all in one account. And right now, you can get Black Friday and Cyber Monday pricing through December 14th. So snag Hostinger's services at their lowest prices before the sale ends. Create your website today for just $1.99. Go to hostinger.com/realestate and use code REALESTATE for an additional 10% off Black Friday and Cyber Monday pricing. I just booked a ski trip to Park City and I've already got the whole thing planned out. Five days, first tracks every morning before the crowd show up, my knees reminding me I'm not 25 anymore by the second run, and an embarrassing number of overpriced

• 18:51Dave Meyer?

  burritos at the lodge. I don't even care. This is the trip I look forward to all year. But here's the part I actually appreciate. The practical side of my brain kicking in is that my place doesn't have to just sit there empty the whole time I'm away. I can list my space on Airbnb and bring in a little extra income while I'm out getting humbled on a mountain. And with the co-host network, I'm not the one handling all of it. You can partner with a vetted local co-host who can create your listing, manage reservations, message guests, and even handle the styling. So I get to fully focus on my trip and my place is still working for me the whole time. Find a co-host at airbnb.com/host.

• 19:35Speaker 03

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• 20:05Speaker 04

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• 20:37Dave Meyer?

  Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Podcast. I'm here with investor Brian Waters, talking about how he moved from investing in his own backyard in California to doing out of state turnkey properties in Memphis. Brian, what came next for you?

• 20:51Speaker 01

  So as I did a few of the turnkey properties, I kind of analyzed what these providers were doing and I had really started to educate myself. There was so much that I learned early on and it was less risky. Those turnkeys had a lot less risk, but I knew that I couldn't just continue saving up for a property and buy, saving up for a property and buy. So I wanted to scale faster. One thing that was super, super important, and I had this discussion with this awesome couple at the BiggerPockets convention we just had.

• 21:20Dave Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Is one of my friends early on told me is you have to, to start using social media when you first start. And I still to this day cringe when I watch my own videos. It's just uncomfortable.

• 21:33Dave Meyer?

  Oh, it sucks at the beginning. It's so hard.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  The reason I'm talking about this is because this allowed me at a certain point to raise over a million dollars in private money, which is I'm super, super happy about that I have some amazing partners, but it creates that, that gap between that, that awkward conversation of me asking them and them coming to me. When they come to me, I could just have a conversation. I won't even talk about private lending until they, you know, say, hey, I want to do this too. But I don't want to put in all the work and then it's easier. It's more of an organic conversation. So all my lenders have come from pretty much my warm circle, friends, family, aunts, uncles, people that came to me and I was able to take that money. And now I'm like, well, now I gotta start burning, right? Because I have

• 22:22Dave Meyer?

  Better do something. People need to return.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  I learned about the, the private money process and I found a gem of a contractor in the city of Detroit and I've been hammering Detroit. And I know you talked a lot about this on a few podcasts recently and

• 22:37Dave Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 22:37Speaker 01

  I love that market and I've in the past two years of BRRRR, we're on our seventh property there right now. And for those who say the BRRRR is dead, I disagree.

• 22:47Dave Meyer?

  Yes, I love it. Brian, we're just breaking down myths. BRRRR is not dead. Your primary residence is not a bad investment. I love it.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  Lies.

• 22:54Dave Meyer?

  Well, I just want to commend you for the social media thing. I know from personal experience, it's very awkward to get started, but it is a really powerful tool. It takes a lot of guts, man. So, so good for you. And I, I know not everyone's going to do that, but it's a really repeatable strategy that almost anyone can do. If you are willing to laugh at yourself the first couple of times you make a reel, because they're not going to come out well. They're going to be very cringey and then you'll get better over time. Well, in the spirit of getting uncomfortable, tell me about doing the BRRRR long distance. That I'm sure that was a little bit uncomfortable, too.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  Oh, it was completely uncomfortable. And you know, not all of them went perfect. I will say that my last two were actually home runs.

• 23:36Dave Meyer?

