BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - $1 Rental Properties and "Infinite" Returns with a 100% On-Market Strategy

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

This might be the smartest small real estate portfolio strategy we’ve ever heard.  Today’s guest has done the seemingly impossible—gotten rental properties for one dollar, used dirt to cover his down payments, and achieved the (to many investors, extinct) “infinite BRRRR” strategy. He did it all out of necessity—starting with a $30,000-per-year salary and a 90-hour-per-week job. Joe Meehan didn’t have the resources to build a real estate portfolio—but he did it anyway. Seven years ago, Joe was coaching basketball on a grueling schedule, making a low income. He saved up all he could, bought his first house, and it all clicked—this is how he would get ahead. Just four years later, he quit his job. Seven years later, he has a cash-flowing rental portfolio of 11 units, and he works for himself. Joe shares the ingeniously simple strategies he’s used to turn very little money into a safe, scalable, profitable rental property portfolio. No off-market deals, no sketchy financing—he even did it with eight and nine-percent interest rates. The cards were stacked against him, but he came out (strongly) on top. The best part? You can use the same strategies in 2026. In This Episode We Cover The genius strategy Joe used to get a rental property for ONE dollar (yes, really—$1!) Using extra land to pay for your down payment (Henry loves this strategy) The “infinite BRRRR” and how to get a cash-flowing, renovated rental for (essentially) $0 down  The single best rental property for beginners with limited funds  Why you shouldn’t buy a vacation rental in a touristy market (what to buy instead)  And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠h⁠ttps://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1246 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This might be the smartest real estate portfolio strategy we've ever heard. $1 rental properties, infinite returns, free down payments. The best part, it's all legit. I've used all the methods today's guest talks about and they work. Seven years ago, Joe Meehan was a basketball coach making $30,000 a year, working 90 hours a week. That's right, 90 hours for $30,000. So he had to get creative. Joe used widely overlooked strategies to scale his portfolio on a lower income with not a lot in savings.

And he did it all buying on-market properties. Now he's got 11 cash flowing rental units, works for himself, and has complete financial freedom. You probably thought that wasn't possible in 2026, but Joe's coming on to prove that it works. Mr. Joe Meehan, thank you for joining us on the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. Happy to be here. So, as we always get started, we want to hear about your background. So what were you doing when you first decided to do this real estate thing?

Yeah, I guess I'll start, like, right out of college. I was actually going to go to medical school. And then I got a contract to play basketball overseas in Switzerland. So it was quite the switch up on what I was about to do. Did a year of that and then got hurt and came back and was like, all right, I'll try college coaching and maybe like get back into it and rehab a bit. start playing again and I just ended up coaching for nine years. But the first two years, I made $10,000 a year. What? It worked about 90 hours. No. You made $10,000 a year working 90 hours a week.

Yes. Wow. And like that's not uncommon in the basketball world. Some people are working for even less than that. You know, it was definitely lower on the amount made and higher on the hours. But that's kind of, Unfortunately, like what it takes to move up in that industry. You start like just really, you know, scratching your way to the top and then hopefully get to a stable spot. Like Bucknell was a much more stable spot where I ended up. So I was coaching college basketball at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA. And, you know, I'd been there for about four years and started to think about purchasing a house

and had a friend who had some rentals, had some success with them. started to talk to me conceptually about the house hack. We didn't call it a house hack. Didn't know that term at the time. But from there, I was like, well, that makes a lot of sense. Instead of paying $900 per month to rent can possibly live for free. Yeah. So then I found a duplex that was on the market for a long time and started doing some math in my apartment, which is hilarious. I still have, you know, the sheet of paper with just the most basic math ever, didn't know capital expenditures. vacancies, you know, maintenance, anything like that. Yeah.

But I could tell like it'll basically cover my mortgage. And that's all I knew. And so I kind of just jumped in and then three, four months into it. I was like, oh, wow, this is, this is pretty cool. This actually works. Yeah. What year was this? This is 2019.

