BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - BRRRR for Beginners: How to Build Massive Wealth with This “Dead” Strategy

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

The BRRRR strategy is arguably the fastest way to build wealth with real estate. Just ask Leka Devatha, a Seattle-based investor. She’s got ONE BRRRR property this year that could make her $600,000 ...in profit. And that’s ONE home, not an apartment complex. So what is the BRRRR strategy, and why do so many investors write it off instead of trying it in 2025? Are they missing out? Absolutely! BRRRR stands for buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat. The basic formula is this: buy a house that needs some improvement, renovate the home (to a scale you’re comfortable with), rent out the home to tenants now that it’s fixed up, and refinance it. Now that the property is worth more, you may be able to get the bank to pay YOU back your initial down payment and renovation costs due to the increase in equity. Then…repeat until you’re financially free. How do you pull off a BRRRR in 2025 with high interest rates, high home prices, and rising renovation costs? Dave and Leka are walking through their own BRRRR deals, showing you how to successfully BRRRR and do it without using ANY of your own money (seriously!). In This Episode We Cover: The BRRRR strategy explained and whether it still works in 2025 Leka’s BRRRR deals making her up to $600K! The best property types for BRRRRing to get more cash flow, higher appreciation, and bigger returns  How to use other people’s money (OPM) to fund your BRRRR investments  The “DADU” strategy that could skyrocket your home price with one savvy addition  And So Much More! Links from the Show Join BiggerPockets for FREE Let Us Know What You Thought of the Show! Ask Your Question on the BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets YouTube Apply to Be a BiggerPockets Podcast Guest! Maximize Your Real Estate Investing with a Self-Directed IRA from Equity Trust Save $100 on Real Estate’s Biggest Event of the Year, BPCon2025 Grab the BRRRR Book Sign Up for the BiggerPocket Real Estate Newsletter Find Investor-Friendly Lenders What is the BRRRR Method & How to Use it to Invest in Real Estate Connect with Leka Connect with Dave (00:00) Intro (03:42) BRRRR Strategy Explained (05:38) How to Boost Home Value (08:47) BRRRRing with No Money (12:50) Using Other People’s Money (15:39) Refinancing Your BRRRR (18:39) Real 2025 BRRRR Examples (23:03) Best BRRRR Property Types (26:08) The Secret to Finding Deals Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1091 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email advertise@biggerpockets.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is still the fastest way to scale your rental property portfolio in 2025. You buy a house, you renovate it, and then pull some or all of your equity out, and then buy another. Even with today's interest rates, it can still work if you get creative. Hey, everyone, it's Dave Meyer, head of real estate investing here at Bigger Pockets. Today on the podcast, we are revisiting an old friend, the Burr strategy. If you're not familiar with this strategy, here's how it works. First, you buy a property, that's the first B, then you rehab that property, which will add value,
Starting point is 00:00:41 then you rent out that property, and next you refinance the property. And this is the key step, because if everything goes according to plan, you increase the property's value enough that you can pull back out most or all of your cash from your down payment and renovation budget. And then the last R in the Burr acronym is repeat. that process with a new property. And if this all goes how it should, Burrs can be incredibly powerful. Because at the end, you own a newly renovated cash-filling property, but you still also have most of your starting capital to go put into another deal. And when Brandon Turner and Bigger Pockets coined this
Starting point is 00:01:21 term back in the 2010s, it was relatively easy to pull off. But today, especially with higher interest rates and higher rebate costs, it's much rare to have everything go perfectly. More often, you're going to have to leave some of your cash in that deal, or you'll have to accept only break-even cash flow on the back end. But that does not mean that Burr is dead. It just means that you need to modify it. You need to get more creative. You need to do the work as an investor to leverage the Burr along with other strategies like ADUs and zoning upside to meet your own financial goals. So today, I am bringing on Laca Devatha onto the show.
Starting point is 00:02:01 Lika is an investor and a broker operating in Seattle, and she's doing everything I just said. She's using all the tools available to her to modify and modernize the Burr strategy so it can still enhance her portfolio right now. I'm really looking forward to hearing how she's doing it, so let's bring her on. Lika, welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Thanks for being here. Oh my gosh. Thank you for having me. It's been a minute. How many times have you been on the show?
