BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - Build vs. Buy: Which Is Best for Your First Rental?

Episode Date: July 22, 2026

You don’t have to buy your first rental property—you can build one instead. Newer systems, fewer repairs, and that “brand new” feeling that tenants may pay more rent for. But…is it worth it? Building a small multifamily in a single-family area could let you house hack and own a rare property in your market, but is the headache worth the effort? With more and more investors choosing to build rather than buy, we thought we’d weigh in. Dave and Henry are back answering your questions from the BiggerPockets Forums. Today, we’re talking about building vs. buying rentals, when an investment property is too old to be worth buying, the lender-friendly rehab budget Henry uses to get loans for his BRRRRs (buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat) and house flips, and whether wholesalers (middlemen) are worth buying properties from. Plus, if you’re house hacking, should you tell the tenant you’re the owner? Dave tried to hide it before, and shares whether it was worth it.  In This Episode We Cover Building vs. buying rental properties: is the time (and effort) worth the upside?  Renovating an older rental property? This build decade could be best  Henry’s exact renovation budget he shares with lenders to get fast financing  Are wholesalers worth their assignment fee? When we will and won’t buy from them Should you tell your tenants that you’re the owner (what happens if they find out?) And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠h⁠⁠t⁠t⁠ps://www⁠.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1307⁠⁠. 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

Would you ever buy a house built in the early 1900s? If you answered no, you might be overlooking the best deals in your market. In some areas of the country, most houses are old, especially the affordable ones, investors target. So if your buybox starts in the 1960s, you're filtering out a huge chunk of inventory, including some potential home runs. Old houses do require a different playbook. Some repairs are surprisingly cheap, like new electrical might run you. might run you only five grand, but foundation issues or bad plumbing could turn your promising new rental properties into a long-term money pin. The key is spotting those differences before you

close. So today, we're breaking it down, how to spot the old houses that are actually safe bets, which systems you absolutely need to inspect before closing, and the most common surprises hiding behind those old walls. Plus, we'll reveal the single best construction era to target on your next deal, the sweet spot where you can add value with modern updates, but the original build quality still holds up. What's up, everyone? I'm Dave Meyer here with my co-host, Henry Washington. Today, we're answering questions from real investors in the Bigger Pockets forums, and we're

going to spend a lot of this episode talking about how to safely buy older houses. But our first question comes from an investor named Kyler in Birmingham. He says, hey, everyone, me and my fiancee just. got engaged. Congratulations, Kyler. And I've somehow convinced her to house hack for our first home in Oxford, Alabama. I don't know anything about Oxford, Alabama, but that sounds like, it sounds like it feats. So congratulations on that, too. He goes on to say, being in a smaller city, there's not a ton of residential multifamily properties in the area. Would it make sense to build a duplex as our first home utilizing an FHA construction loan? I can't find much information.

on people taking this approach instead of finding a pre-existing home. I understand that the cost will be higher and there won't be any opportunities to add value through renovation, but I wasn't sure if those were big enough reasons to look into a different direction. I mean, this is a good question, though, right? I mean, new construction has become pretty popular these days. So, Henry, what's your take? Don't do it? Sorry, Kyle, I guess don't do it.

is the simple answer here, but why? Yeah, here's in all seriousness. I think that if you had construction experience or you're in a situation where you have the resources necessary to pull this off, like you've got a great contractor that has a proven track record, you've vetted them appropriately, you've got the funds and everything all lined up, and you've got the time horizon to wait for it to be finished, then potentially, yeah, that's a really good idea because you're going to get the benefits of new construction and lower costs, but building isn't easy. It's something typically that investors

start to take on after they've had some experience doing some regular real estate deals, some value add deals once they've got some more skills under their belt. So does it mean you can't have one built? I mean, people have personal homes built all the time. So if you were going to build a new home and you hire a builder and they take care of it all for you and the numbers make sense, then yeah, it might be a decent thing to do. But if it is something where you've got to go find the team, you've got to go get the loan and you've got to find the plans and hire the engineers and like, that's just a lot. It's quite an undertaking and you can make a lot of mistakes and it could not be as profitable or as easy as just going to buy something on the market. Yeah, I'm

