BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 952: From Broke College Graduate to Financial Freedom While Living Abroad w/Dave Meyer

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

You don’t have to race to financial independence to get there. Dave Meyer, VP of Market Intelligence at BiggerPockets, took his time building up passive income, and years later, it’s what has allowed him to amass impressive wealth all while living abroad, working where he wants, and securing a very stable retirement. But Dave wasn’t always some housing market genius who knew every statistic and metric about real estate investing. He started as a broke college student with no job prospects, struggling to pay his own rent. After graduating college during one of the worst recessions America had ever experienced, Dave was waiting tables to keep the lights on. He realized that he needed a different way to get ahead, and just getting a job wasn’t going to be enough. So, even with no money, Dave convinced a few friends to buy a house together while he borrowed money for his share of the down payment. Dave managed the property, took the tenant phone calls, and did what he had to do to learn the real estate ropes. And…it worked! Now, a decade and a half later, Dave has an entire real estate portfolio of long-term and short-term rentals and passive income streams from syndication investments, but this all started with one small deal he took a chance on. Today, Dave shares every part of his story, from finding the first deal to moving abroad, pausing buying rentals, and why he’s getting BACK in the game now and doing deals again! In This Episode We Cover How to invest in real estate even if you’re starting from zero with NO money The power of house hacking and how this strategy can explode your real estate portfolio  Optimizing your portfolio and how to systematize your rentals so YOU don’t do all the work Investing during a housing crash and why most Americans were running from rental properties  Passive investing through real estate syndications and the pros and cons of putting your money in one  Why Dave is finally getting back into the rental property game after years on the sidelines  And So Much More! (00:00) Intro (01:08) First Rental with NO Money (12:25) Optimizing His Portfolio (18:30) Investing During the Crash (19:46) Moving Abroad (21:45) Passive vs. Active Investments (30:59) Dave’s Current Portfolio Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and  https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-952 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

Hey Dave, are you in the camp of you need to get all your ducks in a row first and know your plan exactly before you start investing? Or are you in the camp of go do a deal and then figure out where all those ducks go after? You might be surprised by this because I'm a pretty analytical person. But at least for the first deal, I think it's more important to just get started and learn on the fly. One, that is surprising because you love to analyze things. And two, I completely agree with you. Oftentimes I found that when I have a plan all laid out, that it never goes according to that anyway. And so I think we're going to get into some of the pros and cons of both of those strategies in this episode.

That's funny. It reminds me of this quote by Morgan Howsell. He wrote The Philosophy of Money. And he said, the best plan is to plan for your plan to not go according to. plan. Yeah, that's pretty much every plan I've ever had. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. I'm your host, Dave Meyer, and with me today is Henry Washington. Yes, it is me. I am here with you, and I have a surprise guest. Do you know who it is? I think I do. Yeah, it's you.

Okay, good. That's why I showed up to this recording, so I hope we're on the same page. Perfect. Glad you here. Today, I am talking with my good friend. and co-hosts Dave Meyer. For anyone who does not know Dave, Dave works at bigger pockets. He is currently the head of market intelligence. And before that, he was the VP of analytics. His background is in data science. So is mine.

That is why we've become good friends. And he is also the co-host with me on our sister show, the On the Market podcast. Well, thank you for having me as a guest, Henry. I am an analytics person, a data-minded individual. But in addition to analyzing housing markets and all this stuff, I've been a real estate investor for a long time for 14 years. And so I'm excited to talk a little bit about my investing journey. So today, Dave is going to take us back to the key turning points in his investing journey. We'll specifically talk about two big turning points that Dave took.

We're going to learn how to get started, even if you don't have any capital, which is a problem that many of us faced. Same with me. And we're also going to learn how to build a portfolio that fits your lifestyle and the goals you have and not just building a bunch of doors. So with that, let's get into it. Dave Meyer, welcome to the show. Thank you. This seems overly formal to welcome me out to the show, but I appreciate it. I'm excited to talk to you.

Yeah, man, this is really cool because I know a lot about you, but, you know, kind of get to dig into your origin story and learn more about how Dave Meyer became the day to Delhi. Let's get into it. So before you worked at Bigger Pockets, what did you do? Did you do real estate investing? Or was this something you picked up after joining Bigger Pockets? I think I'm actually one of the unusual people who started investing without ever knowing about Bigger Pockets.

