The Biggerpockets Real Estate Investing Podcast

Would you spend thirty hours finding a deal if it could make you over $100,000? Of course you would! And that’s exactly what David Lecko, CEO of DealMachine, suggests you do to find better real estate deals in 2025. After hundreds of calls and mailers, an extensive rehab, and two appraisals, he walked into six-figure equity on a single rental property! Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Real Estate podcast! David has achieved financial freedom by building a real estate portfolio of nineteen cash-flowing, appreciating properties. His big secret? Buying the same property over and over in a market he knows inside out—Indianapolis, Indiana. He’ll scour tax-delinquent lists for distressed properties that fit his buy box and use the BRRRR method (buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat) to snowball into his next deal. But now that David has moved to Austin, Texas, he faces a brand-new challenge—investing in real estate out of state. While most investors would hire a property manager to oversee their properties, David se

Has the Federal Reserve gone too far? Many Americans are critical of the Fed’s move to raise interest rates sharply, pause for years, and then slowly start implementing rate cuts. The arguably most prominent critic of the Fed? President-Elect Donald Trump, who, shortly after nominating the current Fed chair, Jerome Powell, reversed his opinion on whether Powell was the right person for the job. Now, with Trump coming back to the White House, Powell’s job hangs in jeopardy—or does it? Can a President fire the Fed chair? Does the President have the authority to influence how the Fed operates? What would happen if Trump decided to go after Powell and request his resignation? Nick Timiraos, reporter at The Wall Street Journal and Federal Reserve expert, is on to answer these questions. Nick gives us the latest update on rate cuts, where the Fed is headed, how the future of the Fed looks with Trump back in office, and why some politicians champion “Fed Independence,” while others argue that Fed power has overstepp

Every landlord has some wild tenant stories. We’re sharing the ones you probably won’t believe in this episode. And we’re not just talking about a bad eviction or an upstairs neighbor blasting loud music. Instead, we’re talking about identity theft, living room toilets (this actually happened), random people sleeping on YOUR couch, and the mystery of the magically appearing staircase.  Being a landlord isn’t always easy, but some stories make real estate investing truly worth it. We’ve seen some of our tenants turn their lives around completely, all by having a safe place to live. Even with all the chaos, broken toilets, non-paying tenants, and occasional hard conversations, being a landlord can be pretty rewarding.  Do you have a tenant story you want to share? Drop it in the BiggerPockets Forums! In This Episode We Cover: Why you MUST have a (secured) separate entrance when house hacking  The reason Henry now double-checks the identity of his tenants before signing a lease with them Turning bad tenants int

What if, within ten years, you could reach financial freedom? Imagine it. You may have a high-stress job where you’re working long hours and making good money but feeling burnout creeping in. You NEED an exit strategy if you’re going to keep up with this lifestyle because before long, you may need an early retirement. That’s precisely how Benjamin Aaker, emergency medicine physician, felt. Benjamin loves his work, and he’s still working today, but now, he has the option to leave when the burnout gets too much. After becoming an “accidental landlord,” Benjamin quickly saw the benefits of investing in real estate. He bought a few more houses and a multifamily building, then went bigger and bigger. Now, he’s equity-rich with a real estate portfolio that can support his lifestyle if he decides not to work. Even if you’re not stressed out at your job (yet), Benjamin encourages you to financially prepare to exit your career, if just for peace of mind. He talks about how you can scale smarter, faster, and better wit

What makes a “good” real estate deal in 2025 and beyond? How much of a return should your investment property be producing? Are real estate returns good enough in this tough housing market to beat out other performing assets like stocks? Today, we’re sharing our exact investing criteria, defining what makes a “good” real estate deal to us, and how you can use key indicators to identify deals worth the effort. We’re breaking this episode into a few parts as we touch on the primary types of investment properties: long-term rentals, short-term rentals, and house flips. Garrett Brown is our resident vacation rental expert and shares how he’s routinely getting twenty percent (or greater) returns by reinvesting in his short-term rentals. Next, familiar face James Dainard discusses the unbelievable house-flipping returns he nets, but are they worth the risk? Finally, Dave shares the metric he goes after when investing in long-term, low-risk rental properties. Plus, we’ll share when it’s a better use of your money to