with you. I think this idea of built to rent, which is essentially what he's talking about, but build to rent combined with a house hack, good idea. I mean, I think the numbers probably would make sense, but execution-wise, it's difficult for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, if you already had to convince your fiancé to house hack and she was maybe a little resistant to that, I'm just going to throw out there that managing a construction project that you've never done before might put some straight on your relationship. Just, I don't know you guys, but I'm just going to throw that out there

that one could imagine that it might do that a little bit. The second thing I would ask you, Kyler, is why not just somewhere else? Like maybe you live in Oxford, you're passionate about this place. I just looked it up. It looks like a small town. But like, is there another place

where you could buy a multifamily and it would be existing and it wouldn't be that hard. I say this one, for everything Henry pointed out, the complexity of it. But the other thing I think a lot of people overlook is if there's not a lot of multifamily in this market and you build something that's unusual,

you may have a really hard time renting it out. If everyone else in that market is used to renting single family homes because that's what's available in that market, you could come in with a new product and it can be beautiful, but it might not be in high demand, just because people in this area want single-family homes. My guess is the reason there aren't multifamily homes in this area is because there's not demand for it. So I think you also have to just think about the product you're building and if it's actually

applicable or an appropriate thing to be investing in in that market. So if I were you, I would either choose a different market or maybe don't go with a house hacking strategy, rent something, and buy a investment property. There's a lot of great markets in Alabama to buy just regular old rental properties, for example. It looks like Oxford, I'm looking this up, is not that far from Birmingham. There's good rentals there.

Huntsville is a great market. I mean, you're not even that far from Atlanta, some parts of Georgia. Like, there are places that you could invest in. So for your first deal, I would recommend doing that, even if that means giving up on house hacking, which obviously has a lot of benefits.

All right, our next question comes from an investor named Nicole. Now Nicole asks on the Bigger Pockets Forum, I'm starting to look at some older properties, pre-1960s in Columbus, Ohio. Previously, my buy-box was post-1964, trying to avoid knob and tube wiring and other challenges with older homes. But that is becoming a barrier to buying, so I'm thinking about expanding my buybox

and looking for any advice on things to be cautious about or questions to ask. Here's what I would look out for in older properties. It's, yes, obviously knob and tube wiring. So the same thing applies. I'm always looking at the Big Five. I'm looking at plumbing electrical roofs, HVAC, and Foundation. But these older properties, I think where they really can hurt somebody is foundation. Especially in the Midwest.

Some of them have the old cinder block foundations. They're super wobbly. and sometimes even when you fix these foundations and you can spend 20, 30, 40, 50 grand to do it, the house still is sloped and wobbly. Like it's not like you can just completely remedy these things. So it's something you have to consider when owning in this asset class.

And more so, even if you buy a property that's older and you fix the foundation problems, if it's still a little kawankety on the inside. Kowongki? What is kowong? Like, you know, a little wobbitty, a little wobbly, a little, a little... Yeah, okay, qualkity.

You've got to go on. You may have to sell that property eventually and trying to convince somebody else that even though you spent 20, 30 grand on fixing that foundation, it may be a hard sell. So the first thing I tell you to look out for is to always have a specialist, a foundation

specialist, take a look at the foundation of that property and give you their fair assessment on how structurally sound they think it is and how long they think it's going to last or if it's not, what's it going to cost to fix it? Because foundation work is I think the number one thing that's going to cause you a big pain in the butt. Next is probably plumbing issues with old pipes and make sure that you get a quote for what it's going to cost

if you've got to replumb that entire house up to new plumbing standards. Because especially if it's an older property and it's a buy and hold, if you're planning on holding this for, you know, five, 15, 20 years at some point, that falls on you to take care of, right? I'm doing this right now, replumbing a whole house. I think I've been telling you this for nine months because it's been going on for nine months. And what's it costing you? 80 grand. Who, that's a house.