I started investing in 2010. Someone on a whim, I knew friends in the Denver area who had started doing it. And it seemed like a great business. So I jumped into it and fumbled my way. around it for six full years. And during that time, I was working in tech. I was a data analyst. I was getting a master's degree in analytics. And I thought to myself, I really like this whole software thing, but I really have a lot of fun doing the real estate investing piece. You know, I found myself on weekends just going to open houses. I just like real estate. And so I started

Googling around for real estate technology companies, and I stumbled across bigger pockets. And it was, the office was a mile away from the house hack I was living in. And there were no jobs for me, but I kept looking at the careers page, I think it was like six or nine months. And eventually, I applied for a job and got it at bigger pockets. So you're saying there wasn't some formal plan for you to work your way into bigger pockets. They just, happened to be down the street when you were looking for a job? Yeah, it's so funny to think about now because Bigger Pockets is now such a much bigger company and so many people know about it. And we're very fortunate that we have a lot of very qualified people who want to work here. But back then,

I hadn't heard of it and they were only hiring locally. And it was just a very different time. And I was very lucky to sort of just be in the right place at the right moment. Yeah, that's really cool. Now, one thing that kind of struck my attention is you said, you fumbled around. with investing for six years before you ended up working at Bigger Pockets. So give us some definition of what that meant. Like, how many properties had you bought? Did you lose any money? What did that six years look like in real estate investing?

The six years were actually quite profitable. It was a good time to get into real estate in 2010. I would categorize it as a lot of equity growth, a lot of bad property management on my part was I think what really was slowing me down. So I started with a fourplex in Denver and was able to recruit three partners, friends and family for my first deal. I didn't even have enough money for my down payment, my quarter of the down payment. And so I borrowed that from friends and family too with interest. So I had two loans against it. And really just built sweat equity in it. And I got paid as a property manager and did all of the, you know, normal property management stuff myself.

And that was the first deal. Second deal, I bought a triplex just a block away. But it took me four years to go from my first deal to my second deal. This reminds you, like, I wasn't listening to Bigger Pockets thinking about scaling. This was just something I did when I had some time and then I started pursuing the rest of my career. So it was four years until I had a financial and personal situation. where I could buy again. So I had seven units. And then I think by the time I had joined bigger pockets,

I had also bought my primary residence. So I was up to eight units, three properties in Colorado by the time I joined. Man, that's really cool. It sounds like you did what a lot of new investors do, or sometimes what we encourage new investors to do with. You had partners on your first deal. So what did that partnership look like? Like what made you go down that route? I had no money, so that was why I went down that route. I was waiting tables when I first bought this deal, but I had actually just had some internships in college where I always just like data and analytics. And so I had done a sort of a financial modeling type of internship.

And so I was able to run numbers, even without, you know, bigger pockets calculator or anything like that. I had sort of that advantage. And I did that in Denver. was just so obvious that it was going to make money. This was obviously a very different time. Prices in Denver had gone down dramatically in 2010. And rents had stayed pretty high because it was a popular place to live. And so it was just obvious, even though that I had no idea what I was doing, that I was going to make money. And so I was able to go to some friends, some family members in

New York, where I'm from. And we basically split it up a quarter each for the down payment. But again, I didn't have money for that. So I borrowed that again with a 7% interest rate. And it worked out really well because me and one of my friends in Colorado were sort of the active partners. And we wound up doing all the property management. I think I took to it more than he did. He sort of became more passive.

And I was happy to take on the property management. And I used my payment as the property manager to pay off my portion of the down payment loan. So that worked out really well. I wasn't really making any money off of it at first, but I learned a ton, and that's really what the first deal is all about, right? Yeah, man, you know, this is interesting because my story is not too dissimilar where, you know, I didn't have any money. I think I had $1,000 saved up in my savings account when I bought my first deal.

And I was probably in a worse position than you because I also had not so great credit. And so whenever I tell the story, it's funny because I'm like, I had bad credit and no money. And I'm like, you know what I should do? I should buy real estate. That's the start a business, yeah. That's how I'm going to make money. And so it sounds like you were in a somewhat similar position with a lack of money. Like, why, where did the idea come from?