Today, we’re talking about the easiest way to find profitable rental properties in 2024 (and 2025!). It’s not through cold calling homeowners, sending mailers, networking with wholesalers, or doing any other “off-market” strategy. It’s so easy that even real estate investing beginners will have no trouble finding deals. What are we talking about? On-market, MLS (multiple listing service) properties for sale. You might think, “But everything on the market is overpriced; there are NO good deals left!” That’s where you’re wrong, and today’s guest proves it. Dan Nelson has been buying on-market investment properties for two decades now, and he’s built an entire portfolio doing so (even in recent years). Dan knows there’s a time and place for off-market deals, but he has found so many hidden opportunities on the market that he keeps returning to buy. During this episode, Dan shows YOU precisely what to look for when browsing listing websites for rental properties or potential house flips. He shares the hidden oppo

Clay White has done the seemingly impossible. He’s bought five rental properties, completed multiple flips, and done it all in the past fifteen months with high mortgage rates. To make it more impressive, he did it WITHOUT a W2 job at just twenty-three years old! So what sets Clay apart from ninety-nine percent of other investors? As you’ll hear in today’s episode, he went through an almost comical amount of failures, but how he solved them makes him an elite investor. If you think you missed the boat on real estate investing, Clay proves that you couldn’t be more wrong. He not only built an entire rental portfolio in one of the most challenging times to invest but did it with no consistent income, no experience, and in a market you’ve probably never heard of. If you can follow Clay’s advice, mimic his ingenuity and tenacity for problem-solving, and are willing to put up with small failures to achieve massive success, you, too, will be able to build serious wealth, no matter your timeline, no matter your age,

So you want to start investing in real estate but have ZERO experience. What should you do? The good news is that even if you don’t know how to invest in real estate, you can get started relatively quickly, especially if you avoid the common rookie mistakes. To help you jump over the investing hurdles, instead of running right into them, Dave brought on Tony Robinson, top short-term rental investor, and Henry Washington, repeat co-host and long-term rental investor, to share exactly what they’d do if they were starting from scratch in 2025. Both Henry and Tony have scaled very fast. They own seven-figure real estate portfolios producing hundreds of thousands in rent yearly. But neither of them has been investing for more than ten years. How did they scale their real estate portfolios so quickly? They learned from their mistakes FAST and are teaching you the same lessons on today’s show. In this episode, we’re going through the beginner steps you should take to build a real estate portfolio starting in 2025. W

Can you invest in real estate with just $75,000? And not only invest but can you find cash-flowing rentals in solid markets with long-term profit potential without spending six figures? Yes, to both. Today, we’re proving it’s more than possible because we’re finding on-market rental properties for sale that can be bought, renovated, and rented with a $75,000 (or less) investment. These are LIVE deals, meaning you could make an offer on them right after this podcast airs (seriously!). To help us out, Dave asked fellow investors Ashley Kehr and Henry Washington to bring a deal to the show that: 1. Has an all-in cost of $75,000 or less 2. Is on-market (on the MLS) 3. Isn’t a house hack (you don’t have to live in the property). Dave found his own deal and brought it along, too. So today, we’re sharing three actual deals in three solid real estate markets, all that you can invest in with $75,000 or less. We found rental properties that not only cash flow hundreds of dollars a month but come close to (or beat) the

Is property “rezoning” the trick to making much more money in real estate? Our guest is using zoning laws to his favor by finding areas with hidden potential but NO space left to build. He then changes the zoning, builds new homes, and sells them FAST (and often over-asking price) to the local buyers waiting in line for inventory to arrive. You can do it, too, but you’ll need some beginner information before you start. Since 2016, Stuart Udis has been building homes in areas most investors overlook. The average investor sees an area with growing demand but realizes that they can’t build a home because a piece of land may NOT allow residential units, so they give up. Stuart instead gets both the city AND the local residents on his side, having all parties favor a zoning change, helping him be the only investor to build on that once-overlooked piece of land. So how do YOU do this, too? In this episode, Stuart walks through how he finds hidden opportunities in often-overlooked neighborhoods, the groups you’ll ha

