BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - First Rental in 2016, Financially Free in 2026 (Every Strategy I Used)

Episode Date: June 15, 2026

Ten years ago, Erika Brown bought her first investment property. Now, a decade later, she’s financially free, with a portfolio she’s slowly starting to scale down so she can do less, enjoy her life more, and build the early retirement lifestyle she had always dreamed of. But it wasn’t always like this.  Back in 2012, Erika was working at a bank, climbing the corporate ladder, with no thought of ever retiring before 65. She just couldn’t ignore one thing—every wealthy client at the bank was investing in real estate. They were on to something she wasn’t, so she tried her first house hack—fixing up a basement unit while raising three kids and working nine-to-five. Then, a few years later, the real investing began. Erika did everything—short-term rentals, Section 8 long-term rentals, cashing out her 401(k) to renovate, renting out rooms, buying up entire blocks. She gives her true, honest take on which strategies are worth the effort, which have a bad rap but strong cash flow, and why she’s scaling down, not up, only 10 years into her investing career.  In This Episode We Cover How to break out of the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle starting with one property  You’re wrong about Section 8: How to get great tenants with government rent checks  Is coliving (rent-by-the-room) really worth it? Would you trade your retirement account for a rental property? Why Erika pulled the trigger Why you need to change your rental strategy often to keep cash flowing  And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠h⁠⁠t⁠t⁠ps://www⁠.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1291⁠⁠⁠⁠. 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

Before real estate, Erica Brown was working at a bank, raising three kids, paycheck to paycheck, just trying to climb the corporate ladder. Now, a decade later, she owns an entire portfolio of very different rentals, has reached financial freedom, and is doing what nobody expects, selling off her houses. But Eric is not going backwards. Far from that. She's actually about to unlock an even better lifestyle, one with fewer rentals, lots of cash flow, and way more freedom.

Over the past 10 years, she's tried every strategy in the book. Section 8, house hacking, renting out rooms, short-term rentals, burrs, and more. Today, she's explaining her favorites and why some of the ones you're told to avoid are actually the best rentals to own, and nobody's paying attention to them. So how do you, like Erica, have the fewest number of rentals with the most cashful and freedom? Listen up, you're about to find out. What's going on, everybody? Washington, co-host of the Bigger Pockets podcast. And today's guest on the show is my friend investor Erica Brown.

So let's bring her on. Erica Brown, welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me back. I love chatting with you. I love hearing more about your story. Interested to hear what you've got going on. So for those of you who may not have heard your previous episode on the Bigger Pockets podcast,

I want you to tell us a little bit about your story again. Take us back to the beginning. Yeah. How'd you first get into real estate? Oh, man, that's a fun story. It has now been 10 years. I have officially been investing in real estate and also a full-time business woman for 10 years. It's crazy.

But yeah, previous to being in real estate full-time, I was a banker and I was in the finance industry and just was trying to figure it out. I had three young kids, husband, you know, starting out, brand new city. I live in Atlanta, Georgia, and we were trying to get out of that paycheck to paycheck cycle and bought our first property using a FHA loan, 203K during times when it was pretty scary. It was right after the recession, bought a house, renovated a basement, and became a house hacker before you guys turned house hacking. For us, it was, can we make some money to pay these, you know, child care bills? It just used to be called hustling back.

Yes, it was hustling. And then I started reading books. I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad and all the things. And I just got the book. I moved to a neighborhood that was up and coming in Atlanta and fell in love with real estate that way as well. And next thing you know, I had helped like 10 people buy houses through the local real estate agent.

Yeah. So my journey was I started investing in real estate after. becoming a real estate agent, I knew the end goal wasn't to be a real estate agent, but I knew that I could sell houses clearly because I had already referred all this money, $100,000 worth commissions. So we have a portfolio of businesses now outside of real estate, in within real estate, and it's been pretty amazing the journey. So all right. So this was 2012 when you did the first house hack. Yes.

Right. And then in 2016, you moved and got all your friends to buy houses and you didn't get paid for any of it. Yep. I'm sorry. I said, how much is real estate? Just making permissions? Wait.