Yeah. Well, for you. For me. For me, the things to watch out for an older properties is always going to be plumbing and foundations. Electrical, yeah, everybody says watch out for an album two. But like electricals, you know, between five and 10 grand, you put new electricals. in like it's not the end of the world on electrical roof is fine but yeah roof 10 15 grand depending on

how big property is not the end of the world but plumbing and foundation you can get up there into into almost you know six figures and having to fix some of those problems so you definitely want to have an understanding of what's going on with those things prior to you buying or closing on an older property i really like this question because i don't think there's a right answer i think in the first eight years of my investing career. I didn't buy something that was after 1940. Everything I bought in Colorado was 1890s, 1920s, that kind of stuff, because that's what I could afford and those the deals that I can do. So I feel like I've learned a lot about this. I would still buy older properties. I think what you need to think through, though, is how recently renovated the property

has been when you're buying it. Because if it hasn't really been touched, if no one's done the work Henry was talking about, of making sure the foundation is good, making sure the plumbing is up to date, you don't want to do that. Like most people don't want to do that unless you have a lot of experience

with this kind of thing. Like I even talk to James, our mutual friend, Flipper, he said that there's only a certain number of contractors he uses, and he has done thousands of deals for these older type homes because it is really specialized to be able to do this effectively.

So I think the challenge here is that a lot of people look at these older homes and say, oh, that's a great value at opportunity. And there is, if you can execute it, and there are some things that I've been able to do successfully, but I will say everything costs more when you're doing these renovations than if you're, you know, you take out a tub all of a sudden, like literally this happens and you're like, oh, that's a drain I've never seen before. Like I just like they you can't get apart. So you wind up having to replace the whole thing.

The other thing I would say is that doing a lot of the value ad that is most valuable, like redoing a layout is very, very difficult. And so like I think it's the kind of situation where you can buy an old home if the layout is good. If the plumbing has been upgraded, ideally electrical, but as Henry said, it's not crazy, but like ideally it's been updated. If all that's true and you're just doing like cosmetic or someone's done a great job and it's like a really cool old house that's been renovated, go for that. Like that's fine. But I think it's the like, hey, this is cheap. I'm going to renovate it cheap. It's tough.

Another thing to be cognizant of is your heat and air situation. Some of these old homes have boilers. Oh, yeah. And these things vary depending on what part of the country you're in. But if you've got to update that to modern heating and cool. cooling, especially if it's a property that's never been ducted before, your price goes through the roof in terms of what it costs to put modern heat and air in there if you have to do all new ducks and actually duck to house. Instead of you spending five to eight grand, you spend

16 to 20 grand or more putting in HVAC and modernizing HVAC. So another thing to watch out for. What is your sweet spot year? Like if you could pick a year, for a house to be from. What would you pick? 70 to like 75. Yeah. Because the layouts are cool. They have big rooms.

They might even have a sunken living room with like one of those weird couches. Yeah, yeah. Built-in touches. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's the sweet spot because yeah, you don't have the risk

of knob and tube. 60s is good, but you still have some asbestos risk in the 60s. So yeah, lead paint. Like if you get into like the mid-70s, the lumber quality. was better than it is today. That's fair.

It's true. Like, if there's some really funny, like, memes, you can go look at the size of a two-by-four over time. Like, it used to actually be two-by-four. Now it is far from that. But, yeah, like, a lot of the quality of the construction was really good back in the 70s. And I agree.

You see a lot, like, mid-century kind of style homes. That layout is popular right now, again. So I'd still try. and find 1960s or more recent, but you might be able to find some gems in there in the older stock that has been upgraded where, you know, someone bought it in the 80s, upgraded it a lot, and now most of the systems are 80s quality. Like that's a little different than something that truly is like a time capsule. Right.

Hasn't been changed in a really long time. All right. Great question, though, Nicole. Really interesting one. I think a real predicament. and a thing to think about for anyone investing, especially in the Midwest and the Northeast. You see a lot of these old homes.