Okay. So August of 2019 was my first purchase. Okay. And about what did you pay for that duplex? It was right around 250. I think it was 247. And five. Okay. And what were you able to rent out the other unit for? So the other unit was already rented for a thousand per month. Okay. Which I deemed a little lower than market. And my realtor helped me

with that at the time because I didn't really know what I was doing. And then I had a roommate as well, who paid $500. And that was right around what the mortgage was. So you did a double house hack. You rent it out the unit and then you rented out part of your side as well. Yeah, precisely. So I'm assuming you did this using some sort of conventional or FHA loan? Yeah. So it was in 2019. I graduated from college in 2012. So you were making more by this point. I probably made $30,000. And then my fourth year, I made 30. And then I made a little bit more that fifth year, six year that helped me at least have like $15,000, $20,000 lined up. And then, yeah, I leveraged it was, I was able to put 5% down on a five-year arm. Oh, so it wasn't a conventional. You did an adjustable rate. You did an arm. Was that with a community bank?

Yeah, it was with a community bank. And also the seller's assist I utilized on that. What's that mean? So basically you can typically go to 3% back from the seller for your closing cost. So I've done this several times where even like, okay, say we come to the terms at 250 being the price. and then you can get 3% off of that 2,500, so say 7,500 max. You can go to them and say, hey, can we change the price to 257,500, and then add the seller's assist of 7,500 so that you can put less down. Okay, so you up the sale price to include some of your costs, and then the seller basically provides that to you via closing. So you don't have to bring it to the table.

Yes, anything to not put as much down at closing. is what I did as much as I could. So you had to get creative. You used your $10 to $15,000 you saved up for your down payment. You were able to house hack, kept it, rent it out to the tenant that was there, and then you brought in a roommate. So that brought you enough to cover your mortgage. So you went from paying whatever, you're paying about $900 a month in rent to now you're living

for free. Correct. And then that tenant actually ended up moving out and I was able to rent it for $1,500. Oh, boy. So you're bringing in two grand a month. You were making money to live. And then I actually brought in my now fiancee to live on my side as well. And then all of a sudden I was making a little bit and living there. So you were making about 500 bucks a month. I mean,

that's that's almost close to your 750 a month. You were making 10 great. I was amazed. Like I said, I didn't really know anything going in. And all of a sudden I was like, oh, it was great. Oh, man, that's super cool. And so, you know, I wanted to kind of backtrack on that story and get more details because one of the things we often hear from people is I don't have enough time or I don't have enough money. A lot of the times people make those claims without actually doing the research to figure out how much time or money they need. If you were working 90 hours a week and you were able to still find the time to go through and buy this deal and if you were making somewhere around 30 grand a year at this time, that's not a ton of money, but you were still able to get creative

with your purchase, scrape up enough cash to do a deal. So that in itself is an accomplishment. And then you're making money in your first house hack. You did a double house hack. This was 2019, you said. So where did you go from there? Already by the end of 2020, it was December 2020. I bought my next house. Okay. So you had the bug. You were ready. You were ready. Yeah. I was saving money, making money. And then my salary went up a little bit of Bucknell as well. So I was able to, you know, gather another like 15,000 or so. And then the next purchase is really kind of what set me up here to really move forward in the real estate business. So it was a main house and a mother-in-law suite. They were selling them together. And it had been on the market for a year, off the market,

and then back on. So I talked to my realtor. We walked through and I was like, is anybody else looking at this? Like what's going on here? Because it was, it was like 400,000. for a 3,200 square foot house and a mother-in-law suite. And what city was this? This is Lewisburg as well. Okay. For Bucknell universes, yeah. And so I ended up getting it for 360, but they were on two separate tax parcels.

So that mother-in-law suite was detached since it was on two parcels. Correct. Detached, lofted apartment with a carport, separate tax parcels. Yep. So I purchased one for 360, and then I purchased the other for a dollar. Nice. And so that's kind of like what really helped me moving forward because then I fixed the mother-in-law suite up, rented it, and put a he lock on it. Oh, so smart. That is an interesting strategy,

man. That's super smart. So for those of you guys that are listening, he had a single family home. It was being sold altogether, but the tax records indicated that these were on two separate parcels. And so what you were able to do, because when you go get a loan for a property that's on two parcels, sometimes it's challenging when you get that conventional or FHA loan because they only want to do one loan per parcel. And so when you're trying to buy two parcels, it can be a problem. So what you did to get creative was you did one loan for all of the purchase price on the main house. And so you were able to get traditional financing on that property. and then you basically paid cash of a dollar for the second parcel. So technically the mother-in-law suite, you own free and clear.