And is that, did you get your license that same year? Did you do it? Or was that after? Yes. I got my license that same year. And it was really hard, but got it done. And then when did you do your very first, like, official really? estate deal. So I believe I left my job March of 2016 and we did our official first real estate deal

that fall. I was working for an investor. You know, when you're a new agent, you got to take everything that you can get. Yeah, you get all the trash leads. Whatever. Okay. And I had an investor, which I love working the investors because they're always buying, you know. And so I had an investor who was like, drive this neighborhood and write down these addresses and try to find these owners. And if you find some deals, I'll buy them. And so I knew that this thing called the Atlanta Beltline was coming. And it was supposed to completely transform the entire city. And I seen that there was one property that was listed on there that was right by the future Beltline. And so I was like, let me buy this one for myself. And so I cashed in a 401K. And so I cashed in a 401K. And,

And we bought the property. It had previously been a Section 8 property. So in my mind, I'm like, it was at least livable. Right. So, you know, we bought it. And then we did a very minor renovation. And at the time, Airbnb was very new. I had met another investor that had had some success doing Airbnb.

So I was like, well, let's do this. And we set up that property. And we were able to make our full investment. our down payment back within the first year. Oh, wow. That's incredible. So you got in right during the Airbnb boom. So yes. That's cool. That's amazing timing too. So you cash out your 401k and paid cash is what you're saying. You used a portion of that as a down payment. And then we got a conventional loan 20%. It was in my husband's name because I left my job and no one was giving me a loan. I didn't know anything about DSCR, commercial loans or anything like that. So

yeah, so we got our first property and we just bought, we just got like a standard conventional loan. We funded the renovation with a credit card, got zero percent inches for 12 months. So, you know, it was pretty risky, but I knew that we could do it because we had already did it with the house hack. And I made a decision that I wanted to do it. Yeah. So we were going to make it happen. Making a decision regardless of if you know how it's going to happen helps you figure out how it's going to happen, right? Because you've turned your brain on to helping you figure out how. It's like a mindset hack, right?

People call it manifesting. You can call it what you want. It's you simply telling your brain to help you figure it out, right? Yes. And so when you make that decision, all of a sudden, you find ways to get done. And then you talked about a zero percent interest credit card to fund the renovation. These are things that we've talked about before. but they're absolutely options for people if that zero percent interest time frame allows you

more than enough time to finish the project where you get into trouble is if you got a zero percent interest for 90 days or six months and you can't get it done then you're getting slap with 25 percent interest because you can't pay off that credit card yet right so when you do that you have to a make sure that you're financially responsible enough to use the money appropriately B, you have to have enough time, not just to get the job done, but to be able to get that property refinanced or sold so you get the cash to pay that off before that 20-something percent interest hits you because they back date that interest to your very first purchase on the 0% interest. So if you're responsible enough with money and it has enough time horizon for you to like lots of cushion, don't assume it's a six months. So I can get it done in four. No, no. That's not enough. No, not enough. This was a very minor cosmetic renovation that ended up taking about two months.

So we had more than enough time to pay it off. Cool. So you did your first one. And then I mean, I know this about you. You've done a litany of things since then. So kind of give us the somewhat quick version of like what kinds of deals did you do? and then what is your portfolio look like now? For the first few years, it was just kind of like buying properties doing minor renovations after I had leftover money from commissions type of thing. Then I learned how to do a burr. I reached out to one of my investor clients who was like,

how are y'all buying some property so fast and you're doing this and doing that? And so then he introduced me to a banker and I was able to get a portfolio loan. And so I learned how to leverage equity. and again, because I forced appreciation in a market that was massively appreciating, I had room to conservatively do this. And so then we went from buying like one property to buying seven in one year leveraging a portfolio loan. What year was that when you bought seven? It was probably like 2019. It was before COVID.

Ooh, got a girl. That's a great time to have bought seven. So then I started like, okay, I want to challenge myself. Let's do two units. let's do, you know, duplexes. Let's do quads. In between that, I bought a 20-unit apartment complex. I learned a lot, a lot with that deal. I learned that bigger isn't necessarily more money. Say that again, because we hear the opposite all the time, right? Like, I'm going to buy multifamily. It's less problems. It's all one, it's all under one roof. Right. And I'm not saying that

multi-family can't be more profitable. It absolutely can. Yep. But it's not, I think when people say this, it almost sounds like they're saying it's the same level of effort as owning a single family. And so you might as well own multifamily. Like I've heard people say that. So what's your take on that, given your experience with that deal? If you're thinking about it from like just economy of scale, and you think it's that simple, it's not that simple. I remember our first year owning the 20 unit, we had to replace like six AC units in one summer. That is 4,000, 5,000 a pop. You know, so you have to multiply your reserves.

