BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - Change Your Financial Future with ONE Real Estate Deal

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

All it takes is one (yes, ONE!) real estate deal to change your life and jumpstart your path to financial freedom. You could stop after just one, but more often than not, that first deal opens the door to even bigger opportunities, allowing you to build wealth, create more passive income streams, and finally reach financial independence. Every successful real estate investor has had that one deal that set off a domino effect, enabling them to build wealth. We’re sharing ours today so you can repeat them! Joining Dave are Garrett Brown and Matt Faircloth, two investors from different backgrounds, strategies, and parts of the country. But both had real estate deals that propelled them forward toward financial freedom. Dave also had a killer real estate deal (only his second deal ever!) that significantly increased his standard of living. We’ll share how Garrett made $50,000 (tax-free!) on a repeatable first real estate deal anyone in any area can try. Matt shares how he was able to scale up his portfolio fast when he realized he didn’t need to provide the money for his down payments and renovations. Finally, Dave shares the second deal he ever did that upgraded his life permanently and why he does not “sacrifice” to achieve financial freedom faster.  In This Episode We Cover The real estate deals that defined our investing careers (and how they propelled us to financial freedom) The easiest real estate investment for beginners (make $50K+ tax-free!)  Using other people’s money to invest in real estate? Why you don’t need to have the down payment  How to live for free and speed up your timeline to financial independence like Dave Why you should tell everyone you know that you invest in real estate  And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1139 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

Any one investment has the power to change your financial future. That's why you need to be in the game, looking for singles that can turn into home runs and leveraging your creativity to maximize your returns. But don't just take it for me. Learn from these expert investors and the investments that define their whole careers. Hey, everyone, I'm Dave Meyer, head of real estate investing at Bicker Pockets. I've been buying rental properties for 15 years now, and it's had a huge effect on my life, both financial and otherwise.

And today, I'm bringing two other investors onto the show so we can talk about the deals that we feel defined our careers. These are the times we tried something new and found it worked or hit a home run that allowed us to scale. And I wanted to have this conversation today because you're going to hear that these deals, even the ones that had huge impacts on us, aren't out of reach for anyone out there, even if they're just starting their investing careers. You don't need decades of experience or fancy strategies to find a totally game-changing investment

opportunity. You just need to be in the game in the first place and always on the lookout for creative opportunities. We're going to be welcoming back Matt Faircloth. I have known Matt for a long time. I think 10 years now, he's been investing for 20 years and wrote the Bigger Pockets book on raising private capital. And we'll also have Garrett Brown, Bigger Pockets, short-term rental expert, and the host

of the Bigger Stays YouTube channel joining us here today. Matt, Garrett, welcome to the show. Always happy to join you, Dave. Thanks for having me on. Thank you so much for having me here. Excited about this show because I think, I believe that there's sort of one deal, maybe two deals that sort of get you hooked as an investor or get you started feeling like you can do it or perhaps even open up your eyes to an entire new strategy or tactic that you can use in your investing career. Today I'd love to hear both of yours. I'll share some thoughts about mine, but Garrett, maybe you'd go first. Tell us a little about, like, is there a deal to you, at least that stands out, like, that was the one? And what did it do for you? I've done every type of real estate investing,

pretty much anything in the ecosphere of investing. But the most pivotal deal that I actually had happened was a living flip that was one of my first purchases. I bought a townhouse in Houston, in Texas. This is maybe a year or two after I got my real estate license. I just found out about bigger pockets while I was in there. They don't teach you any of this in your licensing classes and things like that. They teach you how to do some contracts. They'll tell you like different clauses that you probably never used during your career. But I started diving into bigger pockets and it started to turn on light bulbs for me. And so I started looking at properties because I was looking to buy my first place and I didn't want to buy anything that was already turnkey. I knew where the value

was going to be like taking a sacrifice to actually live in something that needed a little work. I looked for stuff that didn't have a ton of, you know, structural issues or big ticket things that I personally didn't know much about. I was looking for something that just needed like a facelift in a good area in a place that I was going to be happy with living with for a year. So I had a lot of data out there. I was crunching numbers and kind of started realizing that I could get into a place for 5% down with an owner-occupied loan.

and also make 3% technically on my purchase of it as an agent. So I'm pretty much getting in for almost 2%. I found a property that just got in a new HVAC system, just gotten a new roof, all the big things. But it was kind of ugly inside. Like it had some very dated flooring. I think it had carpet in a couple sections. Like all the things that most retail buyers will look at and go, oh, I can't live in that. And that's not a function.

