The Biggerpockets Real Estate Investing Podcast

This investor turned a $25,000 rental property (yes, you read that right) into a real estate portfolio producing $5,000/month in actual cash flow. He had no experience, lived in a small town many would write off, and was working 60 hours a week. But small towns mean less competition and lower prices, and Dustin Cardenas was ready to take advantage. Seven years later, he’s financially free thanks to his small rental portfolio! Dustin’s small town of 30,000 people is located in one of the most affordable parts of the country. Houses routinely sell for $30,000 to $50,000, a down payment for many investors across the US. He’s what you’d call an “everyman”—he’s worked in pest control, as a car salesman, and in a juvenile detention facility. In other words, he had no silver spoon. When a local investor in town told him, “You can do this,” he took the chance. Now, seven years later, he’s got 20 rental units, left his full-time position at work, and is making a life-changing amount of rental income. These affor

House hacking is still the easiest way to start investing in real estate—and it’s getting even easier. You no longer need to live with roommates, share spaces with tenants, and give up your home to offset your mortgage. Instead, thanks to some new methods, you may not even need to live with or next to a tenant at all. These “house hacking” methods still make you rich, still save you tons of money, and work in 2025. In fact, they’re so good, Dave and Henry are doing them right now, even in their 30s and 40s, even with spouses and kids! So what is house hacking? House hacking is when you rent out a portion of the space in or on your property to offset your mortgage cost. This could be renting out one unit in a duplex while you live in the other, or renting out a bedroom in a single-family home. While those are the more “traditional” ways to house hack, there are new tactics that still make you money every month without giving up your personal space. We’re talking about renting out garages, extra land, swimmi

This is how to buy rental properties on a lower salary ($50,000 or less per year) in six steps. If you think you need to be rich to buy rentals, you couldn’t be more wrong. In fact, real estate may be the best investment for those who want to go from low income to financial freedom. You can grow your portfolio faster by using loans, get cash flow that can retire you early, and even make hundreds of thousands completely tax-free.  We’re going to share multiple strategies you can use on a lower income to get your first property for as little as 0% down.  Dave is also highlighting three real estate investing strategies that beginners with little money can use to maximize their investment the most. This means you could turn one investment property into multiple, supercharging your investment so you can repeat it and become wealthier faster, regardless of how much you make at work.  Listen, you DON’T need to make six-figures to buy your first property. This is how you do it with half of that.  In Th

Have zero experience in real estate investing (literally no idea where to begin)? This guest proves you could be financially free in ten years or less if you start today.  Just a decade ago, Peter Fife was broke, working a dead-end job, and never thought about investment properties. He had such little money that when a book on investing piqued his interest, he would sit in a bookshop reading it, but never buying it. His brother, who had some money but bad credit, asked Peter to use his credit to fund a renovation on a triplex. Both had no idea what they were getting into—essentially a second job after their nine-to-fives, painting, replacing floors, scrubbing walls.  The profit from the first deal? Close to a six-figure check, replacing Peter’s income. He then did his spin on the BRRRR method—buying, renovating, reinvesting, and repeating—quitting his job with just two properties.  Now, less than a decade later, he’s financially free with enough passive income to support him and his wife. He took som

We can definitively say it now: the buyer’s market is here.  The housing market is cooling down, but the deals are heating up as a “mild” correction slows down hot markets and gives buyers even more power in cold ones. With it comes buying opportunities—ones that real estate investors have been starved of over the past few years. You can negotiate for more, offer less, and lock in a lower mortgage rate than last year. The question is: will this correction turn into a full-blown housing crash? Dave’s giving you his honest (and data-backed) opinion in this September 2025 housing market update! Mortgage delinquencies are rising rapidly in one subset of the market, the crash-bro clickbaiters say it’s a sign of a coming housing apocalypse—are they finally right about something? One thing is certain: a few housing markets across the US are in danger of slipping into an even more oversupplied market. But, with new data showing that sellers are quitting and walking away, will this reverse the worrying trend?