Like, why was it like, okay, well, I'm going to buy real estate even though I don't have the resources to do it? Well, it's an interesting thing. I graduated college in 2009. And up until 2020, that was, I think, the worst job market to ever graduate into since the Depression. And so I was just trying to hustle, honestly. I was just like trying to find a way to pay my rent. And I was frustrated because I had this new college degree, but I couldn't even get interviews anywhere.

I wound up waiting tables, which was actually a great job. It gave me a lot of time. I learned a lot of skills that I'm very grateful for. But it wasn't paying me all that much. And at that point, I honestly just didn't have a lot of career prospects. And so I was thinking, I, need to figure out a way to do this myself. And I had done a couple of sort of entrepreneurial type things in college. I, you know, started a few very small businesses. I tutored. I did some party

planning and organizing, just whatever I could to make money. So I was just sort of in that mode after college. And a friend of mine told me about real estate. This was a time where you could get that $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers. So that was a big thing going on back then. And things were just a lot cheaper. The inventory was sitting on the market. You could negotiate with people. And it just, it really made sense to me in a way that a lot of other businesses didn't. I could just wrap my head around it. Because as we all know, real estate takes effort, but it's not that complicated. Like as a business, it's pretty, the inputs, the outputs, it's pretty easy to wrap your head around. So I felt pretty good about it.

Yeah, man. So let me see if I can summarize this journey so far. So you decided you wanted to get into real estate, even though you didn't have any money. And this was in 2009. This was 2010. Yeah, it was a year after I graduated college. Yeah. 2010. And so you got with a few friends. You bought a quadplex. Yeah. And you were like, okay, this seems to be good. Four years later, later bought a duplex? A triplex, yeah. A triplex. Okay, four years later, bought a triplex.

And then so now you've got seven units. And then you decide, you know what? Real estate's kind of cool. I like data and analytics and numbers and technology. I'm going to see if there's some real estate technology companies. Oh, look, there's one down the street. And so you look, they don't have a job for you yet, but you just kind of hang around until they do, and then boom, you start working for bigger pockets. Is that, is that the origin

story so far? That's right. And I just want to say that for everyone who's listened to this podcast for a long time, my last interview was me on one side of a table. And then on the couch, in the office, and Bigger Pockets was Josh Dorkin, Brandon Turner, and Scott Trench, all interviewing me at one point. And you'd think like, oh, that was so intimidating, but I had never even listened to the podcast. I was like, these are just three random dudes. So this is a total totally fine interview. And now in retrospect, it's very funny to think about. All right. So we know how Dave got started in real estate, but what did you learn from those deals? How has his investing philosophy changed since then? And when did he stop managing his properties

himself? We'll get into that right after the break. Do you ever notice how every passive investment somehow turns into a very active lifestyle, active spreadsheets, active phone calls, active stress? Here's a better question. What if you could buy brand new? construction homes, 10% below market value in the best markets across the country, without making real estate your second job. That's exactly what rent to retirement does. They're a full service, turnkey investment company handling everything for you. In some cases, investors get 50 to 75% of our down payment back at closing, plus interest rates as low as 3.75%. They've partnered with Bigger Pockets for over a decade, helping thousands invest smarter. If you want to do the same,

visit biggerpockets.com slash retirement to learn more. A lot of property managers think their job is answering tenant emails and coordinating repairs. That's not the job. The job of a property manager is protecting and growing your operating income and earning your trust while they do it. And that comes down to three numbers, occupancy, delinquency, and net promoter score. If those numbers slip, your income slips. And your trust slips too.

And most PMs don't hold themselves. to performance standards. They focus on activity, not outcomes. Mind is different. They obsess over the metrics that actually grow your cash flow. Go to mine.co slash show me to see how mine performs

and get a month of management for free. Because if you're going to hire a property manager, hire one that manages your investment like an investment. Real estate investors, the April 15th tax deadline is coming fast. If you own rental property and haven't done a cost segregation study yet,

You could be handing thousands of dollars to the IRS that you don't have to. These studies let you write off as much as 25% of your building and generate huge tax deductions. Costsegregation.com is an online, self-guided software that makes cost segregation fast and affordable. So it finally makes sense for smaller rental properties purchased for as low as $100,000. With pricing under $500 and an average savings of over $25,000, it's just a no-brainer. What's more, audit support is included by the number one cost segregation company in the U.S., but you must complete it before the tax deadline. Go to costsegregation.com and use code tax deadline to get 10% off your first report.