Like I could not come home to a yellow walls or something like that. that. So luckily, I saw like, you know, kind of was like, well, I could probably, you know, withstand that, especially if it's something that I could, you know, get my hands dirty, use a little YouTube university, figure out how to do a little back splash. And we ended up selling that townhouse right before even COVID hit for more than any other townhouse had sold in that community ever. Wow. We sold it for 178, I think. You bought it for a buck 20. One 70. Bought a buck 20. Made a 3% commission on the buck 22. Right. I love that.

So I sold it for 178, took that exact money, and then rolled it into a brand new living flip that had some land on it. And then we ended up even building cabins on that property, which is a whole other deal that we'll talk about a whole other time. I got to applaud. Before we get into building cabins out there, Tom Sawyer, right? I got to ask you a question. Because those that don't own homes don't know about this rule, I don't think, that you can sell

your home and keep up to 250. K of the profit from that home tax-free. And I got buddies that have done what you've done, and they're courageous enough to move every year or two. And they're making up to 250 grand if they're single. Half a million. Put a pinky next to your mouth if they're married. What sticks about flipping houses,

you've got to pay taxes. What's great about living flip like you're talking about is you could keep all of it up to a half a million bucks if you're married. That's a reason to get married right there. There you go. So you were able to roll that 50K minus rehab expenses up into this new live-and-flip with the cabin. right? Yep. And I just rolled it right in and then planning to do the same thing. And then the point you made too is I lived in it for those two years. And so I was able to avoid any of those capital gains taxes from

that. It was a really easy way to turn my housing expense into pretty much an asset for me going forward that I was able to keep rolling in the deal. It's huge, man. You got to live somewhere, right? You got to live somewhere. And it's either like a house hack or a live and flip ought to be anyone's first living arrangement, you know, to the bigger pockets listeners, man, I was a house hacker. Sam. You were a living flipper, man, um, in that, but just playing your real estate game early. Just to, just to cover your living arrangements, man. I mean, it's brilliant.

And I still do it. And even in the house that I'm living in currently. Are you living in flipping now? A living and flip right now. Oh, nice. Yeah, bought about six months ago. I've learned so many things from that first one that, you know, somebody gave me an offer. It was about 240.

We were like, uh, we'll pass for now. They ended up coming back to us a few months later and said, hey, do you still want to purchase this property? And we ended up getting it for 205. And it had a new HVAC, all the same things. Oh, nice. But just ugly cosmetics and one of the, I think it's the fourth fastest rising county in all of the U.S.

It's Montgomery County in Texas. And so prices are rising, all the same principles I learned. And I'm just going to keep rinse and repeat. You started this by mentioning that you have done a lot of deals. So like, what about this one sort of. stands out to you that feels like sort of the one that made you feel like an investor or taught you something that you perhaps didn't learn on other deals. The first living flip was just so monumental for me because I could see where I could do

this for years to come. You know, and I don't always have to move instantly after a year. Yeah, exactly. Like we probably plan to live this one two or three years or whatever we want. But I'm going to keep increasing that value while I live in it. And I don't have to take on like an equity partner. and I don't have to do all these, you know, insane things to just make the deal work for me. Like, it's working because I'm living in it and I'm naturally appreciating the property by just

adding these things that I know. I'm turning into a rental in about a year or two. So I'm adding rental grade things to gradually update it, painting terrible walls, upgrading the bathroom tub showers a little bit. But none of that's even that hard. Yeah. It's not. It's like a thousand dollar renovation for a new fiberglass tub or whatever.