Small multifamily rentals may be the secret to turning average investors into millionaires. These unassuming properties are in the perfect “sweet spot” for scaling a real estate portfolio, helping you reach financial independence faster with more passive income than regular, single-family rentals, but with even fewer expenses. Today, we’re giving you the five steps to buy your first small multifamily and why 2025 may be the best time to get in the game. Dave, your host, is financially free right now primarily because of small multifamily rentals. His first rental was a small multifamily, he house-hacked a small multifamily, and over a decade later, this remains his favorite real estate investment—for good reason. Small multifamily properties bring in more rent but leave you with only one roof, one furnace, and one foundation to worry about. You can use the best, lowest down payment debt to get one, and just a few of these properties could make you financially free. So, how do you buy your first mult

Ashley Hamilton had every card stacked against her in achieving financial freedom. She was a single mother with two children, earning just $20,000 per year working as a waitress, living in Detroit, one of the hardest-hit markets following the Great Financial Crisis.  Sixteen years later, she’s making $50,000 per month in pure cash flow (and she has the receipts to prove it)! In Detroit, foreclosures were running rampant, houses were being repossessed left and right, but what could she do with almost no disposable income? Thanks to a $6,000 tax refund check, Ashley did what everyone told her not to do—buy a house during the crash. Fortune favors the bold, and Ashley was soon making $7,000 per year in cash flow from a single property. It was time to repeat the system and buy more rentals. With each tax refund, a new property was acquired, and get this—without using a mortgage. Ashley scaled fast thanks to her super-saver mentality, and now makes more passive income in one month than many people do in a

The Federal Reserve has finally cut rates. Will mortgage rates follow? If you’ve been waiting to rate lock or refinance, is now the time, or does the market think we have even further to fall?  With inflation coming down from past years’ peaks and unemployment slowly ticking up, the Fed made the decision everyone was waiting for: cut rates…cautiously. There are still more 2025 rate cuts lined up, but they may not have the effect on mortgage rates that many people think. Many expect mortgage rates could dip into the mid-5% range by late 2025—Dave isn’t so sure. Today, we’re giving you a full recap of the Fed meeting and their announcement, what current mortgage rates are, and interest rate predictions for the rest of 2025 and into 2026. Plus, Dave shares who should consider rate locking and refinancing right now as mortgage rates have fallen over the past couple of months.  If you missed the Fed meeting, don’t worry, this episode will get you up to speed! In This Episode We Cover The Fed’s recent

Should you buy a rental property now or wait? If you buy now and prices rise, you’ll get all the appreciation that comes with it and have the chance to refinance at any point in the future. But waiting to have a larger down payment could get you a better loan and put you in a stronger financial position. You want to get into real estate investing soon, so what should you do? We’re answering this question, and more, on this Q&A episode where we field actual investor dilemmas and share what we’d do in these situations. First, the classic buy now or wait debate. Mortgage rates are falling, and so are prices in many areas, and if you’ve got just enough money to buy your first rental, is now the time to do it? Or, do you wait and save, bringing even more money to the table? Should you renovate a house as a first-time real estate investor? If done right, the benefits could be massive, but veteran house flipper James Dainard says there’s only so far into a renovation you should go as a beginner. Plus, do you w

At 30, Sarah King was forced to liquidate all her assets after a messy divorce. She had to start over and rebuild any wealth she had acquired, all while being a single mom to her one-year-old. Now, just five years later, she has 17 rental properties and is on track to retire early as a multimillionaire over a decade before traditional retirement age. She did it all with very little money and creatively found ways to invest without having a huge bank account.  And she’s done it all while working full-time. After building up a small rental portfolio with her now ex-husband, Sarah already had some of the skillset to invest in real estate. The problem? Those properties were sold to pay for divorce fees, leaving her with little money, but a basic plan. Her next step? Find a duplex, renovate it to increase the equity, rent out one side, and live in the other, and…repeat. She did a house hack BRRRR (buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat)!  With proof of concept, Sarah went on to repeat this renovation and ref