Don't overpay the IRS. Head to cost segregation.com before April 15th. Welcome back, investors. I'm here with Dave Meyer, and we're talking about how he got started in real estate. Okay, so you've got seven units, you join bigger pockets, you start working with them. I'm sure you were learning a ton. So how did like the culmination of those first couple of deals you did plus working at bigger pockets? Like how did that impact your investing journey?

Did you shift to a different strategy? Did you stay the course in the same strategy? Like what it, how did that impact you moving forward from there? I think almost immediately I became a much better and more sophisticated investor. For example, I had the. this first deal, and I was so proud of how much equity it had built up. And it was sort of like, in my mind, this savings account that I had created and I was so excited about it. And I started reading the forms on Bigger Pockets. And I was like, man, I should have cashed out of that a long time

ago and bought, you know, all these other properties. And I was sort of, my return on equity was not good. and I started learning from people, you know, like Jay Scott and Brian Burke, who have been around for a really long time, the Bigger Pockets community. Not to mention Scott and Brandon and people I worked with directly. And I started just being much more efficient with my time and capital. So I outsource. I started building systems and outsourcing a lot of things. I was able to take on more sophisticated projects like doing burrs. I think I did a couple of those.

And then I think the other piece that gets overlooked in many people's stories is I had a really good stable income. And it wasn't just the fact that I was learning from bigger pockets, but I also was able to get loans and was able to build my portfolio in a relatively traditional way. And so that really helped accelerate my investing career too. And so from 2016 until I moved to Europe in 2020, I just really optimized my portfolio, pulled equity out of those first few deals and was able to redeploy it into a couple more deals. Not a ton. I don't have like this massive portfolio. But I, you know, I bought a bunch more deals in Denver and was able to set myself up really well

before moving overseas. And then that was sort of like this whole other part of my investor. journey. Yeah, so I do want to get into that shift. But before we get there, I think what's interesting is your journey does mirror a lot of other real estate investors in that you just jumped in and got started. And then as you got started and you got around other seasoned investors, you started to learn more and get more sophisticated and then bring in processes, procedures and optimization into your business. Now, there are typically two, schools of thought when you are going to get started investing. And there's people in the camp

that you were in where it's just like, all right, I'm just going to go do a deal. And then I'm going to figure out how to, you know, what I like or what I don't like and how to shift my strategy. And then there's others who are like, all right, I want to make sure that I know everything that I'm going to do, what kind of asset I'm going to invest in, that I'm financially set up for it, that I am optimized on the front side so that when I get going, everything is in place. And what I find sometimes is a lot of the people who want to do the latter strategy don't ever get started or it takes them a long time to get started. And so looking back on your journey, would you do it the same way again or would you line all your ducks up in a row first

and then get started. I'm very grateful I started the way I did. It's sort of this crash course in investing when you just jump into it. You know, I wish maybe I picked up a book and read one or two particularly about property management because I was just God awful at that for a long time. But I just think it's really important to learn the basic frameworks, the basic structures, and then you just have to do the thing. And it's funny because, you know, in my job and I'm the podcast we host on the market, you know, I am an analytical person. But when I get into underwriting and deals, you know, I think I'm pretty good at.

it, but I don't super stress about every single thing. I just trust that, like, real estate is a good business, that I understand the fundamentals. I build in solid cushions, and I also just accept that things are going to go wrong. That's just part of the business. But if you keep your eyes on the long term, which I think is the one thing I've always been able to do is just like, I want this for 20 years from now. I want this for 30 years from now. And it makes decision making so much easier. And so even back then, I knew I was going to take some lumps when I first started the business. But God, you know, everyone sits around. They're like, oh, what happens if this, you know, what happens if my first deal doesn't go well? Yeah, it's hard for the first year.

Now, you know, whatever it is, 15 years later, I'm like, oh, I'm so glad I went through all those lumps. Every single phone call, every single hard conversation I have with a tenant or a contractor it was 100% worth it. And it's just all about like keeping your eyes on the long-term goal. I couldn't agree more. I don't know. For some reason, people forget that they forget the third word in real estate investing. Like it's real estate investing. And when you think about investing in any other asset class, like people expect I'm not going to bat a thousand. Like no one that's in the stock market thinks every trade I make is going to win. Right. They understand. that I am going to make trades that lose, but my goal is to win more than I lose, right?