You have to multiply your manpower. If you happen to have a lot of vacancy all of a sudden, in my market, I'm in Atlanta, which is similar to a lot of the major markets like Austin and Phoenix, where, you know, during COVID, there was a huge housing shortage. So what happened, developers built a ton of apartments. And so when you start to see the brand new apartments dropping their prices, and I have the, you know, older apartments that I've renovated from the 50s and 60s, if you have the option to rent for the same amount,

the brand new apartments with the concierge and the gym, which one are you going to choose? And so we had to make some pretty good pivots really fast. And so I just learned a lot. And truth be told, I had some properties when I do what's called a portfolio audit once a quarter where we review our portfolio to figure out what's making money, was not making money. And I had some what I call single family conversions where, you know, we converted a basement to another unit. I had some single family conversions making more money than my apartments. And so at the end of the day for me, it is about the check. It is not about the amount of, to say I have X amount of units. I think that comes, that brings you the credibility as a successful investor. But at the end of the day, you have to realize what are you in this for? I'm in it for freedom of time, of options, of money, and not for my ego.

And again, I don't want people to think that I'm bashing on multifamily. I'm not. I think multifamily is amazing. All I'm saying is it's not the same as single family. You have to treat it different. And one thing you said that I have to repeat is you said you have to multiply your reserves. I think people forget about that part. Like you should have cash reserves for a single family home and that those cash reserves should increase the more properties you own.

A 20 unit building, you need some substantial. substantial cash reserves because you're right. And I had this, I had a similar thing. That happens to me too. Like when weather changes from cold to hot, I don't just get one HVAC unit going out. Yeah. I get five, six, seven of them all at one time, right? Because the season changed, they all get hit hard. People just crank them things up. Yeah. Right. So I just want people to understand, like make sure that you actually plan appropriately. It's not the same level of effort. Yes, there are some economies of scale. There are some things that aren't going to be that much more difficult, man, with the 20 universe

as a single family. But it's just a different ballgame. And it requires a different kind of marketing. Erica, you've done a ton of different things. Obviously, you've done small multifamily. You've done short-term rentals. You've done co-living. You've done Section 8.

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Only for accredited investors, past performance is not indicative of future results. All right, we are back on the Bigger Pockets podcast. I am talking with my friend and fellow investor, Erica Brown. She is, you know, I don't even know if Jack of All Trades is the right, because that makes it seem like you're a master of none, but you have done well with many different strategies. So you've done short-term rentals. I would say that's changed in the past two to three years. You've done co-living and you've done Section 8 and you've done small multifamily. Of all of those strategies, are you still doing all of them today or have you narrowed that down? I am still doing all of them

today. So here's the thing. I've learned that when you first buy your property, it's important that you buy a property with multiple exit strategies. Say it again. When you first buy, you have to have multiple exit strategies because you have no idea what's going to happen with the market. So I don't subscribe to buying a property because I want to put it on short-term rental and I'm only basing the numbers off of short-term rental, right? I've been doing this for 10 years.

I have some properties I probably have used three or four different rental strategies because that's what makes sense for the market, that makes sense for the team I had the time, et cetera. When I first started, I was heavy, heavy short-term rentals. And I began diversifying our portfolio probably about five years ago right before COVID, which was really interesting. So now I'm in a place where I have a very diversified portfolio because I believe that that is what's going to help to keep me going through this time. And also I've built out my team to where we can support that.

So all properties aren't going to work for short-term rentals. I've, the one, we have two short-term rentals right now, and they work really well for that particular property. We pivoted to co-living. Co-living works too, for some. We've had a couple of properties where, quite a few, actually, that the insurance has skyrocketed, property taxes have increased. And so what is it? And then also because of local conditions, rents have went down. So what do we do? Because those particular properties work really well. They're in metropolitan areas. They're near, you know, public transportation. They've been doing very, very well on co-living. So right now we look at them from what's best for that particular property. What's best for that particular area and market condition that's going on? And also, what do we have the capacity to handle?

Yeah. So I just believe in diversification all across the board. And it sounds like you still do all of the strategies. but maybe you've shifted the volume of one strategy to a volume of another strategy. I want to ask specifically about the co-living properties. So co-living does best in major metropolitan cities, especially if that property is near some sort of public transportation because essentially this is workforce housing. So for those of you who don't understand what this is, this is where you're essentially renting by the room. So each tenant has a room in the house that they can lock.