You're paying the mortgage on the single-family home, but you supplement that mortgage with the income you get from the mother-in-law suite. That's a super cool strategy to be able to take that down. Amazing. And so what were you renting that mother-in-law suite out for? So originally 1,100. Okay. And I was doing long term.

And then the main house was a live and flip. Oh, okay. So you were working on fixing that. Yeah. I lived in that, worked on it, construction zone. And then the mother-in-law suite, I then turned into a medium-term rental and did, you know, the traveling nurses and stuff like that. The cool part about structuring this financing the way you did is you can sell the single family. I don't know if you have or not, but you can still keep the completely paid off rental.

Is that what you did? Yeah, so as we progress here, that's- Game changer. I love it. I love it. So for the next house hack, I ended up moving into that one, obviously, but I rented out that main house for about a year. And then when I left college coaching, which is mid-2020, that's when I sold it.

And that allowed me to leave coaching and do what I was going to do next, which were the multiple burrs. Okay. again, fantastic strategy because now you have the option of selling that property and keeping the rental and the rental is paid off. So that's just pure cash flow. But let's talk about the numbers on the live-in flip. So how much did you end up having to spend fixing that place out? Not a ton. Probably about 25,000, maybe even less than that, 2025 because like most of it was just painting and drywall stuff. And it was a 3,200 square foot house. And a lot of wood panel. It was an old, old house. So you got to use the certain type of paint and then paint over it like four or five times. And like I said, I was working a lot of hours. I would, you know, we'd have practice at like 7 o'clock get done at 930, 10.

And then I would go home and paint for an hour and try to get it done. So, yeah, it was not as much money into it as it was, just sweat equity. What did you end up being able to sell it for? 420. You bought it for 360. Put about 25 in it. So you're all in it for 385. And then you sold it for 420?

Yeah, with about two and a half years of rent paydown. So you pocketed a little bit of cash and we're able to sell that property. But the bonus is basically you house hacked your way into getting a free rental property is the way I'm looking at that. You got paid to get a free rental property. That is an amazing thing to be able to do to buy a property on two parcels, put the loan all on one parcel, fix it up, sell that one, put a little bit of cash in your pocket, keep the rental, plus keep all the rents you are making at the time you are living there.

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essentially used house hacking to get a free rental property. But now we're going to dive into what came next. You've done a couple of house hacks now. You've managed to be super creative with how you did both of those deals. You've got the real estate bug. So what was the next move? Yeah. So that he lock, I was able to purchase my next house hack. I call it a house hack, but I actually had to use 20% down normal financing on that one. So I purchased a fourplex right down the road with the he lock moved into that. The good thing about this one was that it had an extra lot. And So the fourplex was two separate addresses and then the separate lot had its own address as well. And it was a full lot that you can build on.

So what I did a couple months after I moved in was sell the lot next to it and paid back my helock. So basically got that one for very little as well. That's cool. So you use the helock that you had on your free rental property essentially. And did you pay all cash for the quadplex or did you just use that for your down payment? Just the down payment. Okay. So you went and got a conventional loan, put 20% down. You used the HELOC for your 20% down. But because the quadflex had an additional lot, you were able to sell the additional lot to essentially pay back the money to your HELOC.

And tell us about that. What were you able to sell that for? The additional lot was about 3540. So it didn't cover 100% of the down payment, but a good portion of it. This is great. This is great. And I know people are listening thinking, like, man, this guy got lucky and just found all this property with all this additional value. But that's not necessarily the case, guys. This is actually something you can look for. So for those of you who are listening who are like, man, this seems cool. It's a great way to start of supplement your investing. You can actually do this. I do this when I'm buying off market, but you can also do it on market. You can have your realtor. Search for properties that are

available that come with additional lots. So sometimes in the description, they might say that, hey, this property has an additional lot or sometimes there's multiple parcel numbers that are tied to properties that are on the market. So just tell your agent what you're looking for. You want to buy a property that has additional lots. So that gives you options. I do this all the time. I've purchased several deals that come with additional lots and I've structured them in all kinds of cool ways. But I usually always structure to where all of the money for the deal comes from the property with the house on it so that the additional parcel I end up getting to keep when I sell the property. And now I have free and clear land. And it gives you the option to do things

just like what Joe did. You can either sell that land. So I bought a duplex that had an additional lot. I did the same thing. I had to put 20% down. And so I put the 20% down. And then I actually ended up calling a builder because I saw that right next to my lot was a brand new construction home. So I called the builder who built that house and said, I've got a lot right next to one you already built. What would you pay me for it? They told me 15 grand. I said, great. I bought the property and I sold him the lot on closing day for 15 grand and that covered my down payment.

