Real Estate Rookie

Many people invest for appreciation. Others invest for tax benefits. But some investors want enough monthly cash flow to replace their W2 income and help them quit their nine-to-five jobs. When can you go full-time with real estate investing? How many rentals do you need? Stay tuned! Today, Tony and co-host Garrett Brown are diving into the BiggerPockets Forums, and our first question comes from someone who has launched six vacation rentals in just five years. Should they diversify their portfolio? Are they ready to become full-time investors? We’ll share our thoughts! We’ll also hear from someone who’s thinking about selling an equity-rich property to pivot to short-term rentals in the Midwest. Listen in as we show them how to choose a market and set up their Airbnb business. But that’s not all. One investor has bought a rental property that is already booked months in advance. Can they cancel those bookings? Raise their nightly rates? Stick around to find out! Looking to invest? Need answers? Ask your question on the BiggerPockets Forums!

Do you want to buy a rental property in 2025 but fear money could get in the way? Putting 15%-20% down is a huge hurdle for new investors, but there are several strategies you can use to limit your expenses, grow your income, and even put LESS money down. If you want to know how to save for a down payment as quickly as possible, you need these money-saving tips! Welcome back to the Real Estate Rookie podcast! Before you can invest in real estate, you need to lay a solid financial foundation, and today, personal finance expert, master live-in flipper, and co-host of the BiggerPockets Money podcast, Mindy Jensen, joins the show to weigh in on this crucial topic. Do you have your spending in check? Are you finding ways to grow your income? How’s your credit score looking? Whether you’re starting from scratch or looking to level up your finances, we’ll share some actionable steps you can take toward buying property in 2025. We’ll also talk about ways to leverage your retirement accounts to buy real estate, whether you should pay down debt before investing, and other investments (that aren’t real estate) that could help you build wealth!

When interest rates rose, many investors stopped buying. But not Ryan Irwin. This rookie doubled down on real estate, choosing whichever investing strategy made the numbers work. Even in a tough housing market, Ryan’s big bet on real estate paid off, as he’s now up to seven deals and earns a solid chunk of cash flow each month! Welcome back to the Real Estate Rookie podcast! It can take a new investor months, sometimes years, to find their first deal. But when Ryan was just starting out, he did the two things every rookie should do: he told everyone he was investing in real estate, and he started attending networking events. Building these relationships has allowed him to buy multiple rental properties, flip houses, and invest in syndications—all in just five years! But Ryan doesn’t aspire to build his own real estate “empire.” He just wants a small real estate portfolio that gives him financial freedom. Now that he has several deals under his belt, he plans to stabilize his portfolio and squeeze even more cash flow out of his rental properties by refinancing and paying off his mortgages one by one!

Are you leaving cash flow on the table? Even if you own a single rental property, there are all kinds of strategies you can use to generate more rental income, whether it’s house hacking, renting by the room, or converting your long-term rentals to short-term rentals. And we’re just scratching the surface! Welcome back to another Rookie Reply! Today, we’re diving back into the BiggerPockets Forums to answer some more of your recent questions. First, we’ll hear from someone who’s at a crossroads with their property. This house has paying tenants and consistent monthly cash flow, but the investor would need to sell the property this year to claim it as their primary residence and dodge capital gains taxes. Stay tuned to find out if they should sell or hold! Then, after a few cash-flow-boosting strategies, we’ll discuss using a HELOC (home equity lines of credit) for a down payment and the potential pitfalls you could run into! Looking to invest? Need answers? Ask your question on the BiggerPockets Forums!

Today, we’re talking about the real estate deals we did in 2024. What went right, what went wrong, and what mistakes did we make that you must avoid in 2025? This year was wild for the real estate market—you probably felt it, too. Whether you were buying rentals, flipping houses, or just getting started, this year felt hot, cold, and lukewarm all at the same time. So, how did we end the year? Did we hit our 2024 goals, or was this wild housing market just too much for us? We’re sharing exactly what our 2024 goals were, whether we hit them, and what we’re planning for in 2025. We decided to give up one real estate investing strategy that wasn’t worth it anymore; we made some BIG mistakes by choosing the wrong agent, hiring the wrong people, and forgetting to systematize some properties. But we also made some solid moves that saved us when some of our deals began to fall apart. Don’t repeat the same mistakes we made—learn from them instead! Tune in, write these lessons down, and build a better real estate portfolio in 2025!