Like all those things are not. anything that are going to break my pockets now. And if I don't want to do it this month, I can wait till next month to do it. Or when I get a little free flowing money coming in, or I get a bonus from job my word, or whatever like that. So it's not like the pressure isn't on me to get in the house, flip it, make my money and exit before, you know, like all the interest rates are weighing down on me. It's like, I'm going to live here and I'm going to be fine. As long as it has AC, it has running water, has electric. It's stable. You know, I can get insurance on it, like things like that. It's, it's kind of a.

no-brainer to me. What my wife and I did, we bought a house from a bank, the bank foreclosure in a development we wanted to live in. And we did the live in, but we didn't flip, right? So we lived in it, fixed it up. And then we didn't want to move because it's a place we wanted to raise our kids and all that jazz, right? So we then put a helock on the house because you create that value, right? So you buy a house at a discount. You bring it up to market. That creates a delta, hopefully, and the money you spent to renovate it versus market rates. You've opened up that. spread of value. You can either sell it and monetize that value and go roll that up and get a way better house and a bigger area, better neighborhood, all that as you've done, right? Or what my wife and I

did was we opened up a helock and now we take that helot and we've lent it out to people with knowing a real estate community through hard money loans. We were currently have that invested in a fix and flip that we're doing right here in the town we live in. So to the bigger pockets listeners, right, I'll be talking to them to the other, to the fourth person in the room here, so to speak, If you're telling yourself, well, that's all great, Garrett, but I don't want to move, right? You don't have to. You can go and do exactly what Garrett's talking about and then monetize that value you put in into other real estate transactions. They keep living in this house.

You've worked hard to create and make it your own, but then take that money and put it somewhere else. 100%. Matt, you're not just talking to the fourth person. I remember me you're talking directly to me because yesterday I closed on a house and I'm probably going to do just just that. We bought it as a potential live and flip, but my wife and I are moving in, and we might just stay. You know, like, we'll see how it goes, but we might just stay. And if we do, we'll probably get to do with something similar. Like, we bought something under market value. There's good value at opportunity. We're going to fix it up so that we can live in it. If we want to flip it,

we'll flip it. If we want to live in it, we'll do a HELOC and we'll, or we'll do a cash out refinance and we'll take some of the equity out and just reuse it. But, you know, I'm talking out of my butt right now because I haven't done it yet. But Garrett, like what you were saying really sort of resonated with me about taking the time pressure off of flipping because that's kind of one of the reasons I've never really wanted to be an active flipper is like, I work full time. So I, you know, staying on top of things like you need to to be a flipper to really hit your timelines would be a challenge for me or at least it would be stressful. I'm sure I could do it, but it would be stressful. Whereas like, if you go into these deals, you're like, I'm not going to move for two years because

that's when I get my best tax benefit. I'm pretty sure I could handle a renovation over the course of two years. So I just think that's a really cool, important part of this that really makes it forgiving. Like it's a really sort of, I think, low-risk, high-upside kind of investment. And to me, that's what you want to be looking for. Yep, 100%. All right. Well, great deal and story.

Garrett, thank you so much. Matt, we're going to have to hear yours. But first, we've got to take a quick break. We'll be right back. You might have just heard me talk about my first deal, but my most successful deals actually weren't houses at all the first time. They were tents, cabins, mirror houses in the woods. It's called Glamping.

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follow up with prospects, and even grade your conversations so you know where you stand. That means less time on busy work and more time closing deals. Start your free trial and lock in 50% off your first month at resimply.com slash bigger pockets. That's R-E-S-I-M-P-P-L-I dot com slash bigger pockets. Welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast. I'm here with Garrett Brown and Matt Faircloth talking about deals that defined our investing careers. We heard Garrett's awesome live-in flip story. Matt, you've been doing this a long time. I can't wait to hear what you pick. It's the defining deal of your career.