They've got their own stuff in it. and then the shared spaces are the kitchen, the bathrooms, and then the living room, if there is a living room. So what I wanted to ask about the co-living is these were obviously either short-term rentals or long-term rentals before they were co-living properties. Did you modify them to add bedrooms to make it bring in more income as a co-living? Or are you just renting the rooms in the property as it sits? Great question. I'm really glad you accept. So I believe in testing, whether it's just important business one-on-one. I believe in testing before just going all in to a strategy.

So for the first property, what we did was we just rented out by the room with the existing rooms. Okay. We did not modify the living room. We added furniture, very basic, and we said, let's see how it goes. And so we did that. We rented up the bedrooms pretty quickly within 30 days and had a little bit of turn. over probably the first couple weeks. And then after that, we had about 60 days worth of proof of concept that it works and that it's profitable. And we figured out the systems.

So then when the next property came available, we did modify the living room and the dining room and added two additional bedrooms. And so I invest in a little bit of a conservative way because, you know, I want to make sure that I'm being careful, I'm being profitable. And I don't have a lot of backup plans. Like I don't, I'm expecting like a huge inheritance. So we got to figure this out. And so I definitely suggest someone testing versus going all in and just trying something new. And again, the reason that you were able to test a strategy is because you have other exit strategies for that property in the event that this new strategy you're trying doesn't work, right? It allows you to be careful in your investing.

So we're all just going back to never buy a property if you can't get out of that deal in more than one way. Because the market shifts, especially if the strategy that you're using can be hindered by somebody else. Right. So like with short term rentals, midterm rentals, and even rent by the room, your ability for that strategy to work can be hindered by your city. or a local government. There are rules in certain cities with how many unrelated people can live in a house. You need to understand those in your city and see what the plans are for the future of that before you go spending a ton of money, convert in living rooms to bedrooms.

So again, benefits of having multiple exit strategies. All right. So section eight, I know section eight gets a bad rap, right? Because I hear both sides. I hear that section eight can be a pain in the butt with the tenants, which I feel like is a myth. And I also hear that the local government can be a pain in the butt to work with in order to pass the inspections and get qualified. And then the third point I'd like you to touch on is we've had some government shutdowns recently. How has that affected your income in Section 8?

So at the end of the day, we have to realize that we're in the people business, right? So we own real estate, but we're in the people business. And we want to recognize that. Like, our tenants are our customers or our clients. I'm sorry. I keep telling you to repeat that. but you keep, these are things that I harp on. Like, this business is one of the only customer service businesses that I feel like landlords

don't operate as a customer service business. Like, if you walk into a store or you're buying a product or service from someone, you expect to be treated a certain way. You expect to be treated well. You're the customer. You're bringing the income for that store. And so you want to be treated as such. But for some reasons, landlords don't treat their tenants that way.

and why would you not? All right, I'm going to get off my high. I don't know. I don't know. So this is the mindset that I start off with. Like, this is how I feed my family, you know? And so I take it very seriously. And so from a Section A standpoint, I, again, because I lived in these communities,

the same communities that I had properties in. And so you get to, like, really learn people and humanize people. And so in the same way that I'm going to have expectations when I'm finding a regular tenant for a regular long-term rental is the same way I'm going to have expectations whenever I'm looking for a Section 8 rental. So my goal is to try to find the best tenant possible for that property. And what I've learned is that low-income people have the same desires that we have. And so because I focus on picking the right tenant, I haven't had as many issues. I think sometimes people forget that with Section 8, you could still deny a tenant.

You still have the option to choose, you know, the tenant that you want. And so because I'm choosing good tenants and following the proper screening processes and things like that, I haven't had a bunch of issues. A lot of times it's single moms just trying to do what's best for their kids. So I think having that mindset and recognizing that and humanizing the tenants has helped us to have a relationship, be able to work together. Also, So, yes, working with the city of Atlanta is not easy in any municipality, okay? And so it's all about relationships, you know. I've learned from Dr. Joe, which is at this point one of my mentors, he is the Section 8 guru.