  Like in the last couple of years, like?

• 23:38Speaker 01

  No, in the last like couple of days, like the last week.

• 23:41Dave Meyer?

  Amazing.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  So I had heard about the Detroit market with, I actually listened to episode 1325 on the, the BiggerPockets Daily where they read the articles out.

• 23:51Dave Meyer?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  And that I highly encourage all of the listeners to go and listen to that one. It's an article that someone wrote about the Detroit market and it blew my mind. I was like, ooh, here's an opportunity. I'd never been there. So this was one of the one markets that I actually went to. Everyone told me like, this city is super dangerous. Don't go there. But you know what? I've learned not to listen to people that have not done what you want to do. The downtown area had people driving around on those beer cars with kegs on them. And there's rooftop bars, super clean. Companies like Rocket Mortgage were, have their headquarters there. They just bought Redfin, by the way.

• 24:27Dave Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  All those factories have been coming back up. The Detroit Lions are doing good. Go Lions if you're a fan. It's one of the only cities in, or one of 10 cities in the country that have all five major sports. They're building a Detroit FC soccer stadium there.

• 24:42Dave Meyer?

  Oh, cool.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  So they're just putting, it was so bad for so long. So there's only one way that it can go.

• 24:47Dave Meyer?

  And then go. Yeah.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  So as I, what I did is I contacted a realtor before I went, again, interviewed a few, made sure they're investor friendly. Asked them to give me some neighborhoods. I already knew a bunch of houses that were for sale and that had sold. And so I was kind of doing a little bit of detective work in that area and it just blew me away.

• 25:05Dave Meyer?

  You know, people always generalize things about cities, whether it's Detroit or Chicago or Indianapolis or whatever it is. Go there and decide for yourself. Like I, I really, I have learned a lot. I've gone to a lot of markets. I love doing what you're doing. By the way, I do the same exact thing. I have a map. I drive around. I just walk into random stores. I just try and get the vibe. It's a vibe check. I don't know how else to describe it, but you do that. I have gone to markets that people love and I hated them. I have gone to markets that people hate and I've loved them. It's just depends on who you are, what you're comfortable with, what you're trying to accomplish, but think for yourself like that. I think that's really the, the thing. And honestly, it's one of the reasons why on this podcast, people always message me and they're like,

• 25:49Dave Meyer?

  what markets do you invest in the Midwest? And I don't tell them because I don't want you to do what I do because what I do is for me and my strategy. And you shouldn't just blindly listen to me or to Brian or to anyone else. You should come up with your own strategy and find the markets. If you want to do out of state that work for you. So maybe walk us through one of your recent deals. Like what are the numbers on these look like?

• 26:10Speaker 01

  What I do is I go on to Redfin and I put little areas and that sends me a message right away when something pops up. So I knew where I wanted to go first. I already had a private lender. Ready to go. And when this property came up, we just struck on it right away.

• 26:24Dave Meyer?

  Nice.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  It was $70,000 and the scope of work on it was 40 grand.

• 26:29Dave Meyer?

  And so when you say you're doing the private lender, are you just straight up buying 100% of the acquisition price? And the renovation with one private lender? Is that kind of the goal?

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Correct. I've, I've mixed before, but I think it's easier for me and for that lender, just to do one, one offs together.

• 26:47Dave Meyer?

  Okay. So you just did, you basically borrowed 110 grand. Do you mind telling us, is that like hard money kind of terms, 10, 12% interest?

• 26:55Speaker 01

  No points and I pay that lender 10%.

• 26:58Dave Meyer?

  Wow, that's awesome.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  It's a great deal. And, and again, getting back to solving people's problems. My lender was on a fixed income. She's an older lady that has, she had to have roommates and she's in her seventies. And so I came to her and I said, you deserve to live alone and make some money. How do we solve that problem for you? And I was willing to pay whatever and we came to terms on that. And the next month she moved her roommate out. She has her own space. Uh, and she is, she's loving our relationship and you know, I take really good care of her because she deserved that.