Yeah. I mean, the story I wanted to tell today was a little different. And this happened a few years after Liz and I were involved in the real estate investing space. We'd already gotten married. I had quit my day job to invest full time. We were living off of Liz's income. So fast forward to 2011. The crash of 2008 was still there. There was still like a lot of great deals that were being done. But how do you finance them? Because the banks were still really skittish. You need to get really creative financing. Still people doing short sales left and right and stuff like that. Very different times. And plenty of deals, just no money. Banks were sitting on their hands. And so creative financing was the way to get it done in the early part of 2011-12, somewhere in there. So I married a, I married up. Liz went to University of Pennsylvania, Ivy League School. And she was hanging out with one of her friends from Wharton. Yes, I name dropped from Wharton School of Business because she took some, she didn't, she graduated in social work, but she took some classes in Wharton, smart enough to go and rub elbows there. So she's having coffee with one of her Wharton, colleagues in that talking about, you know, what they're up to. And he's now a financial planner. She's working in corporate, but also was just discussing what they're up to in all the different facets of life. And so my husband's running a real estate investing company. And he says, what I talk about in raising private capital, Dave, he says the magic words, which are real estate investing. That is so interesting. I'd love to do that too, but I just don't have the time. Well, do you have a checkbook? Yeah. Is that all you need, baby? You don't need time.

I got time. Yeah, you got money. It's good. So she was like, you should talk to my husband. And so, you know, Matt Freckloff jumps on a train up to Manhattan to go meet this guy because he's a financial planner up in the big city, right? So we sit down and I tell him what we're up to. And by then, Liz and I had a reasonable rental portfolio, a couple of single family homes,

a couple of four unit apartment buildings that we had bought with our money and with our immediate family. Like my parents and her parents were our seed investors. a few deals. And we had also rolled some of our capital, you know, done a deal, rolled it up, as Garrett had done, you know, like do a flip, roll it into a rental, that kind of thing. So small portfolio. And I laid it out what we had done and what we were up to and what our goals were. And he just goes, what if I gave you 50K for your next deal? And I was like, that's a great question. What if you gave you 50 grand? I'd love to find out. Let's find out. How much you just give me 50 grand.

Did you bring it in cash? He was like, what if I invested 50K with you? What if you found a deal? And we went half and half and you do all the work. And I put up the 50 grand to find a deal. And I said, you know what? Let's try that. And so I talked to a lawyer friend of mine.

Yeah, sure. Let's say you do it. You know, you're both active partners. It's not a security because you're both going to be, you know, active to a degree into the project and all that. Yitty, yada, yada. So I went and found these two little beater townhomes where my investing market, my, at my playground at the time was Trenton, New Jersey. And I found these two little townhomes that, guys, they were bought.

They had a lien on them from Deutsche Bank on both of them for $175,000. The bank had taken a haircut down to where the wholesaler that I was buying them from was buying it from Deutsche Bank for a lower number. I still don't know what that number was, but I paid the wholesaler $25,000 per house. Wow. That was the world that it was in 2011, 2012, the Deutsche Bank. was willing to take a haircut off of their $175,000 lien down to where we could buy these two houses for $25,000 apiece.

Okay. I can see how this is a defining, a career defining deal. Right, right, right, right. So now I got 50 grand from a Wall Street Financial Planner looking for a home. I got these two little Beter town homes that needed a lot of work, right? The problem is, just like, you know, Garrett's fixer-upper, I needed some money to fix them up. And so I also had another friend. and he came to me around like a month earlier and he goes you know I've been doing some rental deals

and I've been funding them with a guy I work with who has an IRA and he's been lending his IRA to me and I've been using this IRA custodian and whatnot and it's been really good and I've done a few deals the problem is I also have an IRA this guy that I'm talking to he says I have an IRA and the rules don't let me put my IRA into my deals because you're called a restricted party so you can't do that So he was like, I want to grow my retirement account. I want to put it somewhere else besides Wall Street, but I can't put it into my deals. You know, if you come up with a project, can I lend my IRA to you? And I said, of course, you know, show me how to do it.

And so he showed me how IRA lending works and whatnot. So now I walk in and I've got 50 grand from my buddy's IRA in a collateralized loan that it is on title with a lien on the property with a monthly payment that he got. then I've got an equity investor from my wife's Wall Street friend, right? And now I've got 100 grand. So I can buy these two properties for 50K, which is what we did. I renovated both of them. So all in cost at $100,000, right? 50 grand per door is what my all in cost was. I leased them both out for, again, another time, $950 for a two-bedroom apartment in Trent, New Jersey, which was a good, that was good rent for a fully renovated little town home, a little house, right?

But it was also, as we talk about in bigger pockets, the 2% rule. I mean, we don't talk about that anymore. No, nobody talking about that anymore. Now we talks about it. I got the half a percent rule, right? Right, yeah. But it was the 2% rule back then. So I was able to then approach a credit union who they were the ones that were starting

to dip their toe in the water back then after everybody got burned. This credit union, which typically does individual loans, like they'll lend you when you want to buy a car. They'll lend you when you want to he lock on your house. they'll lend you for personal stuff, but they were starting to get into business loans as well. And so they were willing to take a stretch on me. And obviously, they wrapped me and my wife and this Wall Street guy up with a personal guarantee and everything. But they lent us on a valuation of $75,000. So that means I was able to pull out that full 50K, pay off my private lender, get my equity guys' money

back to him. Wow. Right. So I didn't start doing the burr strategy, which we've heard about on bigger pockets quite a bit, with other people's money. Wasn't my money. Wasn't my money. money. I took the Burr thing with this private investors money. And then before you know it, Dave, he's up in Manhattan. I know you used to live in the area. So that's an hour away from Trenton, New Jersey on the train, right? Yeah. And so all of a sudden, on the weekends, this Manhattan stock guy is getting his buddies to take the train to Trenton to meet his buddy Matt, who has done this deal with his 50 grand. Really? He's showing you off. Yeah. And we're doing windshield tours, man. I'm like, well, we could buy this, we could buy that.

So before you know it, me and this guy start doing more, his 50 grand gets rolled up into other projects with other friends that he brings down. So before you know, we're buying duplexes. We buy another four family on the block that Liz and I own two four families. We buy a third four family with these investors. We eventually roll it up and, you know, I started doing YouTube videos back in 2013, 14, somewhere in there. I still have a YouTube channel that talks about real estate investing and all that jazz.

And me and my new YouTube friends and this group of investors from Manhattan by a 10 unit department building. And then we were off to the races from there, Dave, because I had gotten my head into this is what it is putting other people's money to work when I'm willing to be the legs and they're willing to provide the money and get an equity split for doing the work that we do. Awesome. Well, that obviously sounds like a defining deal.

I can see why. I mean, obviously the returns are great. But I imagine this sort of just opened up a whole thing. whole new world to you, like of how to be an investor. Yeah. I mean, now you've written books on this topic, but it seems kind of like changed your trajectory as an investor and a business person. Yeah.

I want to speak to the bigger pockets listener that's over here saying like, yeah, that's all well and good, Matt, but you can't buy a townhome for 25 grand anymore. You're right. It's true. But it's not about the deal, right? Because people are throwing rocks at it and saying, like, well, you can't do that deal anymore. The deal is not why I had the pivotal moment and the deal is not why those investors join me. There's always good deals out there. If you're willing to look and really drill into

markets and find deals, I mean, Garrett, you're a realtor, right? There's good deals out today, you know. It's really just about the concept of introducing real estate investing to people that actually did not read Rich Dad Poor Dad and actually do not listen. Their fault, don't listen to this podcast. There's people out there in our networks as real estate investors that don't understand what we do. And exposing real estate investing to those people, that was my pivotal moment to go to people that don't know what we know, that will ask you more questions when you're the dinner party about like, yeah, I'm a full-time real estate investor or I invest in real estate on the side. The people that start asking questions, they're curious about what we do because they don't

know what we know about this space. And they think that Wall Street's the only place that they can build their wealth. They don't know that there's other places they can do it. And that's what my pivotal moment was is that I know a lot of people that are looking for another way. And if I go out and find deals and I put what I know in front of them and those opportunities, I can do as many deals as I want. Do you think there is anything in particular that you did that made these investors like excited to work with you or put their money into you? I think that's something even like in my years of trying to get investors along with some of my ideas. It's usually like some get interested, but I'm like, is there like a magic sauce to get them like besides just the,

just the screaming deal, you know, the best, you know, the better the deal, the easier it is. But you seem like you were able to kind of get some, you know, investors on board pretty quickly. Well, it helped that their friend was vouching for me, right? And so I talk about this in raising private capital that that getting referrals is huge, because you've already broken through a lot of objections and a lot of, you know, when people have objections to investing in something, it's likely because. they're not sure, you know, what, what it's going to look like, right? And if one of their friends has

already done it, then that dissolves a lot of those things. That's number one. Number two, I made sure that they knew this is my full-time gig, man. This is what I do, you know, I'm a full-time real estate investor. I've already burned the ships. So this is my, this is my jam. And so I'm going to be, you know, supervising the contractors at that time doing the leasing myself, you know, meeting with the bank, co-signing with them on the loan. So I think that them seeing that I was going to be their legs and also that I had a track record and everything like that. That's what I recall. That's what dissolved a lot of any objections that they had.