Like the principles are very similar, but with real estate investing, I think sometimes that gets lost. So I appreciate you sharing that sentiment. Yeah, I think it's, that is definitely true. And it's because, probably, real estate is a capital intensive investment. You have to put up a lot of money. But the other part that gets lost often is that really, Real estate is actually a very forgiving asset class. You see stocks go to zero. You see stocks go down 30%, 50%. Yes, during the Great Recession, there were some areas that saw declines that big, but that

is one period in U.S. history that's happened. And if you held on long enough, as Henry said, things just went back to normal. And I probably approached real estate a little bit differently from a lot of people who are getting started who focus a lot on the deal. But I do think one of the reasons I was able to jump in is because I kind of just focused on the asset class and used the skills I did have, which were analytical, to just look at how real estate is performed. And even though it was the depths of the real estate crash, it just, of course it was going to come back. And now everyone's like, oh, you bought in 2010. That's so, yeah, of course you did well. But every person was telling

me not to. So I think that just has helped me a lot. So at this point in your journey, I heard you say you then moved overseas. That's a big transition. And that has to have an impact on your investing because you can no longer just mosey on over to your properties. You live across oceans. And so how did that transition impact your current investments and impact how you chose to invest in the future? I think it's probably the most positively beneficial thing to have happened to my real estate investing career. For two reasons. First and foremost, I needed to learn how to hire people and outsource things, which is not something I fully understood.

I was still managing all of my properties. I did have, you know, a property manager for short-term rental, but, you know, I was doing things myself. And so learning how to hire people and work with contractors, property managers in a better way was super helpful. And the second thing is it sort of just breaks you out of a rut. Not that I was out there like doing tons of deals. Like, you know, I'm not a full-time or professional investor. I work full-time. So I was building my portfolio at a good clip.

But, you know, you fall into doing the same deals in the same neighborhoods, the same kind of things. And it sort of was a shock to the system and forced me to learn. how to invest passively. And so that and one respect was hiring property managers for my existing portfolio. Hiring better property managers than the ones you hired first? Oh, for the short-term rental. That one took a little while. But I wanted to learn passive investing, you know, and how to invest in syndications and multifamilies and funds. And so I learned how to do that and actually did that exclusively for three or four years before recently jumping back into buying directly. Okay, we have to take one more short break, but stick with us.

Dave and I will talk about portfolio balance and how to design your real estate strategy around what you're actually good at right after this. People love to call real estate passive income, which is interesting because most of the investors I know are very busy. Busy finding deals, busy managing teams, busy worrying they pick the wrong market. Rent to retirement flips that model. They help investors buy turnkey new construction homes, often 10% below market value in top rental markets across the country. Their local teams handle the build, the property management, and the details, so you don't have to.

In some cases, investors even receive 50 to 75% of their down payment back at closing, and there are interest rates as low as 3.75%. They've been trusted partners with BiggerPockets for over a decade, and if you want to learn more, visit BiggerPockets.com slash retirement. All right, rental property investors, listen up. Our friends at Dominion Financial already have some of the best DSCR rates in the industry. Now, they're the fastest, too. They just launched 10-day DSCR closing.

That's right, 10 days. And they're still the only lender with a DSCR price beat guarantee. That means faster closing, the best terms, zero guesswork. That's Dominion Financial. Check them out at biggerpockets.com slash Dominion. Again, that's biggerpockets.com slash dominion. Managing properties can feel like a full-on circus. You're juggling vendors, tracking payments, chasing approvals across multiple properties,

and maybe a few HOAs, all while trying to keep tenants happy and owners confident. One delay can throw everything off, and suddenly your day is all clean up, no progress. That's why hundreds of property managers rely on bill to streamline their finances. Bill for property management lets you add all your properties, assign permissions, pay bills, and receive payments quickly and efficiently without the usual bottlenecks. It syncs with platforms like QuickBooks, Zero, NetSuite, and Sage intact,

so your accounting stays aligned. You can automate bulk payments across properties and HOAs. Choose flexible payment methods like Same Day ACH, international wires, card or check, and set custom roles in approval policies. There's even a dedicated bill inbox for each property to keep everything organized. Ready to simplify your workflow?