It's an important thing to consider. We've got to take a quick break, but we'll be back with more Bigger Pockets community questions right after this. Stick with us. At some point, every real estate investor faces a choice. Keep buying properties and managing them yourself or shift towards passive investing

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N-R-R-E-I-G focuses on standing behind it. Visit N-R-E-I-G dot com slash B-P-P-L-C to learn more. Welcome back to the BiggerPockets podcast. Henry and I are here answering your question or BiggerPockets community questions about anything to do with real estate. By the way, we are answering these from the Bigger Pockets forums. If you have questions about your own investing, go post them on the Bigger Pockets forums, you can get dozens or hundreds of responses from experienced investors. There are three

and a half million people on BiggerPockets.com answering these kinds of questions, and we might just pick one of your questions for these episodes. Our next question is from Allie in Houston, who has a question about renovation budgets. She asks, for investors using hard money, private money, or renovation loans, how detailed does your rehab budget need to be? I've seen some lenders accept a pretty simple breakdown. For example, roof cost, HVAC costs, interior cost, and contingency. But others seem to want line item scope, including trades, assumptions, draw schedule logic, and proof that the numbers are realistic. For people who have done this a few times, what makes a rehab budget, quote-unquote, lender-ready in your experience? Uh-oh,

Henry's giggling. It's a good question. It's a good question. What do you do? Just write $50,000 on a piece of paper and hand it over. Yeah, I give them a napkin with like Cheeto dust on it. Then I write a number. In my experience, let me put it this way. I've done hundreds of deals. I've used the exact same template for a rehab budget to send to a lender every single time. And it's just-

Across lenders. Across lenders. A different lenders. And it is a very simple, high-level renovation budget breakdown. So I'll do a detailed scope. but when I send it to the lender, I roll it up to high level. And so I'm just going to read some of the line items that I have on one of my most recent renovation budgets.

So I'm going to share my screen. So you can see what it is that I submit to the banks. I've been using the same template here. And it really is just the trade in one column and then the total cost for that trade on the other column. And it's a, I'd say it's a fair mix between enough detail so that the bank knows what I plan to do, but not so much detail that it's annoying for me to put it together. Does that make sense? Yeah, you're prioritizing how annoying is this for you? Right. Absolutely. I like that. Absolutely. So you're thinking about it just so like the way your mind is working on this is these are

the different vendors like trades that you're going to and paying to. So you're not saying like, oh, I'm putting down X square feet of Y product. Correct. Of flooring. You're just like flooring six grand. Yeah. So for me, flowing six grand, that includes the tile I'll use, the LVP that I'll use. It includes the carpet that I'll use in the bedrooms. It's just all rolled up into one. Interior paint, that's just interior paint. If I was going to paint the kitchen cabinets, it would be in this same number, labor and materials, right? There's some individual items that I'll purchase in here, you know, toilets, appliances. Yeah, you get granular with some of it. Some of it gets a little granular, but for the most, I consider this high level, because you can get a lot more detailed. And behind the

scenes, if I were to unhide some of these columns, you'll see like the detail behind it, how many square feet of flooring or paint. But I don't show that to them. I just roll it up and show them. So when I'm building the spreadsheet, I'm doing it in detail. And then I'll roll it up to give to the bank. Well, let me ask you this, because you do far more flips than I can ever dream of. But aren't you doing this anyway? Like, aren't you creating this budget when you're underwriting the deal? So like, what additional work are you really doing here even to talk to the lender?

Yeah, you are doing this work or you should be doing this work. Where this gets annoying for the investor is if you're shopping lenders, what they will do is a lot of them have their own templates for this that they want you to fill out. And it becomes very tedious and annoying to have to keep converting your spreadsheet into whatever versions they have. So I just use my own and I send that to them. And I tell them, if you have your own template, that's great. You can put this in your template. but I'm just going to do this one time. And I do it, like I said, I do it at the detailed level, but then I can roll it up

because I have to do it anyway. So I'm not really spending any extra time to build this for a particular lender. It's something I have to build anyway. I just give them a simplified version. And like you've never, regardless of who you're talking to, what lenders you're talking to, fine. No one's pushing back on this. No one's ever pushed back and said, you must put this in our template.