Starting point is 00:02:30 The main podcast just once. I recorded one of Brandon Turner's birthday episodes. And that was in 2020. Okay. Nice. Well, welcome back. We're excited to have you. For people who didn't listen to that first one, can you just give us a little bio? Yes, absolutely. I'm Lika Devta and I mainly invest in the greater Seattle area. I have now been doing this for a good decade. And after flipping almost 100 units, I can tell you that I have learned a lot more than just flipping properties. It's just taught me so much about stabilization, buying, creative exits, and just a whole other piece of education that comes with knowing how to flip a property well. It's been fun. Why did you get directly into flipping 10 years ago out of all the different strategies? It was the quickest way to make money.
Starting point is 00:03:27 Okay, that's fair. I was giving up my W-2 and jumping into something I didn't know what to do, how to do. I didn't have the money to do long-term rentals. Okay. And so, you know, I was like, okay, let's go learn to flip a house. Okay, well, I love it. But today we're actually not here talking about flipping. We're here to talk about the burr method.
Starting point is 00:03:46 So at what point did you start doing burr as well? I would say about three years after starting to invest. in real estate. I met my friend Thatch when, and he was like, if you keep flipping homes, all you're going to be doing is a job. If you want to create true long-term wealth, then you need to start holding properties. And it just so happened. There was just a fantastic time to do Burrs because the properties I bought back then, obviously they have under 3% interest, right? Maybe you could give us a definition of Burr just for anyone who is not super familiar with it. But to me, it's kind of the perfect hybrid between flipping a house and a rental.
Starting point is 00:04:26 You kind of get some of the benefits of each, right? Exactly. So a burr property is basically when you buy a property, you renovate it, you rent it out, you refinance. It could be a cash out refinance or not or you leave some money in the deal, but then you repeat the process. And by doing this over and over again, what you're doing is you're buying something that is obviously under market value, and by putting in your sweat equity, by actually doing the
Starting point is 00:04:56 rehab and doing the work, you are able to increase, like, force appreciation and value on that property. And not only that, once you rent it out, you actually can make great cash flow. I know with interest rates being where they are today, it's a little bit more challenging, but trust me, those opportunities still exist. Good, yeah. Well, that's what I want to talk about, because there is this, sort of narrative in our industry right now that the burr is dead or it's not possible. I think my own experience would speak to that's not true. I'm curious about yours because you're in a very different market. You're in Seattle. It's expensive. Like, what are the types of deals you're doing
Starting point is 00:05:40 right now? Okay. Let's talk about a couple of deals that I did just in the last few months, which I completely was able to utilize the Burr strategy. So first, I bought a single family home. It was literally something that was on market. Anyone could have bought it. But what was cool about this single family home was that it was on a double street, which means the house was on one street, but the backyard was on the second street. There's few special streets that actually have it.
Starting point is 00:06:07 Now, what this means is I can build a dadu in the back and the dadu would have its own street frontage. And a dadu just for everyone is a detached accessory dwelling unit. So when you talk about ADUs and zoning, this comes up a lot. And ADU can mean a lot of different things, but it can mean a second unit in your basement in your attic that you stick onto the side of a house. A DADU or a dadu is one that is freestanding. It's not touching the primary dwelling. And so it sounds like Lika what you're saying is there's opportunities to build a dadu where it doesn't feel like tucked in someone else's backyard. You're sort of giving them a more single family home.
Starting point is 00:06:50 experience. Yeah, yeah, than a traditional dadu. Absolutely. Is that the primary type of deal you're doing in Seattle? No, I'm actually also doing land banks. So buying property now, stabilizing it. So still buying them very distressed because I love distressed property. That's how I know you're friends with Jamstader because you buy just the scariest buildings. I love those. Yeah. Yeah. So when I By a distressed single family home, I'm able to fix it up, raise the value. So the appraisal comes in much higher. And then what I do is I put a DSCR loan on it. And then once I put that loan, I am good to hold it for the next few years and just land bank
Starting point is 00:07:37 on that lot so that I can, in few years, build more units on that lot. I love this idea. This sort of goes in line with a framework that I've been talking about a lot on the show in the last couple months where we're talking about upside. And the general framework here is that if you can buy a deal that you can at least make break even in the first year, and then there's different like upsides to it in two years, three years, five years, like those to me are good deals in 2025. Like it sounds like you're doing just that. You're buying something, stabilizing it. I assume if you're getting a DSCR loan, most lenders,
Starting point is 00:08:16 The reason it's called the debt service coverage ratio loan is that they're looking for some ratio between the income of the property and the amount of the debt service, hence the name. And so most of them, obviously they want at least one, which means that the rental income will cover the debt service. A lot of them look for 1.2, which means that you need 120% of your debt service in terms of revenue. But the reason I'm saying this is because it means like they need cash flow positive property. And so I'm curious, like, what kind of ash flow in a city like Seattle? Like, are you able to generate even with buying distress? Ashley is really interesting. And we can blow people's minds with this.