Real estate investing is great…sometimes. Other times, it’s NOT fun to be a real estate investor. While the pros, like financial freedom, generational wealth, and passive income definitely outweigh the cons, there are times when real estate investing makes you sit back and think, “Wow, I’m not having fun right now.” So we’re here to vent some of our biggest frustrations about the real estate industry, and if you’re an investor, landlord, house flipper, or property manager, you’ll probably relate.  These are the things that grind our gears the MOST. Now we’re not saying to ditch rental properties and real estate investing because of these downsides. Despite all these investment property pains, we still believe real estate is the best asset class for investing. But you will be hit with the headaches that we go through if you decide to invest. The good news? We will give you actionable tips to avoid the worst of these throughout the episode. If you’re brand new to real estate investing or are thinking of buying

Discounted real estate deals could be coming THIS winter as the housing market begins to “thaw.” Today, Dave is flying solo, bringing you a housing market update on all the crucial factors real estate investors are looking at—home prices, mortgage rates, housing supply, and rent prices. Even with home sales falling by a massive margin, home prices are still at all-time highs, and the housing market is “stuck,” but we could see some sellers taking price cuts this winter if you’re willing to take advantage. Okay, but how can home prices still be THIS high when the total home sales are twenty percent lower than average and around fifty percent under the recent highs? It’s simple—affordability struggles. High rates, high prices, and “locked-in” homeowners staying in place keep the market frozen. So, why does Dave believe sellers will be more inclined to drop their prices this winter? Where does he believe interest rates will be by the end of the year? And what’s the one thing that could get the housing market “un

These two college teammates built a sizable real estate portfolio in just three years by using what they call the “delayed BRRRR strategy.” They’ve used this specific real estate investing tactic (and the regular BRRRR strategy) to turn one duplex into more than a dozen rental properties for their portfolio. They didn’t start with a ton of money and only got into investing together in 2021 when housing competition was high, and rates were soon to rise sharply. So, how does their strategy work, and how can YOU use it to buy more rental properties? In this episode, these innovative investors, Joe Escamilla and Sam Farman, talk about why it’s CRUCIAL to have great real estate investing partners and how choosing the right one can be the rocket fuel you need to build a financial freedom-enabling rental property portfolio. They share the new “BRRRR” strategy (buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat) they’re using to get steady real estate cash flow AND boost their equity at the same time.  We’ll also talk about raising

“Lake Effect” cash flow is starting to make landlords rich in this under-the-radar region of the United States. For the past few decades, mainstream real estate investing platforms have almost forgotten this region, and we’ve even overlooked it a few times. Here, landlords can buy affordable homes, make serious cash flow, and see significant investing advantages they can’t get in most other areas. Where are we talking about? Salt Lake? The Great Lakes? Lake Tahoe? Welcome back to this week’s BiggerNews, where we’re discussing everyone’s favorite subject—cash flow (and a LOT of it). We brought Real Estate Rookie co-host Ashley Kehr, a predominantly cash-flow investor, to the show to share why her home region is finally getting the recognition it deserves for real estate investing. If you want the residual income that will lead you to financial freedom and an early retirement, this is the region to look at. You can buy homes for a fraction of what they cost elsewhere, all while getting surprisingly high rent pr

“Should I refinance my home NOW or wait?” If you have bought a property in the past two years, every day looks like a better and better time to refinance your mortgage. After the Fed’s big rate cut last month, mortgage rates did the unexpected…they went UP. But, even with these slightly inflated rates, now is looking like a good time to refinance if you bought a home with a higher interest rate. So, should you take the risk of waiting for mortgage rates to drop or lock in these substantially lower rates now? We don’t know what will happen next, so we brought on veteran lender Caeli Ridge to answer some of our more nuanced questions. Caeli summarizes where rates were, where they are today, and where they could be headed. If you want to know what refinance and HELOC (home equity line of credit) rates are right now, stay tuned because she shares exactly what her clients are getting. What about paying no or low interest on your next HELOC? Caeli shares what may be the greatest HELOC hack we’ve ever heard of—one t