I have had people say, we want this in our template. it. And then I just say you can absolutely put that in your own template. Yeah, go for it. Have fun. Do whatever you want. Have at it. I get that it's annoying to do it. But like if you go to the level of detail Henry has done here, which doesn't seem onerous, right? Like, it's not crazy. You're just going to give people a lot more confidence in you. So like I don't see why you wouldn't. I don't see like quote unquote said just writing interiors 50,000 or doing what Henry's talking about. is a difference of what 30 minutes of work? Like, just do that and get the loan.

Absolutely. Yes, it'll give lenders confidence. You're right. They're just going to do a gut check. And honestly, if I gave them this and they came back to me questioning the details of it, that's not a lender I'm going to use because that's telling me that the rest of this process is going to be equally as annoying. The one thing I will say is if you're a newer investor, expect a higher degree of scrutiny.

And that's okay. Like that you have to put yourself in the lender's shoes. And if they're going to make you jump through a couple extra hoops to say, like, look, I've done my research, I've gotten multiple quotes, I have good people lined up, just do it. Like, I know it's annoying, but it's like a couple hours of work. You have to think about the scale of what you're asking for. Usually you're asking tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for someone to lend you. It's not that big of a problem to do this because you should be doing it anyway for your underwriting. All right, Dave. We have another question coming in from.

Andrea in Houston, Andrea has a classic question about house hacking a duplex. She says I purchased a duplex and I'm planning to live in one unit and rent the other one. I don't want the renters to know that I'm the owner, but I'm not sure how to do that. I have a realtor who will list and show the property, but I'll be the property manager and sign the lease agreement. I'd appreciate any tips on minimizing issues. When I first house hacked for several years, I did this exact thing. I said, said that I was the property manager and that I had a partner, which is true. And so like when they would ask me questions, I would say like, oh, I got to go talk to my partner, which is true. But there were times when I just kind of like, you know, you want to distance yourself from it.

And so this can be useful. I will just say, like, looking back on it now, I probably wouldn't have done that. Like, I guess I've just like gotten to a more mature place in my life or like I just feel more comfortable having direct conversations with people about what you're comfortable with and not comfortable with. I was just young and I like didn't want to have hard conversations and I was trying to avoid conflict. And it worked fine, but you don't need to do this. I just think you need, you can be the owner. It's okay to own the property. It's okay to say no when someone asks for something that's unreasonable. And I think, honestly, it just builds trust.

Like, I kind of look back on that. I'm like, I wish I was honest about that. The truth was I was a port owner. So, like, that, I could have just said that and have it been fine. I just think realistically, like, you're going to tie yourself in knots to, like, create an illusion that doesn't need to exist. This is all based, I think, in like some, like one bad story or myth or something that's made its way around, like, the investor's sphere.

Like, I've never done this. Any time I've house hacked, they knew I was the owner. And I didn't have problems. And I didn't get excessive questions. No one bothered me. Like, it was fine. It's not a big deal. I would also think about the upsides of telling them you're an owner.

Like, if they know the owner of the house and not just some random property, manager is sitting next door, they might take more care of the property. That's 100%. Maybe you could just focus on forming a strong relationship with your tenants, and then they'll stay forever. And they'll like living there. I think that part I did get right, even though I wasn't fully honest about my ownership stake in these things. It's like, when I house hacked, I just tried to get along well with people. And before they moved in, I would sit down with them and explain what I've explained to every tenant. I've ever had. I am a very reasonable person. I will pay for the things that need to be fixed.