And he's taught me. It's about relationships. It's about, you know, really showing your value as a landlord. At the end of the day, the housing authority wants your business. They want my business. They want me to continue to choose them to feel. provide housing, especially because I provide good, safe housing. And so recognizing the dynamics of the relationship, they need me, I need them, build that relationship, affirm them when they do

do something well, brag on them to their bosses when they do something well. And that has helped me to be able to navigate the process, you know, effectively. But the end of the day, even when the government shutdowns happened, you know, I was nervous at first. But because I surround myself with other investors have been doing it for a really long time. I'm like, okay, so investors have never not been paid. And so that helped me to have peace of mind, like, okay, we'll get through it. But also, because I have multiple exit strategies, if I need to pivot, I can. So in my city, for example, we have not had any issue. We have not not been paid for Section 8. They have just removed rental increases for the foreseeable future. And so we're fine with that. We figured

it out. So that's been my experience and it's been fine. It's really, let me tell you, the best part is that the first of the month, I get a direct deposit regardless. That is, that is beautiful. Yeah. Ain't going to chase nobody, right? No chasing. And thank you for sharing that. And thank you for dispelling some of those myths, man. When I hear someone say, yeah, section 8 tenants are bad or that they won't rent to section 8 because they think people are going to destroy their property. I think this is a landlord who's not good at their job, right? Because our job is to get very good at tenant selection. Regardless of rent price. I've had bad tenants paying me $2,000 a month, and I've had bad tenants paying me $600 a month. Okay? It wasn't the rent amount

that dictated whether they were good or bad tenants. It was, something that I missed during the tenant selection process. Yep. So stop making excuses for you being bad at your job. Your job is to get good at tenant selection, regardless of rent price, period. Get good at your job. If you're good at your job, you will have less problems. Also, when I hear people say that they don't like Section 8, what I also hear is probably

people who have a lack of empathy. Okay. I've gotten to meet tons of real estate investors all over the country. People you see on the internet, people you've probably never heard of because I've just met them at a conference here or there. And everybody I've met that is successful at renting to Section 8 tenants seems to have that gift of empathy, of understanding why someone may be in a difficult situation and finding that delicate balance of firm but fairness. And I think if you treat people like people, you're good at tenant selection and you can be fair but firm. What a great way to build a rental portfolio of income that's paid by the government on the first of the month every month. It's a great strategy in my opinion.

And Henry, they take care of your property. Yes, because they don't want to move if it's a good property. They get a great rent. They're not paying much out of their pocket. They will treat it like home. Like home if you can pay. the right tenant. Yep.

Absolutely. All right, Erica, this has been amazing. I really, really appreciate you sharing some of these lessons learned. I've got a couple of more questions for you because I want to hear about your experience as a licensed agent in being a real estate investor and your opinions on whether you think others should follow that same path, as well as something you and I talked about recently, which is being okay, not having to have the biggest, largest, craziest portfolio and just Finding the properties that we love and appreciate the most and focusing on paying those off.

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slash bigger pockets. All right. I'm back on the Bigger Pockets podcast with my guest, Erica Brown, who is a seasoned real estate investor out of Atlanta, Georgia, who has seemingly done it all. So, investors often struggle with the idea or concept of, should I get my real estate license to become a real estate investor? Or should I just start investing in real estate and figure out if I need a license down the road?

you have your license, you've got a brokerage. I'd love to hear your perspective on should someone become a licensed professional prior to investing in real estate and has having your licensed helped you as a real estate investor. Do I feel like you need to have your real estate license in order to invest or should you have your real estate license in order to invest? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. It is not required. You do not need it. you will, you, if you, if you have the expectation that you will be learning how to invest in

real estate, uh, by being a real estate agent, you will not, okay. Um, 90% of real estate agents have no idea about that. They don't know anything about investing. So definitely not a requirement at all. Um, I, I, I tell my clients this all the time because I have some clients who I'm working with who they, I actually encourage them to get their real estate license. So my thing is this, If you want to help people buying sell houses, you should get your real estate license. It's very simple, okay? But to your second question on has being a real estate agent helped me with investing? It has.

Having my real estate license helped me to help other people buy and sell real estate. It also helped me to not have a cap of my income so that I can make more money to then invest in real estate. So definitely suggest that. And along the way, yes, have I had opportunities that where someone came to me to want me to sell their house and I ended up buying the property? Yes, that has happened multiple times. And I feel like that has helped grow my portfolio. But ultimately, I say this. If you just want to get your real estate license to have it, but you really don't want to work with people to buy and sell, I think that you are wasting your energy and time.

instead of you getting your real estate license just to have it, you should use that time to find more deals. Yes. Do that instead. I think there is value in having your license as a real estate investor. I just think you need to do a deal or two first and learn more about who you are and who you're going to be as an investor. And then you'll have a better understanding of how you might. want to leverage a license in your real estate business. Maybe it's that you don't need or want your license, but somebody on your team having their license could be valuable to you. So that way,

you have another way to monetize leads through referrals. We learn a lot about ourselves as investors after we do a dealer too. Yes. I think we all come into this business and we think things are going to go one way. And sometimes they don't go that way. Sometimes they do go that way. But you learn something. and then you start to build a repeatable business. And so, like, I have learned that, like, having my license based on the way I do real estate would hinder me more than help me. So I don't have my license. But someone on my team having a license would be valuable to me.