And I mean, you know what, Garrett, people took the train to Trenton with my Manhattan friend toured around Trenton all day long. It said, nah, it's not for me. Yeah. So yet he also be willing to take a no. Not everybody's going to say yes. A lot of people did that. Of course.

Yeah. He brought dozens of the people down. He brought dozens of people down and we produced maybe five, six investors out of all those tours. Yeah. And that was enough. Yeah. That's all you need.

Great advice. I'll take all the nose I can. I can get because I know there's a yes in that pool somewhere. Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that story. I think, again, like these numbers might not apply to today's day and age, but the things that Matt did are really applicable to today's day and age. And I think I haven't really done that, but I would imagine that would be a really big difference as going out and starting to work for other people in a way, both in opportunity, but forces you to be a more sophisticated investor too, because now you have investor relations. There's like a whole other skill set that you're

forced to learn, then I'm sure helps, you know, makes you a better investor. That deal wasn't a life-changing deal. The concept was, right? Like the deal produced like, you know, 300 bucks in cash flow for each one of us, you know, and that's awesome because that's, you know, mailbox money for him. Yeah. And all that. But it is the concept that he was able to get his money back and reinvested in other deals and then make 300 bucks and saw the potential here and all the, in all the things. And I was like, you know, hey, the world's my oyster. I can do as many deals as I want with other people's money if I know how to how to structure things. All right. Well, thanks, Matt. And I will share my career-defining deal when we get back

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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 Matt, Faircloth, and Garrett Brown talking about deals that have defined our careers. And I was kind of on the fence when we were planning this show, which one I would talk about. But I'm going to go with my second deal because my first one was great. But the second one, I actually started house hacking.

And I know that's not how most people do it. I actually intended to house hack my first deal. Then I got an opportunity to live in the basement of my friend's grandma's house. And I did that for three years to save money on rent. And I was actually talking to my wife about that. We met while that was still going on. And she was like, you know, I was really a visionary. I really saw that your potential, even though you were living in your friend's grandma's basement at that point.

But then I actually moved out of Denver for work, and I came back and I was like, okay, now I need a real apartment if I want my then girlfriend to stay with me. So I bought a three unit, actually only one block away from my original building that I had had. So that was awesome because I was able to maintain both properties really closely. But this was the first time I, like, noticed a really big lifestyle improvement for myself for real estate investing. And I think a lot of times we talk on the show about sacrificing and all the things that you have to do, which are true, to have financial freedom sometime in the future. But I actually think, and for me at least, each deal that I've done has sort of incrementally improved my life. Like that first house, yeah, I was living in my friend's grandma's basement, but I was making two, 300 bucks more per month. And for me, a year out of college, that was meaningful in my life, that I could actually save money for once.

This time, I actually was able to live completely for free. I actually made a little bit of money most months. But I was able to live for free in a neighborhood I really wanted to live in. I was able to, you know, be closer to my friends. And I had a really good lifestyle and was making this incredible financial benefit to myself. Still on this property. It's at least doubled in terms of. equity. It's probably the best cash-howing property I still own. And I did all of that through a relatively simple strategy, which is house hacking. And I, the reason it just stands out to me is like, I think when I was first starting, I thought it was like all sacrifice. And to me, this one just was like, actually, you could do this and incorporate it and live a good life at the same time.