I'm not trying to nickel and dime you. I want you to have a good experience in this home. All of those things are true. And I would ask in return for them to be reasonable. Like, if they are going to be late, if they have a problem, just tell me and we'll talk about it. And it was always fine. It was always fine. So I just think that that is the better long-term approach. I just see people recommending this, I think, out of fear instead of realizing that like the best thing to do is just have an honest and good relationship with your tenants. My initial thought process when I was becoming a landlord and I was going to house hack was that I just assumed if they knew I was the owner and I lived next door that they

probably take better care of the property and I was more concerned about that. But I do the same thing you did with tenants when they moved in. I just sit down and have an honest upfront, just open conversation because there's just such a stigma between tenants and landlords. It goes both ways a lot of the times. And tenants just want a landlord who's going to take them seriously if they have a real problem. And landlords just want a tenant who's going to pay rent on time. And so I just sit down and have that conversation like, hey, my job, what I want to do is to provide you a safe, clean, comfortable place to live.

If something's wrong, like, I want to fix it. I don't want you to fix it. Like, I want to do my job. 100%. And so as long as you let me do my job, I want you to do your job, which is to pay rent on time. and if there's something that's stopping you, let's just talk about it. And it's always set a good tone.

All right, we got one more question for you, but we've got to take a quick break. We'll be right back. If I had to hire someone to join the Bigger Pockets team, I wouldn't just be looking for someone who checks a few boxes on a resume. I'd want someone who understands real estate, can move fast, communicates well,

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Please sit and stretch. Steep. Flip. Or that. And enjoy. Via Rail, love the way. The Hulu original series Furious is coming to Disney Plus. Starring Emmy Rossum, Furious follows FBI agent Alice Black on the hunt for a mysterious and calculating serial killer.

Both walk their own paths toward justice, and as their lives start to intertwine, the line between right and wrong begins to blur. Don't miss the three-episode premiere of the Hulu original series Furious on July 27th, only on Hulu on Disney Plus. Welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Henry and I are answering investor questions from the Bigger Pockets forums. Our next question comes from Corey in St. Petersburg, Florida. Corey asks, should you work with wholesalers or avoid them altogether? Pretty straight up question, right? Goes on to say, on one hand, wholesalers seem like a great way to get off-market deals

without having to build a full marketing machine. On the other hand, I've heard mixed opinions about deals being marked up too much. numbers not penciling out, or getting blasted on massive buyers list with the same property. For those of you who have experience, do you work with wholesalers? Do you prefer to source deals yourself? And if you do use them, how do you filter out the good ones from people pushing bad deals? Henry, I think this has got your name all over this. My general answer to this question is, sure, you should work with wholesalers.

I think where the question comes from is because there are a lot of business. bad wholesalers that kind of give the business a bad rap. And maybe it's disproportionate in wholesaling, but there's bad operators in every business. And we still use other businesses. Every business. There's bad realtors. You still hire a realtor. There's, you know, there's bad contractors. You still hire a contractor. So, and that's scary when you're new because it's hard to know what to evaluate or how to evaluate if a wholesaler is a good wholesaler. And I also think there's two parts. to this question slash answer. If you bought a bad deal from a wholesaler, chances are that's your fault and not their fault, right? That means you didn't evaluate the deal properly. Maybe you took the

wholesaler at their word on what they said the property ARV was. Or maybe you took the wholesaler at their word on what they said the renovation was going to cost. When I look at a deal from a wholesaler, I pretend anything they say isn't there. I don't care how much they think the ARV is. I don't care how much they think the renovation is. I don't care how much they're asking for the property. I agree. It has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm willing to pay for the property.

The only thing that matters on a wholesaler's sheet when they send me a property is the address. So I can do my own due diligence and so that I can underwrite that property myself. I can determine what the renovation budget is myself. and I can figure out what my offer price is. And even if my offer price is $50,000 or $100,000 less than they're asking price, guess what? I make the offer anyway. So the first part that I think you're concerned about, which is probably buying a bad deal from a wholesaler,

that's on you. You have to evaluate every deal on your own with your own research and come up with your own number and then decide whether you want to buy that deal or not. Now, the second part about this is fear of working with wholesalers because you get yourself into some sort of legal trouble because things weren't done the right way from a legal perspective. This is a different problem, in my opinion. And this does happen sometimes. Wholesalers will market deals as if they have them under contract when really they're just