But it took me having to do a few deals to understand that. Agreed. All right. And as we are starting to wind down here, you and I, we shared some, some Instagram voice notes back and forth. You made a post recently. And I sent you a voice note like, amen. This is exactly how I feel.

And it sounds to me like you're focusing more on shrinking your portfolio down to the assets maybe that are the best assets or the ones you enjoy managing or having in your portfolio the most and focusing on paying those off. Can you talk a little bit about that? Here's the thing. Okay. We are as a real estate investor is like 1% of the populations. Most people just want to go work, come home, eat dinner, see their family, and that's it.

Being a real estate investor, you know, pursuing early retirement, it comes at a cost, okay? And so you have to determine what you're willing to sacrifice, all right? And determine that. And then allow that to then decide your strategy. Don't get caught up in what everybody else is doing. allow that to decide your strategy. So for me, we're on a four-year countdown. In four years, I will be a total, my husband and I, we will be empty nesters. So for us, we want to accelerate and pay off as much debt and mortgages as possible within the next four

years so that we could just literally do whatever we want to do, you know, after that. And so we're focusing on optimizing our portfolio, keeping the best properties that make the most money, selling the others and then helping our sons. We're actually under contract for a quadruplex for our son. So help them start their portfolios. That's what we're focused on right now. And I'm not, I'm not keeping up with anybody else. If someone else wants to buy a boutique hotel, that's amazing for you. I'm so excited for you. But that doesn't mean that I have to do that today. Does that make sense? Absolutely, it makes sense. This is a lesson that I learned about I started to truly learn it about a year and a half ago because I was, you know, I've got all the

friends that you know that, you know, who are doing all these amazing things and building these amazing businesses. And I was drinking the Kool-Aid, you know, work on your business, not in your business. And so I did. I hired all these people. And what I realized was I missed operating in my business. Yeah. I missed managing renovations. I missed going on seller. appointments and talking to sellers. And I had to really take a long look in the mirror and say, okay, why don't I just get back to doing the things that I enjoy doing? Like, it's okay if I'm the operator in my business. Just because everybody else is building all these businesses, flipping hundreds of houses and they don't ever see any of them, doesn't mean I have to do that.

I can build the business that provides the lifestyle that I want. I can have the portfolio that provides just enough income for me to live the life that I want. And I don't have to go chasing bigger just because I can do it. And so we made some changes. Since then, I've been shrinking my portfolio, selling off the assets that aren't producing as much and focusing on paying off the ones that we do like and what we do enjoy. And I manage my renovations again. I go to the properties and I make the design decisions and I talk to my contractors and I talk to sellers and make offers. Now, I have somebody that helps me with that, but I still get to do some of it. Is that for everybody?

No, it doesn't have to be. But what I like what you said is like, design your business for the lifestyle that you want. Like, for me, I don't want to be an operator forever. I have a plan for getting out of that. But for right now, I want to be in it. And so I'm going to be in it and I'm going to enjoy it. And that's okay. Yep.

Thank you so much for coming and sharing so much knowledge and wisdom. Ten years in the real estate investing business. Yes. And you're still going. I love it, love it, love it. I love it too. I'm grateful to call you friend. I'm proud of you.

Same. And I'm proud of what you're doing with your children and how you're building out a business that not only provides income for you, but supports your community, takes care of your community. and takes care of your family. You should be very, very proud, Erica. Thanks, friend. I appreciate that.

All right, Erica, one last thing before we take off. If people want to know more about you, get in contact with you, where can they do that? Follow me on Instagram, Erica Brown Investor. Also, I have a podcast called Wealth Within Reach, so you can find me on YouTube. And, yeah, we'll connect from there. Awesome. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it so much.

Thank you so much. All right, everybody. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you're subscribed. to the all new BiggerPockets investor brief newsletter. Three times a week, the Investor Brief breaks down market news, real deals, and investor's stories you won't find anywhere else. You can sign up today at biggerpockets.com slash email dash subscribe. That's biggerpockets.com slash email dash subscribe.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Bigger Pockets podcast and we'll catch you on the next episode. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K, copywriting is by Calico content, and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter,

please visit www.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. BiggerPockets LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.