• 27:32Dave Meyer?

  That's fantastic. Yeah, that's amazing. I love that. Again, always talking about this mutual benefit, real estate is not a zero sum game. Your contractor can win, your realtor can win, your tenants could win, your lender can win, and you can win all at the same time. That's when you're doing it right.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Not only can they win, I want them to win because I want to be their favorite customer when they're coming back and they, they're going to do better work for you. If you're, if they're winning with you.

• 27:55Dave Meyer?

  A hundred percent. I, I love that approach. So tell us, finish the deal. So get a one 10, is this one of the, the home runs that you're talking about?

• 28:03Speaker 01

  This is one of the home runs. So they cranked it out. We ended up putting a section eight tenant in there. The process was pretty simple because we put in new everything. Uh, and I'd planned to keep it for a while. Please don't lipstick on a pig stuff, you guys. Like it's, it's important. If you're going to keep this for a long time. The tenant deserves a nice place to live. And if you're going to keep it, it's going to have less headaches for you later. So we're all in for one 10. And when we got the section eight tenant in there, it was 1350. For the rent, but it just appraised for one eighty and I was able to pull out, you know, seventy-five percent of that. I paid back the lender all their money. I still have a ton of equity in the property and I was able to actually put money in my own pocket. I know this is rare, but they're out there still. So.

• 28:47Dave Meyer?

  Wow, that's unbelievable. And I'm curious, like, what is your deal flow like? Can you, are you having trouble finding these? Or can you kind of do as many of these as you want?

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I could do as many as I want. I mean, there's in that market, there's so many. Just because a burr is not perfect and you're not getting all your money out. I would argue that if if you can get half of your money out, that's still better than a normal deal.

• 29:09Dave Meyer?

  A hundred percent.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  If you can get a hundred dollars back, that is a win.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Change your expectations of what is perfect and.

• 29:16Dave Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  And but to answer your question, I look for on market stuff. I also have now have a contact with a really good wholesaler out there. And third, my G C is always on the move looking for, because he's a realtor, he's always sending me deals. So I have more deals than I could fund, but I also am a busy working professional. So I'm trying to start with my strategy. I don't want to do a thousand. I'm a busy, busy person. So I'm doing five a year right now, and that's plenty for for me.

• 29:46Dave Meyer?

  That's plenty. And how much time does that take you like in an average week or month?

• 29:51Speaker 01

  I think the hardest part is probably the underwriting, getting the property going. But once we do that, I'm using the same flooring, the same color paint, the same windows. Everything. I literally have a spreadsheet and I do this in case I have to change contractors, but all the way down to the item number at Home Depot or Lowe's where it becomes super simple for them to do. And also, I could predict my costs better, right?

• 30:15Dave Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  So so once I get that, I I'm spending a couple hours here and there. If problems come up, then obviously it takes me more, but it's part of that who not how. Find that team member that's going to be really good at their job and it's going to be less work for you. It's not passive, but.

• 30:29Dave Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  It's less work that that I have to do.

• 30:32Dave Meyer?

  Awesome. Well, I love it, Brian. Well, congratulations on your success. I really admire the way you've sort of adapted over the course of your career. I think a lot of people come in to say, I'm going to be this kind of investor. I'm not going to be this kind of investor, but you got to learn. You know, I wrote the book, Start a Strategy. You have to have a goal, but the path towards that goal is going to shift and switch. And if you just educate yourself, work hard, you can absolutely do it. So congratulations on all your success.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 30:59Dave Meyer?

  And thank you for being here. I loved hearing your story. We'll have to hear how you're doing in a year or two. You have to come back and join us again.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  Thank you, guys, for the opportunity. This has been an amazing opportunity for me. And yeah, keep growing, keep learning. And I would love to come back at some point if you have me.

• 31:13Dave Meyer?

  And thank you all so much for being a part of this community and for listening to this podcast. We'll see you in a few days for another episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast.