BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - Making $30,000/Month (Per Property) with Assisted Living Rentals
Episode Date: August 4, 2025This investor generates $30,000 per month in rental income from a single property. It’s not a short-term rental, or a beachside Airbnb, or anything even close to that. Within a couple of years of st...arting to scale, James Davis has a rental portfolio on track to gross $1,000,000 per year in rents, from just six properties. The best part? He’s not even doing it for the money. His investments are making lives better while securing him financial freedom. You may have heard of assisted living before, but probably not like this. While many assisted living facilities focus on older adults, James owns small assisted living properties that cater to individuals with disabilities. After taking on two traditional real estate deals, James’s brother, who worked in disability services, thought they could be treating residents better. So, they converted one of James’s properties into a compliant assisted living facility. They got their first monthly tenant—the rent: $15,000 per month for one bedroom. Sounds steep, right? James walks through the entire expenses and profit margins to prove that the caregiving business may be worthwhile, even just for the emotional benefits. Now, he has six properties and has already pulled in $500,000 just halfway through the year. Follow the same steps James shares in this episode, and your portfolio could grow just as fast. In This Episode We Cover How James went from making $16/hour to bringing in $1,000,000/year in rents How much assisted living investment properties make (cash flow!) Locking down a 3.5% interest rate using the creative “subject to” strategy The process of becoming legally compliant for running an assisted living property Why James still buys long-term rentals instead of more assisted living properties And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1156 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email advertise@biggerpockets.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
This investor makes $30,000 per property per month with assisted living rentals.
Is there really no cash flow available for real estate investors these days?
Or do you just need to get more creative?
Instead of making excuses during a challenging market,
today's guest found a formula that tripled his monthly revenue.
And now he's repeating it over and over to grow his portfolio and advance towards financial freedom.
Hey everyone, it's Dave, head of real estate investing at Bigger Pockets, and I've been buying
rental properties for more than 15 years. Today, I am joined on the show by an investor, James Davis,
from Salt Lake City, Utah. And James started his investing career with just $15,000 in savings
and was willing to do anything, including living without a toilet for three months just to make
his first deal work. Now, just six years later, he owns six,
properties and is on pace to gross more than $1 million in revenue this year.
James has done this by adopting the increasingly popular assisted living real estate strategy.
Basically, what he does is provide a needed service to people in his community.
And by doing that, he can generate up to $15,000 in revenue from just a single bedroom
in a house that would normally rent for just $2,000.
This approach is definitely an active strategy, and so it's not going to be for everyone.
But if you're willing to hustle as much as James has, you can radically transform your financial
situation in just a couple of years.
Keep listening and hear how he's doing it.
James, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast.
Thanks for being here.
Thanks for having me.
So how long have you been investing or involved in real estate, James?
I got my first property.
It was September of 2019.
So it'd be almost six years ago.
Nice.
Okay.
And can I ask why?
What brought you into the world of real estate?
So I've always loved watching you guys.
I've always, I really liked Graham Steffin and meet Kevin online.
Sure, yeah.
Growing up in high school, I watched those channels.
So I think I always wanted to be invested in real estate.
It was just a question of when.
And when I was 18, I actually moved out of my parents' place and I was a live-in aide at a nursing home.
So what it looked like is I didn't have to pay any rent.
I got to live there.
I took care of this guy.
He was a Vietnam War veteran and I took care of him.
He paid for my food and housing and I didn't have to pay anything, which was really nice.
So it was a really good setup.
And my uncle reached out to me.
He was a real estate agent and he was like, hey, I have this property that I think you should invest it.
And in my mind, I was like, oh, I don't pay any rent.
I could live here for a while.
Like, I'll just save more money.
I don't need to buy a property right now.
And that was like July of 2019.
So he was suggesting like, hey, just use your savings, you'll have a down payment.
It was like a house hack situation where I'd live in the basement and it had a separate entrance
and then I'd rent out the upstairs.
But it would be like $15,000, which was like everything I had.
So I decided, okay, yeah, I want to take this on.
That was July, August of 2019.
And it was actually a seller finance.
Oh, cool.
And this is my uncle setting it all up.
I had no idea any of real estate contracts or anything how that worked.
And I had just graduated high.
school. It sounds like you walked into an interesting opportunity with your uncle. So he came up with
this house hack. I'm curious, which is a great way to get started, especially in 2019. I'm sure it worked
out well. But did you look at other deals or were you kind of just trusting your uncle? Like this
one that he's proposing to me, seller financing, you know, like this is a good deal. Yeah, I didn't
look at anything else. I had I had complete trust in him. And I looking back, I'm like, wow, I was
lucky and I'm fortunate that I had someone in my life that cared about me and didn't take
advantage of me because he totally could have. Sure, yeah. But so was it like in a neighborhood
you like? Did you know where it was or you're just kind of like moving into a house
blindly based on your uncle's recommendation? When I went to the neighborhood, of course,
it wasn't the most expensive side of town, but it wasn't terrible either. We call it West Valley
over here. Okay, cool. And so you find this house hack, you got to put 15 grand in.
That's all of your life savings at this point.
But you're moving from what was your job, right?
Because living with this veteran you were living with was kind of how you're getting income.
So did you have a new plan for how you were going to make your mortgage payments or were you living for free?
At the time, I was making $16 an hour at a call center.
Oh, wow.
And then you were doing DIY renovations to it at the same time.
Oh, yeah.
And this is at the time where I had no idea what I was doing either.
And what I had done is I lived in the basement.
It had that separate entrance.
There was no kitchen, not even a bathroom down there.
And then I rented the upstairs right away.
Okay.
But how did you go to the bathroom?
It was funny.
I had a gym membership.
And I had to strategically do that.
And I worked downtown at the call center.
So I would go to the gym, not to work out or anything.
I would just go there to take a shower.
Just use a shower.
And then do everything and then go to work.
that way. Oh, wow. I didn't have a toilet for three months. Oh, my God. I was, yeah. Yeah, I just,
I didn't have a toilet. I didn't have a shower and it was, that was my first goal was to try to get that.
Well, I imagine that's pretty motivating for what you're doing your DIY. It's like, I got to
build myself a toilet at least. And then on top of that, so I had the down payment for 15 and I knew
I needed about 15 or so in work. And I ended up spending about $12,000 on the renovations because I did
all of it on my own. And how did you pay for that? Was that just more savings or your income from your
job? It was my income for my job. So every paycheck, I just threw it at Home Depot, basically,
going and getting materials and doing everything. Of course, I knew how to do something, but then I had
to wait until I could buy what I needed to buy, which was really tough, especially with like the
mental load of the balloon payment coming due. For sure. Because my uncle was like, hey, if you don't
finish it. In a year, it's due. And if it doesn't appraise, then you can't keep the house,
basically. So just so everyone understands, sometimes when you do a seller finance deal, the seller will
say, hey, yeah, I'll float you for a year, but I'm not going to amortize this loan over 30 years,
like a bank. They're basically like, I'll give you a year to figure this out. But in a year,
you owe me all your money. And that's sort of in the form of a balloon payment. And so what James was
facing is that in a year, he had to figure out a way to refinance, or I guess the seller could
technically foreclose on you, right, or try to take the property back. But you're also dealing
with this thing. Like, you want to go quickly to renovate so you can refinance, but you're using
money from your call center job to pay for that. So how long did it actually wound up taking
you before you could complete the renovation and get that refi? It took me eight months. And I think
it probably would have gotten done or two, and two, maybe, if I had the money right away. But I had
to do it just paycheck by paycheck. I added a kitchen down there. I added a bathroom. I did all the
plumbing, the electrical, everything. And you taught yourself all that. Yeah. There's a really good
book. I think it's called like Home Improvement, One, Two, Three. It's something from Home Depot,
actually. My uncle recommended it and I read it. And it does like, it shows like all the basic stuff
if you didn't want to go through YouTube. But I used YouTube a ton. And even though it was really hard,
I remember being very happy at the time
and just being like, I know that this will like
help me in the future.
I just got to get it done, put my head down
and work on it.
I didn't even have a bed.
I had a sleeping bag that I was sleeping on.
There was no floor ink.
It was a concrete floor.
And it was just,
I was the definition of house poor at the time.
Good for you, man.
I mean, that is an unbelievable amount of hustle
to get it done.
Like you just found an incredibly creative way.
to get into your first deal and worked your butt off and personal sacrifice for eight full months,
basically, to be able to do that.
Not everyone's going to do it that way, but kudos to you, man.
I mean, you took responsibility and you worked your butt off to be able to do that.
And hopefully it worked out for you financially when you were done with the renovation.
Like, what did you have?
Because you had the unit upstairs now.
So, like, what did the final product look like when you went to apply for the refi?
I had an appraiser come in for the refinance, and they appraised it the 285, which means the loan to value was 80%, I think.
Nice.
So my mortgage was 220, which means I didn't have PMI, and I got a 375 interest rate.
Wow. That must have felt good.
Yeah, it did. And it was June of 2020 when I closed on the refinance.
So I was able to lock in that rate for the 30 years on a conventional loan instead of an
FHA and my payment ended up being 1,300 with the PITI. And how much rent were you getting upstairs?
So during the renovations, I charged 1100, but afterwards I was able to do 1,300.
Woo! Amazing. The rent covered my mortgage payment. So after obviously, eight months of incredibly
hard work and sacrifice, you were able to essentially live for free. Now, your upstairs tenant is
paying your principal, your interest, your taxes, and your insurance. So,
pretty much your biggest costs. I'm sure there were still repairs and other costs, but given that you
just did a big renovation, like at least the basement unit was probably in pretty good shape. And so
that's just a home run deal. It's incredible. I hope you still have that 3.85% interest rate on that
deal. Yeah, I do. And it's still doing really well. And just recently, a price for 440. Okay. Congratulations.
Just want to say, like this just seems like an absolute home run deal. Congratulations on putting in the
effort at the time getting creative and figuring this out. I want to hear where this first deal has
taken you and how you went from living without a toilet for three months to now running a
multi-million dollar real estate business in just the span of a couple of years. But first we've
got to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Managing rentals shouldn't be stressful. That's
why landlords love rent ready. You can get rent in your account in just two days, which means
faster cash flow and less waiting.
Do you need to message a tenant?
You can chat instantly in-app
so you have no more lost emails or texts.
Plus, you can schedule maintenance repairs
in just a few taps so you're not stuck playing phone tag.
Are you ready to simplify your rentals?
Get six months of rent-ready for just $1 using promo code BP 2025.
Sign up in the link in our bio
because the best landlords are using rent-ready.
What if I told you you could forget
everything you know about investment property loans.
Because host financial is rewriting the rulebook, tossing out those pesky DTI restrictions.
They focus on your property's income potential.
No tax returns or personal income statements needed.
Simple, efficient, and tailored for investors like you.
Imagine a lender that sees the gold mine in your property, not just the numbers on your paycheck.
That's the host financial difference.
And they're approved in 47 different states, so your next big deal could be just around the corner.
Ready to unlock your property's true potential?
visit hostfinancial.com. Don't let old school lending hold you back another day. That's hostfinancial.com.
For decades, real estate has been a cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios. But it's also
historically been sort of complex, time consuming, and expensive. But imagine if real estate investing
was suddenly easy, all the benefits of owning real, tangible assets without the complexity and expense.
That's the power of the Fundrise flagship fund. Now you can invest in a $1.1 billion portfolio
of real estate, starting with as little as $10.
The portfolio features 4,700
a single-family rental homes spread across the booming sunbelt.
They also have 3.3 million square feet
of highly sought after industrial facilities
thanks to the e-commerce wave.
The flagship fund is one of the largest of its kind.
It's well diversified, and it's managed by a team of professionals.
And it's now available to you.
Visit fundrise.com slash BP Market to explore the fund's full portfolio,
check out historical returns, and start investing in just minutes.
Carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses of the Fundrise Flagship Fund
Fund.
This and other information can be found in the fund's prospectus at fundrise.com slash flagship.
This is a paid advertisement.
Running your real estate business doesn't have to feel like juggling five different tools,
and the tools are blades or flaming torches.
With ReSimple, you can pull motivated seller lists, skip trace them instantly, for free,
and reach out with calls or texts, all from one streamlined platform.
The real magic?
AI agents that answer inbound calls, follow up with prospects,
and even grade your conversations so you need.
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 re-simple.com
slash bigger pockets. That's R-E-S-I-M-P-L-I-com slash bigger pockets.
A lot of property managers think their job is answering tenant emails and coordinating repairs.
That's not the job. The job of a property manager is protecting and growing your operating
income and earning your trust while they do it. And that comes down to.
to three numbers, occupancy, delinquency, and net promoter score.
If those numbers slip, your income slips, and your trust slips too.
And most PMs don't hold themselves to performance standards.
They focus on activity, not outcomes.
Mind is different.
They obsess over the metrics that actually grow your cash flow.
Go to mine.co slash show me to see how mine performs and get a month of management for free.
Because if you're going to hire a property manager,
hire one that manages your investment like an investment.
Welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast.
I'm here with investor James Davis.
We heard about this amazing house hack he did in Salt Lake City back in 2019.
James, after you pulled off this incredible effort of hustle and creativity, what did you do from there?
Yeah, so actually, January of 2021, I left and I served a, it was a mission for my church.
So I left and I was living in the Detroit area for two years.
Okay.
So I had family that actually lived in the property and they took care of it while I was gone while I was there in Detroit.
And if anyone knows what a mission is like, you don't really have access to like technology or what's going on in the world.
But when I came back two years later, I saw that real estate values had doubled in my area.
So my mortgage was around 220.
But yeah, it was around the $400,000 range that it was worth.
So I came back February of 2023 and taking the advice from what I've heard from Bigger Pock and the other real estate investors, I went and I applied for a HELOC.
So I got my HELOC approved for $100,000 June of 2023.
And then this wholesaler sent me this deal, September of 2023 for this single family property that was in that needed a lot of work.
but it was a sub two deal.
Okay.
So the seller didn't have any equity.
They bought it back in 2021, but they had two loans on it.
So it was the original mortgage plus they got a loan on their down payment.
It wasn't a pre-foreclosure, but it was getting close to that.
And how do you approach that?
When you see a situation like this, like how do you structure a deal that makes sense for you
and hopefully for the family that you're taking the mortgage over for as well?
For this one, what we did, we backpaid all those mortgage payments.
payments. So I made sure everything was current. And then they got $5,000 to on top of that.
Okay. So instead of having to come out of pocket, they got $5,000. And I paid for all the closing
costs too and the wholesale fee too. So and it's good for them because they're in this situation.
If they tried to sell with an agent, they would have to fix up the property. They'd have to deal with
all that. And it would be like a several month ordeal probably. And probably a 6% commission.
Absolutely. So with a sub two, they don't have to do that. And that's kind of the selling point, because a lot of people don't know about it, especially the sellers. So when you're trying to talk to sellers about sub two, you have to say, hey, you get equity. Like you get paid to get out of this and you don't have to deal with the payment anymore. And then if I don't make the payment, you can have the place back. And all the payments I've made, you can have that too. So that's how I've structured it. And I think also key is,
is having a really good title company that's dealt with it before.
And you can reach out to title companies and say,
hey, have you ever done sub two deals?
Like, have you ever done seller financing?
This is what I'm wanting to do.
Have you guys had experience with that?
And there's definitely escrow officers that have more experience than others.
So having those people with experience is, I think, really key.
For sure, yeah.
I mean, that's really good advice.
Because with subject too, right, there are risks to both the seller and the buyer, right?
Like for a buyer, there is a risk that the bank could call the note due.
What are the risks to the seller, I guess?
Maybe I should ask you.
Yeah, the risk to the seller is it's still on their credit.
So like the loan is still there.
So if I don't make the payment, it could affect them still.
So if someone pulls their credit, they still have to explain, hey, this is a mortgage that yes, is under my name, but it's a sub-toe.
And they have to prove that if they were trying to get loans in the future.
So there are downsides in that way.
But I think the pros outweigh the cons where they can.
get out of a situation that they really don't want to be in anymore.
Yeah.
And they can get paid to be able to get out of it, which is nice because sometimes with
properties that need a lot of work, you almost feel like you're taking advantage of people
when you buy them.
And I hate feeling that way.
I hate feeling like I'm taking advantage of someone's suffering.
But with sub two, I feel like you're offering a solution for a really tough situation
that they're in.
And you're giving them a way out that's creative that, yes, there are risks, but I got
their interest rate, which is three and a half percent in 2023.
I think subject to is sort of a controversial thing.
I think as long as you understand the risks and sort of go into it with the mentality
that James has where you are trying to genuinely help someone and create mutual benefit,
as long as you understand the risk, work with professionals, as James said, like work with
people who really understand this and go in it with an approach of trying to find mutual benefit.
It is a worthwhile strategy for a lot of people to consider.
make sure that you're not breaking any laws, doing anything the thing right. But, you know,
assuming that you can do it right, like you said, you can help someone out and you can get an
interest rate that's a fraction of what you would get today if you were just to go get a new
mortgage. Absolutely. And with this one specifically, we had reached out to the mortgage company
and said, hey, this is what we want to do. And oh, that's great. Hey, it's either you have a foreclosure
or we make the payments. And they said, okay, yeah, we do need to call the loan due, but we'll delay it.
So they agreed, hey, we're going to delay 18 months.
If the payments are current after a year, you guys can assume the loan.
Okay, that's a great way to do it.
Yeah.
But of course, that was with the mortgage company agreeing to it and being kind enough to delay it.
But it was in their best interest, too.
That's a great way to do it.
And definitely appreciate you, you know, really doting all the eyes, crossing all your T's
and doing this the right way.
When you were talking to some of these wholesalers, were you intentionally looking for
sub two or did you just kind of like come into this deal and then figured out sub two after?
I was looking for seller finances, but with the interest rates being higher, it was tough to find
a deal that I could cash flow with the numbers because I was wanting to buy and hold and doing
the long term. And that was my idea back then was to buy the long term rental real estate,
but the numbers just couldn't make sense. So I came across sub two and it kind of came to me,
I guess, with that first deal as an option.
Well, you've proven yourself, James, to be a very creative and hardworking guy,
just from the first two deals that you've told us about.
I want to hear more about how you've scaled because I understand that you've really grown
a massive real estate business in the last couple of years.
But we do have to take one more break.
We'll be right back.
For decades, real estate has been a cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios.
But it's also historically been sort of complex, time-consuming.
and expensive. But imagine if real estate investing was suddenly easy, all the benefits of owning
real, tangible assets without the complexity and expense. That's the power of the Funrise Flagship Fund.
Now you can invest in a $1.1 billion portfolio of real estate, starting with as little as $10.
The portfolio features $4,700, a single-family rental homes spread across the booming sunbelt.
They also have 3.3 million square feet of highly sought after industrial facilities, thanks to the e-commerce
wave.
is one of the largest of its kind. It's well diversified, and it's managed by a team of professionals.
And it's now available to you. Visit fundrise.com slash BP Market to explore the fund's full
portfolio, check out historical returns, and start investing in just minutes.
Carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses of the Fundrise
Flagship Fund. This and other information can be found in the funds prospectus at
fundrise.com slash flagship. This is a paid advertisement.
What if your CRM actually did the hard work for you? I know, crazy.
Reis simply lets you pull seller lists.
skip trace them at no cost, and contact your leads by call or text without bouncing between apps.
Then it's AI agents takeover.
Answering calls, following up automatically, even grading your conversations so you can focus on the deals that matter.
Everything's under one roof.
Design to simplify your day and scale your business.
Start your free trial today and lock in 50% off your first month at reSimple.com
slash bigger pockets.
That's R-E-S-I-M-P-L-I-D-com slash bigger pockets.
You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday.
How can you find amazing candidates fast?
Easy.
Just use Indeed.
When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need.
That means you can stop struggling to get your job notice on other job sites.
Indeed, sponsored job posts help you stand out and hire the right people quickly.
Your job post jumps straight to the top of the page where your ideal candidates are looking.
And it works.
Sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored post.
The best part, no monthly subscriptions or long-term contracts.
You only pay for results.
And speaking of results, in the minute I've been talking to you,
23 people just got hired through Indeed worldwide.
There's no need to wait any longer.
Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed.
And listeners of the show will get a $75-sponsored job credit
to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash rookie.
Just go to Indeed.com slash rookie right now
and support our show by saying you heard.
heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's Indeed.com slash rookie. Terms and conditions apply.
Hiring Indeed is all you need. Managing properties can feel like a full-on circus. You're juggling
vendors, tracking payments, chasing approvals across multiple properties, and maybe a few
HOAs, all while trying to keep tenants happy and owners confident. One delay can throw everything off,
and suddenly your day is all clean up, no progress. That's why hundreds of property managers
rely on bill to streamline their finances. Bill for property management lets you add all your
properties, assign permissions, pay bills, and receive payments quickly and efficiently, without the
usual bottlenecks. It syncs with platforms like QuickBooks, Zero, NetSuite, and Sage intact,
so your accounting stays aligned. You can automate bulk payments across properties and
HOAs, choose flexible payment methods like Same Day ACH, International Wires, Card, or Check, and set
custom roles in approval policies. There's even a dedicated bill inbox for each property to keep
everything organized. Ready to simplify your workflow, book your free demo at bill.com slash bigger pockets,
and get a $100 Amazon gift card. That's bill.com slash bigger pockets. Real estate investors,
the April 15th tax deadline is coming fast. If you own rental property and haven't done a
cost segregation study yet, you could be handing thousands of dollars to the IRS that you don't have to.