available on the MLS or wholesalers will daisy chain a deal, meaning they don't have the contract on the property. Somebody else has the contract on the property. They found that deal that's already under contract. Maybe they said, all right, this wholesaler's got it in a contract and is trying to sell it for $100,000. I'm going to pitch it to this guy for $105,000. And if I get this guy to say yes, then I'll go to the wholesaler who has it and say, hey, put me in this deal. I got you a buyer for 105. I just want to make my five. Like that's the kind of stuff you need to watch out for, right? That's the kind of stuff a little more knowledge to be able to know what to look out for and what questions to ask. So I would always make sure you ask the question of the wholesaler, hey, are you in direct

contract with the seller? Right. That's a very upfront question. And they should be able to answer that. Yes, if that answer sounds funky or funny or it sounds like there's some other stuff going on, then you should probably just stay away. There's other deals that may be able to get done a lot cleaner than that. Two, I would ask them about their experience, how many deals have they done? Ask them where they close those deals and then call that title company to verify that they've done transactions before and ask that title company. Did they go smooth? That everything work out okay? Is this seem like somebody that I should be able to trust based on the deals that they've done in the past so you can verify their experience through the title company that closed

their previous deals? If they don't want to share any of their experience or the title company that's closed their deal, I'd probably stay away from it. I probably wouldn't do it. And then always, always always ask to see the original contract between the wholesaler and the seller before you sign the assignment contract because an assignment contract is just an addendum to the original contract the wholesaler has with the seller. And when you sign that addendum, you're agreeing to take the wholesalers place in the original contract. And so if there are things in that original contract that you don't agree with, you can't perform on, or you don't like, you are already saying that you will do those things. So never sign an assignment contract without seeing the original contract. And now,

wholesalers may have an issue with this because typically that's going to let you know how much they make to get around this, I just tell them, hey, you can redact the original purchase price and you can redact how much your assignment fee. I don't care about that. I need to see what everything else in the contract says so that I can make sure that I can perform to this contract that I will now be legally obligated to perform on. I mean, that's perfect. I have very few things to add to that. That was an incredibly good, holistic answer. I will just say this. I think you should view wholesalers the same way look at all of your deal flow. Like, you wouldn't just take a listing that you saw in Zillow or sent to you by an agent or a pocket listing and be like, oh, that's the price I should pay because this

person sent it to me, I'm going to buy it and I'm going to trust it. You would verify everything and just treat wholesalers the same way. The second thing I'll just say is this idea that it's marked up too much. I hear this a lot. I understand that it does not feel good to do that. But your job is not to figure out who's making what before you get your hands on it. It's not. It's not. It's to figure out, am I willing to pay the price that we've agreed on? If it works at that price, what does it matter who's going to the wholesaler and what's going to the seller? Like, it doesn't matter.

I know it's like gets in your brain. I've had those thoughts too. But like at the end of the day, if you're getting the deal at the price you need it to be at, don't care. Absolutely. Good for you. You got it. That's what you want.

Absolutely. Don't be mad because they made some money to. Like, I think that's kind of the right way to think about it. The last deal I closed from a wholesaler, I made $50,000 on. And I found out as I closed that the wholesaler also made $50,000. And I'm not going to lie to you. I was a little like, man, you made $50,000 and you didn't have to do anything. But would I do that exact same deal all over again?

100% I would. I mean, you're just a little jealous. Right. You did way less work than me. Right. It's annoying. But like, you still made money. I made money.

So like you got to just kind of look at it from the big pay. picture. All right. Well, these were fun. Great questions for the Bigger Pockets community. Again, if you have them, go check them out on Bigger Pockets forums or answer some for yourself. If you can answer these questions, go help out another investor on the Bigger Pockets community. That's what the whole thing is about. Henry, thanks as always, man. This was a lot of fun. Thanks, man. Good to be here. And thank you all for watching this episode of the Bigger Pockets podcast. We'll see you next time.