Starting point is 00:08:59 But you don't even need to have your own money to do this. And then you can just build like tons of equity in properties. So what I did was I bought a single family home for $300,000. And it's on a corner lot where one side, is the home and then on the other side is a detached garage. Now this city hasn't gone through its zoning change yet, but in six months they're going to actually allow for dados on this lots. And if they don't allow for dados, they already allow cottages to be built on the lot. So we can always do those. But what's cool about this is I put about 50 grand into fixing it up. So
Starting point is 00:09:38 total acquisition and rehab was 350K. And then when it appraised, it appraised for 480,000. Once I had gone in there, done my magic with the rehab, and also got it rented out. So it rented for about $2,400. So based on the income approach, it appraised for $4.80. Nice. Which means I was going to get about $300K on a DSCR loan. Now, because I was into it for about $350, what I did was I got a partner, a private lender, that lent me the remainder of my down payment.
Starting point is 00:10:16 Okay. And the way that it's structured is that she doesn't get anything now, but in about three years, when we're ready to offload this property, she gets 15% of the equity. Oh, wow. So I don't have any of my money in, but at the same time, every month, we make about $500 in cash flow. Wow. Okay. So because you've gotten a private money lender to defer payment for three years?
Starting point is 00:10:44 Yes. Okay. I'm curious why that lender would do that. Okay, so this lender, and this is also so interesting, this lender is in tech. She just wants to make passive income. She doesn't care about mailbox money. She just wants to park her money somewhere
Starting point is 00:10:59 where in three years she could make back a bunch of equity. Now, what is that equity we're talking about, right? So this property today is valued at 480, and that city appreciates almost double every five to six years. So in three years, even if that property is only going to sell for like 600 or 650, that's still a lot of equity that she can get back for not doing anything. And her money is not stuck in stocks. Her money is not sitting on the sidelines.
Starting point is 00:11:28 It's actually being put to use. Interesting. Okay. I'm going to be honest. I don't know if I'd do that deal as a private letter, but I'm glad you found someone who would. It's actually surprising how many people you would find to do something like that. Well, that's a very interesting deal. It's not like a complicated structure, but do you think like newbies could take on this type of deal?
Starting point is 00:11:49 Yeah. So my biggest thing is, and I was giving this piece of advice a long time ago, and I am very big on it. Never over leverage. I had the money to bring to the table myself. Like I had the down payment. If I didn't find a private lender, didn't have someone lined up, I would have funded this deal myself. So I always feel like someone's starting new. It's okay to leverage something 100% as long as as you have the funds to back it. A lot of people, like what I see happen is they raise money here, they raise money there. They have no way of making active income if something were to go wrong. Right.
Starting point is 00:12:26 And so I just feel like it's important to throw that out there is make sure that you are secure and that you are not over-leveraging beyond what you can pay back. All right. I'm glad you said that, Lika, and I want to ask you a question about why you leverage, even though you can pay for it. But first we have to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Thinking about wholesaling or flipping your first property, but not sure where to start.
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Starting point is 00:16:49 I get this question a lot. Why? Why would you do that if you could just pay for it yourself? Great question. Because I want to scale. Instead of doing one property and using all of my money, I want to hedge my bets and put it across multiple different properties. Not just that. I think holding real estate is more expensive than anything else. It could be a tenant not paying. It could be a quarter issue. It could be a roof leak. It could be a sewer line. It could be so many different things. Just little things like the carpet needs to be replaced or the wooden flooring has to go or something like that. So owning real estate for me is super expensive in a way. So I'm like, I always have to just keep aside funds for incidentals. So it doesn't mean that I would want to put all that money
Starting point is 00:17:37 into one deal. I can always hold it and say, okay, if I don't have a private lender, if the deal goes South, then I have rainy day money. That makes a lot of sense to me because I sort of struggled with this too, because as I started doing a little bit of private money lending, a lot of the people who I'd consider lending to, like, they could definitely just buy these houses themselves. And I was always kind of like, why would you do that? And like you said, you know, it's a lot about hedging. And also leverage really boosts your return as an investor.