Right. And so I've also done it to where I didn't sell a lot and I'm building a house on one of the lots that I have, the free lots that I have right now. So I'm doing my first new construction project. And so you can keep the lots. You can build on them. you can sell the lots, or sometimes you can even increase your sale value on your property by offering the lot to whoever buys your flip. And you can say, hey, you're buying the house for $2.50 or whatever.

If you throw in another $20,000, I'll sell you the lot next door. And then all of a sudden you're getting more profit. So these are things that you can look for. Just make sure you tell your agent in your search that you're looking for properties with additional parcels, man. That's super cool, Joe. So you bought this quadplex. Tell us the numbers. What did you pay for the quadplex?

And did it need work? If so, how much? Yeah, so I purchased for 260. Like, it was in good shape. It wasn't in great shape. It was just some painting here and there, though. Nothing major. I guess the biggest part about it was they had tennis that were in there for a long time

and were paying like $350 for rent, like crazy low numbers. So that was like similar to the first duplex. I just knew like, okay, I'm not going to kick them out or raise the rent, but like when the time comes when they want to leave, like it's going to be. really good deal. So the rents right now are 900, 900, 700, and then I do a, one of them is a medium term. The one I used to live in, I changed it into a medium term, and that one's 1295. And then it has a garage in the back for 400. That's $4,100 a month coming in on this property. What's your mortgage on it? About 1,500. Hey, I don't know if you're doing the math, folks, but I call it.

that a deal. Awesome, man. Awesome. So this was one that was just listed on the market as well. Yeah. And it had been sitting there for a little bit just like the other ones. So I guess if you, if you see the, you know, the bright light at the end, others aren't, just have confidence in closing on the deal. I like this story, Joe, because it's like, it's more of a story where it's like one deal at a time. And each deal has its own unique characteristics. And you were able to capitalize on each deal individually. People want to rinse and repeat formula. They want to be able to go find, find X, add Y, you know, sell it for Z. But it doesn't always work like that. Sometimes each deal is a little different. And the way you have to capitalize or monetize on those properties can be a

little different. And I want people to hear a story like this because what people should really be focused on is can you go out and get that first deal? Can you go out and get that next deal? And then look at the deal you have, look at the financial situation that you're in, and then monetize that deal in the way that makes the most sense for the property and for your financial situation. And then you can focus on what comes next. This is more of the story of an everyday investor. Like we don't all need to go out and build a portfolio of, you know, 50 to 100 doors, rinse and repeat. But you can do this one deal at a time. And it sounds like each deal kind of got increasingly better in terms of how you were able to,

financially capitalize on it. And so this is super cool. So you were living in one of the units. You midterm rent it. So that's three house hacks. Boom, boom, boom. Love it. And then after the three house hacks, you then pivoted. It sounds like that's when you focused on burr. So what did what did that look like to you? Yeah. So this is kind of coincided with my departure from college basketball. So it's kind of hitting that that burnout of crazy hours, not sleeping in your bed, a whole lot of days throughout the week. And it just started to get to me a little bit. And so it's funny how things at work start to get to you a little bit. Once you start making a little bit of money in real estate, stuff that it didn't bother you working 90 hours a week making $10,000 a year when you didn't

have a backup plan. But now that we got a little bit of real estate money. We're like, I don't know about all this works. Yeah, I blame it on bigger pockets. Now you're thinking about financial freedom, this and that cash flow. And you're like, why am I working 90 hours a week? That tune changed. Okay. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it just reached a point where like, you because you literally get no days off, maybe a couple out throughout the year. So it's pretty crazy. It was a great experience. But, you know, for me, just at that juncture, it was like, all right, it's time. And so that's when I was like, all right, I'll try to do real estate full time, got my license, and then found my first burr in New Jersey. Why New Jersey? Why change