Book your free demo at bill.com slash bigger pockets and get a $100 Amazon gift card. That's bill.com slash bigger pockets. Tired of traditional lenders holding you back, host financial is here to change the game. They've ditched the DTI restrictions and they zero in on what really matters, your property's income potential. So no more chasing papers for tax returns or personal income statements. Think about it. A lender that values your property's worth over your paycheck, that's the host financial difference.

Approved in 47 states, they are ready to help you. you make your next big move. Curious if you qualify, just head over to hostfinancial.com and find out. Stop letting outdated lending practices hold you back. That's hostfinancial.com where your property's potential meets unlimited financing. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy.

Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. That means you can stop struggling to get your job notice on other job sites. Indeed, sponsor job posts that help you stand. out and hire the right people quickly. Your job post jumps straight to the top of the page where your ideal candidates are looking. And it works. Sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored post. The best part, no monthly subscriptions or long-term contracts. You only pay for results. And speaking of results, in the minute I've been talking to you, 23 people just got hired

through Indeed worldwide. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of the show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash rookie. Just go to Indeed.com slash rookie right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's Indeed.com slash rookie. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Welcome back, everyone. Let's jump back in. So you are one of the unique investors who's done both. You've got your own properties, plus you've invested in syndications. Can you give us kind of like a quick comparison to how each of those assets work in your portfolio? And which one has the better returns for you?

Yes. I'm glad you ask this question. This is one of my favorite things to talk about because as I've learned more about the broad array of different ways that you can invest, I really have fun thinking about how to build out well-rounded portfolio. And to me, that includes both passive deals and active deals. Because while some offer better returns on paper, I think both have really important values for the sort of portfolio that I'm trying to build. And so for me, I as an active investor have limitations. I live overseas. I don't do what you do well, Henry, which is like going out and finding off-market deals. That's not a skill that I have. I don't manage big renovations. I did some medium-sized

renovations in Denver when I was living there, but I can't do that. But those are great ways to make money. To find off-market deals, to do value add is an important part of a strategy. So for me, that's what I use passive investing for. So I invest in syndications where they're buying, you know, properties, multifamily properties that they found off-money. market or found in a creative way and that they are adding value to and I can benefit from hopefully those big swings, those big potentials to build equity in those type of deals. And it's great. And on paper, they're amazing. You know, on a lot of them, you see IRAs, the internal rate of return of 15%, 18%, 20%. It's a fantastic return. But there are tradeoffs with them. First and foremost, you have to

put a lot of money into syndications. I don't think everyone knows this, but oftentimes, the minimum investment is six figures. So there's limits that's obviously very restrictive. The second thing is that you have no liquidity because you, if you're an investor, if you're an LP and a syndication, you give the operator your money. And it's up to them when they sell and when you get your money back. So it limits your flexibility in how you deploy your capital. And you're not really managing the asset.

Like you don't get to decide when to do the value. or when to make the upgrade or when to do the cost segregation study. You know, there's just limits to how involved you are. And so for me, I have resumed buying active rental properties again for two reasons. First and foremost, even though a rental property is not, quote unquote, liquid, it takes time to sell. I at least get to decide when to buy and sell them. And I think that's really important to me.

Two, there's great tax benefits to owning rental properties. And three, and this is sort of like part of my entire philosophy of real estate is I don't plan to become a full-time real estate investor at least anytime soon. I'm going to keep working. And so my time horizons 10, 15, 20 years from now. And so I'm just buying rental properties that in 10 or 15 years, I know are just going to pay for my lifestyle. And syndications, they usually last three, five, seven years. And so even if I invest in great ones right now, I'm going to have to figure out how to redeploy that capital. a couple of years. Whereas with long-term rental properties, I could just put my money into them,

and then that's my retirement plan, right? Like the ones I'm buying right now, that is my retirement plan. And I'm excited that I have the opportunity to buy them now and sort of not think about what their performance is this year or next year, but I know 10, 15 years from now they're going to perform for me. Man, this is great. I don't know that people who are listening to this realize how much of a lesson in real estate investing that they are getting right now. But this is phenomenal. I actually heard David Green recently give a talk around a similar concept of what's called portfolio architecture, what he calls portfolio architecture. But essentially what you're saying is, I know what I want in terms of what my investments to look like in the returns that I want.