Starting point is 00:18:07 Like if you think about the percentage return that you get by using someone else's money, it really accelerates it. So if you're, you know, only have to put in $100,000 to build $100,000 in equity, that's an 100% ROI. If you're putting $500 grand to get that same $100,000 in equity, yeah, maybe you're making less cash because you're paying someone that interest, but you're only getting a 20% ROI. And so you sort of have to think about the math there. And that's why, you know, banks exist and why private many lenders are willing to do these things because it can create win-win scenarios for the lender who's probably just looking for a stable return. Laco was talking about and growth capital for investors like Laco who want to scale. And also, I think it just makes you more lendable because like you said, if you came to me and
Starting point is 00:18:54 said, hey, I want to invest in a deal of yours, you know that I already have the money and I don't need it. I'm not desperate. Totally. You'd rather lend to someone like that than lending to someone that doesn't have that experience or doesn't have that credibility and the bank account because then if something were to go wrong with the deal, then your money is gone. Yeah, you want like actual collateral and experience. Right.
Starting point is 00:19:17 Going back to this sort of narrative that we continuously hear that Burr is dead, like is this the kind of deal structure you would have done five years ago? Or have you had to get a bit more creative as market conditions have changed? So five years ago, if I were to put this same deal in context, my interest rate would have been about 3%. And at 3%, I would cash for about $1,200. bucks and not just that, I could get a lot more leverage from just a DSCR lender. So instead of them only giving me 300k, they would have probably lent up to 380.
Starting point is 00:19:52 So I would have actually done a cash out refinance. So that's the biggest deal. I think the biggest difference, I think with the Burr strategy today, you might not be able to do a cash out refinance, whereas five years ago, four years ago, you could actually still do those. just did a deal where it was not a cash out refinance, but I didn't put anything in the deal. Right. Like, I didn't have to bring any of my own money in.
Starting point is 00:20:16 Yeah. So you wouldn't expect to get money out if you're not putting anybody in. Right. But I'm curious, when you're saying you can't do a cash out refi, does that mean you can't do it at all or you can't do the quote unquote perfect burr where you're getting 100% of your equity out? Oh, you can still do it all. It's just that you, for me right now, I'm yet to see a deal that I can do a massive cash out
Starting point is 00:20:39 refinance on. Yeah. But I can explain my dad who deal and how I put no money in the deal of my own, but I ended up with a beautiful house that the bank has financed 100%. Right. That I don't have to put any money. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:20:54 I've been talking to a few people about this on the show over the last couple of weeks, but I feel like this concept that Burr is dead is just people holding on to these expectations that existed in 2017. And that was awesome. It was great. It was easy. but they just don't exist anymore. But that doesn't mean that Burr is like an ineffective way to build wealth.
Starting point is 00:21:16 It still is, at least in my opinion, it's just you need to take a different approach and you might not be able to hit these grand slams on every single Burr deal that you do. You might need to just take a little bit less out. You might take 50% out of your equity or even 25%. But the fundamentals of it haven't changed. It's still a way to accelerate your equity. growth while you're able to hold on to properties long term. And at least to me, that hasn't changed and I think is unlikely to change. No, it hasn't changed at all. And I feel like the more creative you can
Starting point is 00:21:50 get with buying properties, the more you can even use the traditional burr method. Like you can find seller finance deals instead of doing a single family. If you did a fourplex, stabilize each unit and rented it, you can still do a cash out refinance and you can have positive cash flow. And so these deals still exist. It's just a matter of buying rights, but also coming up with a solid exit plan. I want to hear about what your exit plans are because you tease that early about creative exits, and I want to know what that means. But I just want to give an example of a burr that I'm sort of in the middle of doing that maybe some people would say is boring or is not a home run. But for me, it just totally makes sense. I bought a deal. It was occupied. And then over the course of a year,
Starting point is 00:22:36 as tenants moved out, I renovated each of the units and I invested additional money into renovating them that I paid for that cash. How many units were they? Just two. Two units. Easy to do. Mostly cosmetic. There was a couple of systems that needed updated.