markets. So I'm from the Philly area. And if you're from the Philly area, typically for vacation, you go to the Jersey Shore, the South Jersey Shore, not the North Shore, the South Jersey Shore. The big difference. I just knew the area, could see there weren't a lot of rentals. The properties were cheaper, but the rents were still pretty good. So good place for a burr. Okay. So you leveraged your kind of insider knowledge about visiting the Jersey Shore and realizing that there wasn't a lot opportunity for rentals. And with your newfound experience as a real estate investor, he said, I'm going to go capitalize on that. But it's great to have the idea. But what did the actual application look like? What did you find? What did you buy? What did it cost?

Yes, I had a really good relationship with my with my realtor there. Ended up finding a bank owned for about 110. I think the purchase price was single family and it was in shambles. It was in really bad shape. So you found an REO, a bank-owned property, but it was on the market? Did your agent bring it to you? Okay, got it. Yeah. And so walked through it and was like, let's give it a go.

What year was this? This is 2022 in September of 2022. Okay, about four years ago. Bank-owned property. Got it for $100,000. That's pretty impressive. How much did it cost to fix it? About another 100.

Oh, wow. Okay. I assume you weren't the one putting in the work on this one. So I was partially. So like I was still technically living in Lewisburg at that fourplex. But I had a friend who lived down there at the Jersey Shore. And so I would go back and forth like two, three weeks at a time and work on the house myself. And then I had a contractor who would do the more serious stuff, the electrical, the plumbing, the kitchen renovation.

but three, four months of sweat equity on that house. Just to, again, like, I had left my W-2. You had time. You had time. I had time. I'm like, I might as well try to save some money here. Like, my contractor doesn't need to do the, you know, break down the floors and all that. I'll just do it for free.

Well, not completely for free. How long of a drive is it? About four hours. Four hours each way? Yeah. So you were driving eight-hour stints there and back to do a little bit of work. Okay. So this is there.

For the record. folks. This is definitely not free work. That's gas money. That's time. That's effort. Yes, saves on the bottom line for the P&L, but definitely will weigh on your emotional battery and your spiritual battery and your financial battery because that still does cost some money. But awesome. Still, you were able to pull it off. You spent about a hundred grand. And was this a short term rental? Was it a midterm rental? Was it a long term rental? Like, what's the school? Long term. So that was like one of the big things for this area too is that it's a lot of short-term with it being a vacation area. And so the long-term rental was the part that was missing in the area in my evaluation. So how did it go? Did the numbers work?

Yeah. So this one ended up appraising for $290. And so that's about a $203,000 loan. So you pull all your money out. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's like the whole goal of the burr, right? The infinity ROI. Yeah. So yeah, the first one ended up. It was up down, up down, up down, but ended up working out pretty well. Okay. So you're able to pull all your cash back out. Is the property covering itself in terms of what it rents for? Yeah.

So this one, it has a pretty good rental on it. So it's $2,600. Oh, wow. That's awesome. Yeah. And believe it or not, it's at a 9.25% interest rate. What? Why haven't you refinanced that thing again?

I've been waiting. We can get to that, but I've been waiting. If you're making money at 9.25%, What do you see the seven and a half you're going to get when you refinance that? Yeah. Goodness, man. Yeah. So the mortgage is about 2000 at the time.

Yeah. Yeah, good. So you're covering. You're covering. It's probably about a break-even property when you consider maintenance. That's pretty cool. All right, Joe, I want to know if you were able to pull this off again, great way to find a property in a market that needs some long-term rental. So we'll dive into that right after the break.

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of burring rental properties in a vacation rental market. So you did your first one, pulled all your cash out on the refinance. So you executed a full burr. Did you find more or was that the only one you were able to do? Yeah. So up until this date, I've done two more in New Jersey and then one in North Carolina because that's where I live now. And how did you find these properties? All just on market. All on market deals. It's evaluating on market. Yep. Okay. So you did two more in Jersey. Were the numbers similar, similar price points? Are these heavy renovations? Yeah, again, heavy renovations.