You’ve built up (or are about to build) a rental portfolio, but something is telling you it’s time to pivot. Maybe you’ve gone too far into one strategy, like owning eight short-term rentals. Or you’re seeing new build-to-rent properties with low prices, low maintenance, and low interest rates, and thinking “hmm…that seems like a good deal.” How do you know when to stay on course with your original plan or pivot to something greater? Which will get you financial freedom faster (and safer)? This is a dilemma that you’re probably facing, and if you aren’t right now, you will. Garrett Brown is facing this conundrum head-on. He’s spent years building a real estate portfolio, but he’s deep in the vacation rental realm. He wants a safer, more passive, less time-intensive way to diversify his portfolio, so what should he do? He’s got three options: buy a small multifamily rental, buy another short-term rental in a different part of town, or take advantage of new-build properties with price cuts and significant

The “Slow BRRRR” method. It’s less risky, comes with more cash flow, and is easier to pull off than the traditional BRRRR (buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat) strategy. A couple of weeks ago, we shared why this was the best rental property investing tactic for 2025, and today, we’re walking through the steps so you can do a slow BRRRR this year.  There are five steps to doing a Slow BRRRR. From finding the right property to planning a stress-free renovation to eventually refinancing, we’ll walk through each step, giving you the exact timeline it may take to get there. Busy job? Have other responsibilities? Need flexibility when investing? Great! This method is what you’re looking for, and it’s also the strategy Dave is using right now to invest. Plus, we’ll walk through an actual Slow BRRRR example to show you that the strategy works, can get you sizable cash flow and equity, and is significantly easier than the traditional BRRRR method. This works even with today’s high interest rates, so you don’t ne

After a fateful encounter with a real estate investor on vacation, Pratik Shah's eyes were opened to the possibilities of real estate investing. Now, just eight years later, he has a rental property portfolio producing $12,000 per month in pure profit. Even better, he accomplished it all while working a 9-to-5 job, buying rental properties on the side, and managing them from afar. No creative financing strategies, no off-market deal hunting, just picking the right properties in the right markets.  Pratik's secret to a six-figure passive income stream in under a decade? Move markets when deals no longer make sense. Pratik has switched investing markets three times now, going where the cash flow is and the prices make sense. This has helped him grow his real estate portfolio while other investors complain that prices in their markets are too high.  The proof that his repeatable strategy works? An income-replacing amount of cash flow every month that could easily give him the financial freedom many of us d

Here’s where we’d invest in real estate right now. The best markets to buy rental properties are often overlooked, affordable cities with strong rents, reasonable home prices, and robust job growth. These markets could not only appreciate steadily, giving you the long-term wealth you’re looking for, but also pocket you some decent cash flow, so you have more passive income to grow your portfolio faster. We’ve got nine expert-chosen markets lined up, and there’s probably more than one with precisely what you’re looking for! These are NOT teeny tiny markets with $50,000 home prices in some town you’ve never heard of. These are real cities, with serious growth potential and millions (if not billions) of dollars being poured into them by local governments. Cities where jobs are growing, populations are rising, and rental demand is strong.  If you don’t know where to buy your first or next property, this is the episode to help you whittle down your list. By the time you’re done listening to this, you’

Financial freedom—no boss bugging you, bills taken care of, vacations easily paid for, and time to do whatever you want. This is the goal of every real estate investor, and the goal Dave and Henry had when they bought their first rental properties. But now, they’re financially free, with real estate portfolios that can pay for their lifestyles and seven-figure net worths. Is financial freedom what they thought it would be?  No.  Dave and Henry could quit. They could vacation for much of the year. They could drive Ferraris. But…they don’t. They both continue to work and invest, even while being financially independent. But why? Today, we’re talking about why financial freedom is much different than you think, why Dave and Henry decided NOT to live off of their cash flow, and what actual financial freedom looks like (it’s not endless beach days). You want financial freedom, but what if the reality of financial freedom is even better than you thought? Today, we’re showing you how to get there, how to ch