Starting point is 00:22:51 It's old building. But I put a little bit of more money in. When I go to refinance it, I'm going to be able to take all of my rehab money and then probably another 10% of my down payment out. And so for me, I just added value to the property. and I'm putting less money down than I originally did on a deal that was cash flowing on day one and is now going to cash flow significantly better. Did I do it for free?
Starting point is 00:23:15 No. Like I'd have to leave some money into it. But as a buy and hold investor, I'm okay with that, especially in today's day and age. Like, I don't want to be max leveraged. So I'm okay keeping some money in there. And if you evaluate that by pretty much any financial metric other than like, is it as good as what you did in 2018? Like, it's still a good deal. And it's still a good investment.
Starting point is 00:23:37 But also, can you imagine what's going to happen to it if interest rates did go down? Right. Totally. Yeah, you would walk away with so much equity. And you can refinance. I mean, there's so many different possibilities. Yeah. And the value of it will probably go up in that case.
Starting point is 00:23:51 But like, even if it doesn't, like, it's still a good deal. And I think it puts you in a position to get both because cash flow is hard to find. And so to me, at least, you need to find these ways to add equity. And then hold on. I think the cash flow will get good over the next five to 10 years as rents grow up. But to make it worthwhile for your effort and money in the short term, you got to find that way to add some equity. Yep, exactly.
Starting point is 00:24:17 So I'm also a real estate broker and I like doing investment type sales. And so I had this young couple come to me and they were like, look, we really just want to do a house hack. And so I ended up finding them on market, a duplex, just like you said. but this duplex was cool about it was it was turnkey. So they ended up living upstairs and they're renting out the downstairs. But the duplex on the site has a massive side yard and a huge backyard. So going into that, we knew we could build in the back.
Starting point is 00:24:50 And so now that the city has changed its zoning, we just found out last week that they can build about four units in the back. So that means they can literally sit in their living room and build in the backyard and walk away with millions of dollars of equity. And because it's their primary residence, that's all going to be tax-free, right? All tax-free. Beautiful. Love that.
Starting point is 00:25:11 See, that to me is like this upside framework, right? It's like you're taking your primary residence. You're using an owner-occupied strategy. Then you're doing zoning upside. Then you're doing value-add upside. Like you're looking at a deal that if you just looked at it on Zillow, it wouldn't make sense. But if you do just that extra level of research about what's possible and how to bring this
Starting point is 00:25:32 property to its highest and best use. That sounds like a home run. That's a grand slam deal right there. You know, that's a fantastic deal. So I think that goes to just showing about, yeah, it's a little bit harder than it was, but the returns are still absolutely possible. Yeah, killer. All right, I want to talk about steps that our audience can take Laca to pursue their next ber. But first, we have to take a quick break. Before we go to break, though, I do want to remind everyone that BPcon tickets are out for sale. We have early bird. tickets available. It gives you $800 off our tickets. This year, it's in Vegas. Lika, I know you're going to be there, right? I'll be there. Are you speaking this year? I am. What are you talking about?
Starting point is 00:26:14 Well, as luck would have it, I am doing a whole workshop on optimizing your portfolio. Oh, very cool. So if you want to hear Laca's talk, I'll be talking all of our other friends here on the Bigger Pockets podcast will be there. Go buy a ticket now because it is the cheapest they will be. Go to biggerpockets. com slash conference and get your early bird ticket today. We'll be right back. Thinking about wholesaling or flipping your first property, but not sure where to start. The truth is, deals don't just fall into your lap anymore. You need to go out and create opportunities. That's where PropStream comes in. With PropStream, you get instant access to over 160 million properties nationwide. Use 20 pre-built lead lists such as pre-foreclosures,
Starting point is 00:26:55 tax delinquencies, and vacant homes to find motivated sellers fast. And now PropStream has integrated batch leads and batch dialer to provide you with a complete all-in-one solution. That means you can not only find motivated sellers, but you can also reach out right away. Skip trace phone numbers free on select plans, then send postcards, emails, or call sellers directly. Don't worry if you're new. PropStream also gives you AI-powered insights and comms that are over 99% accurate. So you know you're making smart offers.