The second one, purchased 190, put about 120 in, appraised for 425. So the loan value at 315. What's the interest rate on that one? Not good, 8.25. Okay, okay. Okay, another one ready for another refinance? Yeah, the time's coming, I hope. Did you pull your money out with that one as well, or did you leave some in?

I took it out with that one again. All right. for two on the full burrs. All right. And the next one. Tell me about it. So the next one sequentially was actually the one in North Carolina. I live in on a Lake Norman area. One of the lesser expensive towns in Lake Norman and found a good deal and just did another burr there that worked out pretty well. And it's rented right now. I'm ready to go. So did that one and then did one more up in Jersey from afar. Another big renovation. Purchase for 285. Put about 90 in appraised for 455. And that one still has, I left some in that one. We left some cash in that

one. Okay. What year was that? That was last year, 2025. 2025. Okay. I mean, even a partial burr in the year 2025, the year of real estate butt kickings, because a lot of people got their butt kicked in 2025. If you still executed a bird, pulled some of your money out, I'd say you're doing okay. Man, I love this story. I think it's just a good story of using the non-eastern, you know, and expertise that you have, taking meaningful action, taking every deal on its merit, and then leveraging some creative strategies to help you continue to finance your real estate investments. One thing that I wanted to ask you about is now that you are a full-time real estate investor and you've left the coaching world behind, what is it that you're focused on now?

What is real estate allowing you to be able to do? Yeah, and like we touched on earlier, it has allowed me to pursue what's really been my passion for a long time, and that's human health and helping people in general. And so I started a company called Optumavita, and it's a health consulting firm that both helps people one-on-one client services and does partnerships with companies and specifically real estate companies to help provide educational workshops online to their employees and agents and then, you know, can help work with them one-on-one as well. This is the stuff that I love. about real estate investing. Real estate does not have to be your passion, but it can absolutely

provide income for you so that you can go focus on your passion and do the thing that you're called to do and not the thing that you have to do for money. And I think a lot of us have passion projects or things that we'd want to be able to focus on. And sometimes we just can't, A, because we have a job, we've got to go work 90 hours a week for, right? Or because starting a business is hard. And sometimes it takes a few years before you're profitable. And, you know, some people just can't afford to be taking a loss for a few years. But if you have real estate as a foundation where you know that's going to provide you the income you need to feed yourselves and feed your family, then you can start these passion project businesses and give them the appropriate time and effort that they need, whether they're

profitable or not on the front side, that you get to pursue your passion and do the thing you care about. So it's super cool that you're able to leverage real estate to help you pursue something that you, you're passionate about. And the thing that you're passionate about is helping people be healthier, which is amazing. Amazing story. Thank you, Joe. Before we get out of here, Joe, just kind of give us the story. Where are you now? How many units are you up to? Are you still buying? Or are you just kind of done with real estate? You're going to focus on paying them off and you're in your and work on Optumavita. Yeah. So right now I'm sitting at 11 units and I say have probably about five properties with higher interest rates, but also equity. So the next step is kind of a refi across the

portfolio, bring the interest rate down, cash flow up, and then take some money out, and then evaluate. Where should I redeploy? Should I go back into my one to four units? Should I try a Burr? Should I try something else? AI is pretty important these days, apparently. So like real estate wise, that's where I'm at. I love it, man. Thank you so much, Joe, for coming on the Bigger Pockets podcast and sharing this story. Hopefully, you guys listening, we're inspired by this. We're inspired by somebody who is in a position that maybe a lot of you are in, maybe not making the kind of money you want to be making, maybe spending a whole lot of time working in those hours, but still was able to purchase real estate and use real estate to truly obtain enough freedom so that you can focus on the thing that you're about. And I think that that's really what everybody wants to do is they want to be able to live life on their own terms. And Joe's story really is a testament to that. So thank you so much, Joe. Thank you so much to everybody listening. Also, if you want to hear another story like Joe's,

then check out episode 1078 with Connor Anderson. He's another young investor who started with the series of house hacks and totally transformed his financial future. That's Bigger Pockets podcast episode 1078. We'll link it right here on YouTube too. Thank you everybody for watching. We'll see you on the next episode. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K, copywriting is by Calico content, and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing,

or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.w.w.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk. So use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing. You should only risk capital you can afford to lose. And remember, past performance is not indicative of future results. BiggerPockets LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.