And that was sort of eye-opening to me. And as honestly, changed my strategy about real estate investing ever since. Like, I don't do a lot of deals that are inconvenient to me. I'm lazy about it. I pick deals that are support my lifestyle. And I'm lucky to have been doing this for 15 years now. So I don't need to like do the ultimate hustle kind of deals still doing living flips and that kind of stuff. But I only do deals that that support the lifestyle want. I don't want to like push off this like, oh, I'm going to really enjoy myself 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now. I kind of feel like that's the opposite of why you're getting to real estate investing. And so this deal kind of showed me that that was possible. What were you able to get

into the deal for? Like how much down was it and things like that? So I think it was 620 when I first bought it and I put 20% down. Oh, okay. Because I had gone in between those two deals, gone back to school, gotten a good job, was able to save up some money. And it was listed as a two unit. And I went in there and, you know, you're like back the envelope like, oh, this is pretty good. It's pretty good. it might work. And then I opened this door. And they didn't even say there was just a whole other unit. It wasn't even an opportunity for a unit. There just was a unit that was not listed. It's like, open it in Narnia. Yeah. It was. I was like, well, you know how you go to all these properties and they're always oversold. And then like every once in a while, you're like,

wow, you really undersold this one. Those are the deals you want to buy, I guess, because no one else is looking at them. But I honestly, it's been 11 years. I forget what the rents. were, but it basically allowed me to live for free. More than covered my mortgage payment and, you know, with cost and expenses on any given month, I was coming out probably about even. I think that's the other thing, maybe a good lesson here is like, I wasn't like cash flowing a ton, but that's, that was fine. To rent an equivalent apartment would probably be in Denver at that time, $1,500, $1,500 a month, you know, so that's $15,000 a year, basically, that you're saving. So to me, that was a fantastic choice.

I wasted it all at the bar across the street, but it was a good time. I enjoyed it. Sounds like you picked a good place to live in, but you actually liked. Exactly. I had a great time. Lifestyle.

Lifestyle bit fit. Hey, pre-marriage. You know, and everyone should live in an environment like that at some point in their life, and you did it pre-marriage, so that's good, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Going back to underscore one thing for the listeners to relate to you, right? Like, anybody, answer this question, what would happen if your housing expenses went to zero, right? You know, if you have a day job, and your housing expenses go to zero, what would you be able to do?

What I did was paid off all my student loans and all my credit card debt in two years. Got myself completely bad debt free in two years because of having a good job working for Ingersoll Rand at the time and no living expenses, right? Like that'll do it. Totally. I mean, Dave, you're probably able to squirrel money

and do the things and then roll up and spend some money at the bar. I get it, but also, right? That was mostly a joke, but... They had good two-for-one deals. So I took a good thing. It's networking. You were networking. You were networking.

But no, actually, you raised a good point, Matt, because I paid for my grad school. I was going to grad school also during this time. I did wind up taking out loans for grad school, but I went in state so it wasn't crazy expensive. I didn't want to go to private school or anything like that because you don't have to pay while you're in grad school. But during the two years I was in grad school, I saved up all the money that I needed so that when I was done with school, I just paid off

the loan and never paid interest on it, which was awesome. And then the other sort of secondary benefit was it took me about four years between my first and second purchase. I cut it down to two years into for my third purchase, you know? So I was able to just save up money at a faster rate, even with paying to go to grad school, which increased my salary, which allowed me to invest faster. And, you know, sort of like started this whole cycle. that I've been on, I guess, since whatever that was, 2014.

That's brilliant. Well, this has been a lot of fun, guys. Thank you guys. I had a feeling for everyone knowing, Garrett and Matt did not know each other before this show. We met, right, five minutes before we started recording. But I had a feeling we'd have fun, and I think that we were right. All right.

Well, thank you all so much for listening to this episode. Hope you all learn something. These are kind of different experiences, which is really cool. You know, a live-in flip, renovation. I guess both Garrett's and mine were owner-occupied strategies. but both things that really sort of set you off, turn the light bulb on for the possibilities. Same with Matt's, right? Turning that light bulb on and seeing different things that you can do with real estate.

That's the beauty of this business. It's so incredibly flexible and customizable to whatever you want to do. And that's the key. Get in, start doing things, learning, not just tactics and skills, but learning what you like, learning what you're good at. And that's how you really start to take off. So Matt, Garrett, thanks again. and we'll see you all next time for another episode of the Bigger Pockets podcast.

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, copyrighting is by Calico content, and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter,

please visit www.biggerpockets.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.