This episode could save you tens of thousands, if not millions, in the long run. We get the same questions all the time: Do I need an LLC for rental property investing? Should I start an LLC before buying my first rental? Where is the best state for a real estate LLC? We’re not lawyers, so we can’t advise on this, but we do know someone who can—Brian T. Bradley, nationally renowned asset protection lawyer. Brian has heard all the “legal advice” from social media—an LLC makes you anonymous, an LLC helps you pay no taxes, and an LLC will completely hide your assets. If you’d prefer to 1. Keep your assets yours and 2. Not spend years in federal prison, this is the episode to watch. Just following any of the above (extremely incorrect) advice could not only risk your rentals, but also put you behind bars.  In today’s episode, Brian shares a masterclass on asset protection, from which legal entities you need (LLCs, trusts, partnerships), to the biggest myth about where to start an LLC, how much it costs to k

You want to invest in real estate, but don’t know which property to buy. We’re about to make it much easier. These are the two best investment properties to buy in 2025, whether you’re a beginner with little to no real estate investing experience or a veteran investor ready for something with a bit more meat on the bone. We’ll share exactly how much they cost, where to find them, and how much they could make. Let’s start with the beginners/part-time real estate investors. If you’ve got limited time in the day to dedicate to real estate, we’ve got the property for you. Dave is investing in these types of properties right now, even with his packed schedule and full-time job. These rental properties give you long-term returns with the added upside of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands in equity growth. Next, for those who are a bit more dedicated, Henry will share the investment property “formula” you can rinse and repeat to build your real estate wealth. This works even better in today’s buyer's market a

We’re going to show you how to make any rental property cash flow as soon as you buy it. Want to know how to analyze a rental property like a pro? This is how. Expert investors don’t just crunch the numbers once and submit an offer or reject it—that’s an easy way to miss out on the best real estate deals. Instead, we’re showing you how we tweak specific numbers in your offer to make the deal as profitable as possible, while giving the seller many ways to say “yes.” Today, our friend and fellow investor, Ashley Kehr from the Real Estate Rookie podcast, brought us a real deal she’s debating on buying. Here are the quick numbers: it’s a triplex (three units) being sold by a tired landlord. The price seems reasonable, but the expenses may be too high. We use the BiggerPockets Rental Property Calculator to run the numbers and see if it cash flows, then tweak the offer in multiple different ways to boost the returns substantially. Now, Ashley is taking these offers to the seller. Yes, offers—plural—to see whi

The BRRRR method (buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat) was, for a few years at least, the real estate investor’s golden ticket to a million-dollar portfolio. It allowed investors to buy properties, fix them up fast, get their down payment money back, and recycle it. This created an “infinite” investing loop where someone with one down payment could turn it into five (or more) separate houses. But with high mortgage rates, the BRRRR method was thought to be over by many…until now.  We’re introducing a new BRRRR strategy. It’s safer, with less risk (and stress), makes you more cash flow than before, and keeps your leverage lower so you don’t go underwater in a housing correction. Does it work? Dave and Henry are both using this new BRRRR method right now—and doing quite well, we might add.  You (yes, you listening to this) can also use this new BRRRR method to buy houses, increase their value, get higher cash flow than regular rentals, and then recycle the money you put into the property to use toward you

Do you make a middle-class income ($70,000 or less) per year and want to invest in real estate? This is how you do it.  You don’t need a six-figure salary to buy your first rental property and start building generational wealth and early retirement. Dave is a testament to this, buying his first rental with barely any money, zero experience, and working as a waiter. If you’ve got a stable salary and some savings, you’re already leagues ahead of him. Today, we’re showing you how to put that money to work. We used median income and savings data to create a complete middle-class investor plan to get you on the fastest (and safest) path to financial freedom. We’ll walk through three investing strategies anyone in the middle class can use to buy their first rental, define how much money you’ll need saved, what to do if you don’t have enough in the bank, and how to repeat the system to finally retire early with real estate.  Stop waiting, start wealth-building. This is how to escape the “middle-class trap” and mo