What if you could not only replace but make MUCH more than your W2 salary with real estate investing? Now, imagine you could do it all in just two years. Sounds impossible, right? Today’s guest did precisely that, with more barriers than most. Jon Boyd left his W2 job to pursue real estate investing full-time, all while having to provide for his family of six! Now, he’s making much more than his job ever paid him and is building serious wealth in the process. How’s he doing it? It’s simple: direct-to-seller strategies anyone can try.  Unlike many real estate investors, Jon skipped heavily investing during the 2010s, so his wealth is NOT due to the rapid appreciation of 2020 - 2023. As his W2 whittled him down day by day, Jon knew he needed an exit option. So, he tried one simple direct-to-seller marketing strategy, found a great deal, made a serious profit, and decided, “Let’s go ALL-IN!”  Now, just a few years later, he’s a full-time real estate investor, doing over a dozen house flips in a year, with a port

Are there “clues” that point to phenomenal real estate investing areas? We mean the areas nobody knew about until it was too late. The neighborhoods that seem to jump in price overnight, and everyone ends up saying, “I should have bought there when I had the chance!” What if there was a way to easily identify WHICH areas are in the “path of progress” and could make you serious wealth IF you buy today? We brought in an expert with two decades of experience picking these markets. James Dainard is a rental property investor, house flipper, private money lender, and every other role you can think of in real estate. He’s been investing primarily in one market for his entire career: Seattle, Washington. But, even though he’s sticking to this specific market, he’s diversified by having investments all around the entire metro area, even in places most people wouldn’t DARE to buy in. Today, he’s sharing his secrets, showcasing precisely what he looks at to identify these hidden but growing real estate areas WITHIN a m

Want to invest in real estate but feel like you don’t have everything it takes? You know you need money for a down payment, skills to manage tenants/perform renovations, and time to find the deals in the first place. But what if you only have one of these? Can you still invest in real estate even without the missing pieces? Today, we’re going to show you how to do just that, no matter how much time, money, or real estate experience you’ve got.  We’re walking through three scenarios with three different investors: Dave Meyer (who had no money/experience), Devon Kennard (who had money but no time/experience), and Tyler Madden (who had skills but limited time/money). Each of these investors was able to build a successful real estate portfolio, all while either being time-stretched, money-stretched, or not knowing how to swing a hammer. They’re sharing the secrets to hiring out/building the other skills so you CAN take down real estate deals, no matter what you’re working with. If you can combine all the pieces o

What’s the best way to build wealth in 2024? For many, it’s “value-add” real estate investing. You might know what this is, but you may have never heard the term before. Value-add investing is when you buy investment properties, improve them, increase the cash flow, equity, or both, and reap the rewards by holding onto them as rentals or flipping them for quick cash. Today’s investor, Tom Shallcross, is doing just this, but he’s making BIG returns (six figures on flips!) and funneling those profits into his sizable rental portfolio. And he’s doing it all in 2024. We know that everyone has told you how impossible it is to invest in real estate in 2024, but Tom instantly proves the naysayers wrong. Not only is he flipping houses, but he’s also buying rentals, BRRRRing (buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat), and doing it all in a competitive market—Chicago! So what’s he doing differently? Tom gets the deals before the rest of the investors in his area can, takes on BIG house flips that most investors are too scar

Real estate “boomtowns” present a massive opportunity to investors in 2024. A few years ago, buyers were fighting tooth and nail to purchase properties in Austin, Boise, Phoenix, and other red-hot markets. Demand was growing in these cities, and prices were shooting up with no end in sight. But then…it stopped. Prices started declining, vacancy rose, and investors were stuck holding onto properties now worth less than what they paid. The interesting part? These market declines might be only temporary, and those who don’t buy now could be kicking themselves a few years down the road. To give us insight into which boomtowns are worth buying in and which are worth ignoring is Matt Faircloth, multifamily real estate investor. He saw many investors rush to these real estate boomtowns during the peak and are now struggling to fill their rental units as the boom became a bust. He’s identified a sneaky strategy that allows you to buy properties at a discount in these markets to make money while the FOMO investors sea