I know what my time horizon is in terms of when I want real estate to take over the financial burden of my life. I know what I want my current lifestyle to look like and how much time and energy I have to put into real estate investing. And so you take all those points of data in your life and then you build a real estate investment plan that fits your goals. Right. Like this is what we should be doing as investors. I think a lot of the times, and I am guilty of this as well, we just go buy stuff. Right. We're like, ah, good deal.

Buy it. Right. But we don't, we don't think about how that impacts my current lifestyle and the way I want to live my life and what my plan is 10, 15, 20 years from now. And so I'm not saying don't go buy good deals, guys. I'm saying as you start to do deals, think about what your 10 years, 15 years, 20 years looks like. And you want to be shifting or optimizing your investment strategy to fit that in the

long term. So you don't have to get started with that in mind in the very beginning and you don't have to not do deals that don't fit that. But you want to keep that in mind because it's truly we're doing this because we want to live a certain life and only we know what that life is. And so you want to build your business around providing you that output. And I think that you're a good example of someone who is doing that well. You know, it helps with the squirrel syndrome, right? Like people ask me, well, why don't you do multifamily or why don't you do this or why don't you do that? And I'm like, I'm pretty clear on why I do what I do. And it kind of keeps me focused and I don't have to go after the shiny object. And it sounds like that's very similar for you.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm sort of boring about it. And I'm totally okay with that. And I think it's very difficult, especially if you listen to this podcast in reality, you hear some incredibly successful people. You know, I host this podcast. I host a different podcast on the market with you and with James and with Kathy. And I hear about all the cool stuff you're doing. And there's always this moment when I'm like, man, I wish I could do that. And then it's just you have, you get FOMO in reality. And you think, oh, they're doing such amazing things. I wish I could do that. But at the end of the day, you have to sort of take a step back and figure out, like you said, why you're doing it. And what you're good at, you know, I wouldn't be good at the things that you're good at,

Henry. And I, it's sometimes a hard pill to swallow. But I think in the long run, it just leads to a better life and a more balanced life, just like sticking to what you feel comfortable with. Not to say you shouldn't take risk and push the envelope, but just like accepting that there are only so many different strategies I can learn. There are only so many different skills that I can acquire as an investor. And I have other interests outside of real estate.

And so I'm not going to devote every minute of my life to becoming the best possible investor. Because again, I work a full-time job. This is still a side hustle for me. I love that. I love that because too many times people get caught up in the, you know, I need to go buy a bunch of doors, right? I remember the last time we met up all in Denver, I asked Scott Trench, you know, what's your, what's your plans for your real estate portfolio next year? And he said, I'll probably buy one, right? Yeah.

That's his that's that's his goal. It fits his goals in his lifestyle. It fits his investment strategy. And so you don't don't get caught up guys in thinking you need to build this massive portfolio. You need to build what fits your goals. Absolutely. I think I might have told you this story once, but I was at BPCon. And I was talking to one of the attendees.

And he was like, yeah, I'm just a newbie. I was like, that's cool. You know, it's great. Everyone coming. I was like, yeah, I only have 37 doors. And I was like, you know, that's more doors than I own, right? I mean, like, I don't know how many I own because I invest a lot of syndication. So I don't like the door count thing.

But direct ownership, you own more than me. Like, you're not a newbie. You know, it's just, it's this, you know, people are competitive, but, and that's natural. But I think you're better off sticking to your own goals and just pursuing them. And it's hard. But I do think if you can learn that. skill, you're going to be a more successful investor. So again, I commend you.

I think it's great to have a strategy. There's a lot of people who aren't investing just so they can quit their job, right? Like, you have built an investment strategy that allows you to have the flexibility to live overseas and continue to work your day job because you love it and enjoy it so much. And I think that that's super special. So can you kind of just give us the summary? What's your investment portfolio look like now and what are you most focused on in your real estate investment business going forward? Yeah.