Starting point is 00:27:22 Plus, you'll have access to PropStream Academy to guide you step by step. Start your seven-day free trial and get 50 free leads at PropStream.com, That's P-R-O-P-S-T-R-E-A-M. Don't just dream about real estate. Make it happen with PropStream. Most investors spend more time chasing deals than reviewing their insurance. But a quick coverage check can be fast, easy, and one of these smartest ways to protect and even improve your property's cash flow. As the months get colder, frozen pipes, icy walkways, and seasonal wear and tear can
Starting point is 00:27:57 increase the likelihood of claims. And traditional insurance companies aren't always. built to handle these claims quickly or smoothly. That's why more real estate investors are turning to steadily. They focus exclusively on landlords, whether it's a single-family rental, a burr-builder's risk policy, or midterm holiday guests. You get fast quotes, flexible coverage, and protection for property damage, liability, and even loss of rental income. Now is the perfect time to review your rates and coverage. Get a quote in minutes at biggerpockets.com slash landlord insurance. Steadily, Landlord Insurance designed for the modern investor.
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Starting point is 00:29:31 If getting rentals organized and filled fast is on the list this year, start with Avail. Sign up for free at Avail.co slash bigger pockets. That's A-V-A-I-L-C-O-S-Bigger Pockets. Welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast. I'm here with Laca. We are talking about Burr. She's given us some examples of the really creative strategies that she's been using in Seattle. Like, I'm curious, though, are there any tips as an agent and an experienced flipper,
Starting point is 00:30:03 experienced borr investor that you would give to people who want to get into burr better, finding it difficult in today's market. Yeah, I mean, there's so many different strategies. A lot of them just, you know, starts with finding the property. And you can just find them online. You don't even have to go look for off market deals. But I think like rent by room is a really good strategy. Seattle doesn't have this, but a lot of other markets have rent by room specialists
Starting point is 00:30:28 that they're like Airbnb operators. You just give them your house. and they can run all of it. All of the marketing, screening tenants. I mean, it's incredible what they can do. So I tried this in the Raleigh market, and it was just, I was like, oh, my gosh, this is amazing. And so you could just buy a house with lots of bedrooms.
Starting point is 00:30:47 You don't even have to fix it up. You can put new paint, carpet, maybe. That's a great way to increase income. Is that different from Burr though? Or were you saying you would like buy a Burr, fix it up and do that? Or you're saying you just buy a stabilized house and do that? You can do both. I'm going to say this again.
Starting point is 00:31:04 I will never buy a turnkey house or even like a minor cosmetic house. I am all about the down to the studs. So I buy them crazy. But I'm saying if you don't want to do that, you can still make a lot of cash flow by just buying something that is more turnkey that was once maybe used as a single family that you could convert to a rent by room. All right. Well, that seems like combining two really good strategies, right?
Starting point is 00:31:29 Like you're taking burr and rent by room. Tell us a little bit about some of the other burr strategies that you've looked at. Like, is it mostly based on zoning upside or are you still able to do sort of a traditional like buy a duplex, rehab a duplex or buy a single family, rehab a single family? Or are you mostly focused on adding capacity, adding units in some way? I love buying triplexes and fourplexes. I think those cash flow so well, especially buying them distressed and then fixing up every unit because there's so many different exit strategies on that.
Starting point is 00:32:07 You can rent out three long term and one Airbnb, short term. You can condoize and sell each unit separately. You can fix up the property, raise value and raise rents. Or you can just sell it as a whole turnkey investment for a 1031 buyer. So I just feel like those have so much potential for different exits that those are my favorite kind. And plus, you get a conventional loan on it. Awesome. Yeah, that's a great, that's a great strategy. So what are you looking at now?
Starting point is 00:32:38 Like, are those the kind of deals you're looking at next? Or what are your next few moves that you're planning to make? So I'm the kind of investor that I have my eyes open for any kind of deal. It could be a single family fix and flip. It could be a long-term buy and hold. It could be a multifamily deal. If it makes sense and if there's a lot of meat on the bone, then that's the deal that I'm looking for. So I just want a lot of equity that either I'm able to create or it comes existing.
Starting point is 00:33:01 Like I just today closed on a split entry home, which is three minutes from where I live. The house that I'm buying, I'm buying off market. It is a little bit distress for $1.1 million. The appraisal came in last week at $1.7 million. Oh, my God. I know. Crazy. What?
Starting point is 00:33:19 So I'm just like walking into extra. couldn't. Yeah, just keep doing that. Yeah, this deal was off market. The seller came to me directly and said that she found me because she's attended some of my meetups and has come to my walkthroughs. So I just feel like social media too has such a big part to play in your investment journey. Like if you constantly put yourself out there by providing value, it does come back in spades. Like I do my events just to build community and I do my walkthroughs for free. Like they can come through any of my flips. I show them the process, my learnings on the project, and it's just helpful for people to know who I am, what I do, and also learn in the process. And that helps
Starting point is 00:34:03 to get amazing deals. Do you think like regular investors can do that? Because you know, you're, you've been doing this for a while. You host a meetup. Like, how do you recommend someone who's maybe just starting and isn't as confident in their ability to network start making these types of relationships. Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you asked because a lot of people don't make the effort. When you don't have projects, when you're just starting out, it is the best time to build community. Go to your local like Facebook real estate groups. And if there are none, you can start your first Facebook group for that city. And if you did that and you just constantly added value invited people to come be a part of that network, you're not even leaving your house. You're not even leaving
Starting point is 00:34:48 your house, but you are here creating this incredible online community. And my friend Yon in Seattle started a Facebook group that now has 20,000 investors. And Dave, if you're not part of it, I highly recommend you join it. Oh, I think I have to. You have to because you see off-market deals, like if I want a contractor, a plumber, like little things to big things, I find it in that group. And so you could be starting your own Facebook group, your own Instagram broadcast channel, or just, you know, start a networking meetup so good, invite local investors to come speak at it
Starting point is 00:35:23 because that builds credibility with experienced investors but also new investors just like you. Awesome. Yeah, that is such great advice. And one of the reasons I'm excited to be back in the United States is now I can go network with you and your group and I could just piggyback off all the work that you've already done to build this community. And what's funny is if I didn't have that meetup group, I wouldn't have started it now because I feel like I don't need to. Right.
Starting point is 00:35:50 But back when I did start it, I was newer and I needed that community. Yeah. And I'm only half joking about picking backing off you. Like, I don't need to start one because you've already done it. And I think that's a lesson just for everyone listening that these groups exist. And so even if you're not the type of person who wants to organize something or has a network to get this thing off the ground, if you live in a big city, there's probably already several that you can go tap into.
Starting point is 00:36:16 Even if you live in a suburb, you know, I hear people who in towns that I would never expect had a real estate investor meet up. You know, towns of 10 or 20,000 people. Yeah. There's still groups of people who want to get together and talk about this stuff. And I think it's a great way, as like I said, to one, find deals, but also just build confidence and, like, build a community where you feel like you have a support group to help you through the challenges that inevitably arise as an investor. And they will arise. Yeah, exactly. They always do.
Starting point is 00:36:45 That's part of it. It's more fun to complain about it to your friends rather than just suffering through it alone. Exactly. All right. Well, any last thoughts on the state of Burr or investing in 2025, Laco, before we get out of here? You know, I strongly do believe that there's lots of deals out there. By putting yourself out there, you can find them. Just keep at it.
Starting point is 00:37:06 Continue to educate yourself. The Bigger Pocket's conference is an amazing way to find investors, even in your local communities. So come to conferences like that. and just put yourself out there because there are incredible deals to be had. And as Warren Buffett says, be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful. And this is a fearful market right now. We don't know what's going to happen. And it's the best time to get in and find that golden egg.
Starting point is 00:37:34 Yeah. I want to find a golden egg. Right? Meeting the haystack. Exactly. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it.
Starting point is 00:37:42 And I will come to your next meet up. I apologize for. for not showing up earlier. Okay. I'll send you all the details. Excellent. All right. Well, thank you all so much for listening to this episode of the Bigger Pockets
Starting point is 00:37:53 Podcasts podcast. We'll see you again in just a couple days. 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.
Starting point is 00:38:14 Copywriting is by Calico, Conno. 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.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. Bigger Pocket's LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.

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