So my portfolio now is what I, I guess I sold off one from Denver. So it's basically what I left the United States with a couple years ago. I have not bought anything new in Colorado. But I've invested in several syndications all over the country, really. I think in five or six different markets, they are all multifamily. I have not done any self-storage or anything like that. Like I said, I'm boring. I just feel like I understand the idea of supply and demand with rent.

So I just stick with that. But I do, I am in one, a lending fund to private lending. And that's something I am trying to learn. So that's sort of like my growth strategy is I want to learn how to do private lending. And then this year, we've talked about this on the on the market show. My goal as an investor was to start buying property again directly due to some of the reasons we're just talking about. And I bought a duplex now in the Midwest in a new market, much cheaper market where you can at least get break-even cash flow, but it's a good growing market. And I'm closing on another one tomorrow.

So I'm hitting that goal. Yeah. And if I had to describe my my like sort of philosophy with real estate investing in general, it's right now I'm trying to do two things, buy a couple of duplexes, long-term holds, and then get it so that I invest in like maybe one syndication a year or two for, you know, seven years or so. And that way I have them exiting hopefully regularly, one every once a year so that that I am getting some liquidity and some predictable liquidity on those things. So I'm trying to

do like the dollar cost averaging approach to syndications while I buy some duplexes and small multifamily in the Midwest. So for those that are listening to this, what Dave is talking about with the syndications is typically when you invest in a syndication, you put a big chunk of cash up and then you are hoping for X amount of return on your investment. But typically the syndications have a whole time at least of five years or so. Some are five, some are seven, some are 10. But what they were saying is if he invests into a new syndication every year, once that five to seven year period starts to roll around, then every year he'll have at least one or two syndications that are exiting and paying him out. So that creates income year over a year. Is that correct?

Yeah, exactly. I've been doing this for, I think, four years now. I started doing the pandemic. So like this is my fourth year. I've invested in syndication. I'm going to keep doing it, and I know the market's not what everyone wants it to be, but the idea about time, if you've never heard this term of dollar cost averaging, it's basically you keep putting regular increments of money into an asset class, knowing that you can't time the market because it's very difficult. But if you sort of just keep doing it in a disciplined way, you're going to tie your investment to the median or the average return for that asset class.

And for real estate, that's very good. I would be very happy over the lifetime of my investing career to tie my performance to the average performance of real estate. And so that's sort of what I'm trying to do with these syndications. Man, that's super smart. That sounds like a great plan. And, you know, I'll borrow your money. So cool, you want to lend? You got your boy right here.

Every time I say this, I got to actually start doing this because I've been saying it for like six months. Like, oh, I'm going to learn to be a private lender. I always get these messages like, do you want to lend to me? and I have to reveal that I don't actually know yet. I'm still learning. I read a few books. I'm getting there. But I haven't pulled the trigger on actually directly lending to anyone yet.

Well, thank you so much, Dave. This has been super insightful. Great to get to know a little more about your personal story and journey. But it's really cool how it's all tied together to fit your life and your lifestyle. And I think it's going to be super beneficial for people. This is a phenomenal story. And we appreciate you being so candid with us. Thank you. Yeah. And I'll just say, like, the one thing I feel I've learned from working up

Bigger Pockets for a long time is that real estate, the benefit is that it fits really anyone's lifestyle. For me, I work full time. I live overseas. That's a pretty different goal than what you have, I think, Henry, or what a lot of our mutual friends in real estate investing do. And that's what's so cool about it, that if you figure out what you want, you can craft a portfolio and a strategy that works for you. And hopefully, Henry and I sharing some of our our experiences are thinking about it will help inspire you, not to do what we're doing, but to come up with your own approach for yourself to hit your own goals. Absolutely. Perfect. Thank you so much, Dave. And thank you so much everybody for listening. We'll see you next time on the Bigger Pockets

Podcast. Do you ever notice how every passive investment somehow turns into a very active lifestyle, active spreadsheets, active phone calls, active stress? Here's a better question. What if you could buy brand new construction homes, 10% below market value, and the best markets across the country, without making real estate your second job. That's exactly what rent to retirement does. They're a full service, turnkey investment company, handling everything for you. In some cases, investors get 50 to 75% of their down payment back at closing, plus interest rates as low as 3.75%. They've partnered with Bigger Pockets for over a decade, helping thousands invest smarter. If you want to do the same, visit biggerpockets.com slash retirement to learn more.