These studies let you write off as much as 25% of your building and generate huge tax deductions.
Costsegregation.com is an online self-guided software that makes cost segregation fast and affordable.
So it finally makes sense for smaller rental properties purchased for as low as $100,000.
With pricing under $500 and an average savings of over $25,000, it's just a no-brainer.
What's more, audit support is included by the number one cost segregation company.
in the U.S., but you must complete it before the tax deadline.
Go to costsegregation.com and use code tax deadline to get 10% off your first report.
Don't overpay the IRS.
Head to costsegregation.com before April 15th.
Welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast.
I'm here with investor James Davis.
James, it sounds like, you know, you did your first house hack, you did this sub two deal,
but since then, in the last two years or so, you've really scaled your business.
What have you been up to more recently?
So my brother reached out to me. He was working for a company that did residential and disability services. There's assisted living for older people, but then there's assisted living for different categories of people, too. We went into the realm of assisted living for people with disabilities that are any age. So my brother reached out saying, hey, I work for this company. And one, he didn't really like how it was being run. He was really passionate about the mission where it's like, hey, we need housing for people.
disabilities. Of course, there's a business side of it. Sure. But you should look at this. So he sent me
what it could look like in the whole licensing process. And I reviewed it with him. And it would be
really expensive because one, you have to have the long period of time without a tenant at all where
they do tons of inspections and licensing process. And then we have to do so much paperwork. And you
already have to own the property at that point, right? Exactly. So you're just sitting on a mortgage
and insurance and taxes while you're working with, I assume, the government, state, local
government to figure this out. Oh, yeah. So we're sitting on it and it's more like I'm sitting on it.
And we're doing the licensing process. And we started that around like July, August of 2023.
So it was actually before I bought the second property when we started. And it took eight months
for the whole licensing process where we had to do all the paperwork. And then we finally got approved
okay, you're allowed to provide services for these types of people.
Okay.
But in this industry, at least in the state of Utah, the way it's set up, it's, it's similar
to like being a real estate agent where you have to fight for clients and like really show
that you can take care of them.
Me and my brother actually, after we got the license and we were finally legal to have
clients, we got the list of all the caseworkers in the state of Utah and called every
single one of them.
And it was like 400 called everyone.
We're like, hey, we're a newly licensed provider.
If you have a resident, we're ready to take them right away.
And of that entire list, we got one person.
Oh, my God.
So we found a client that toured the place and was like, okay, yeah, I want to live here.
And that was our very first one.
And at that point, my HELOC was at like $50,000.
And me, my wife, and my brother were all working full time.
And we all took shifts.
I'm taking care of this person.
Oh my gosh.
So it's really like one to one care.
Oh, yeah.
So it was 24-7.
Someone had to be there 24-7.
So we just took care of them.
It's similar to having kind of like an infant
where they just need that level of supervision.
The good thing is the revenue was closer to like $15,000 a month,
just from this one person.
15,000 a month.
And they're living in one bedroom in your facility?
Yep, just one bedroom.
And we were approved for up.
to three. Okay. So that was the first one and we took shifts and we didn't hire anyone because we
really wanted to pay down our debt that we had accrued. Yeah. Just from the vacancy and then from the
renovations too. So we did that for about five or six months, just literally taking 10, 12 hour shifts
back and forth while we were all working and we just had to work it around our schedules. But after that,
we started hiring people and it made it a little bit easier.
I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of people listening to this thinking, 15 grand a month,
maybe you can get three tenants at once.
It's 45 grand a month.
That's an incredible amount of money.
Tell us just a little bit about the economics about this because first,
are there other expenses like, you know, I assume there's a lot of insurance and stuff
that on top of just labor costs that's a lot more expensive as well.
Oh yeah.
You have to have the highest level of insurance for this industry.
Like you're taking care of people.
So if something goes wrong, the state requires us to be covered.
So the insurance requirements are really high.
So we pay, it's about $1,000 a month, just in insurance.
The good thing is, is that as you get more clients, that number kind of stays the same.
Okay.
For insurance cost.
But when you only have one, it does feel like it's a lot, too.
For a $15,000 client, you are looking after all of the expenses, probably like $10,000 or $11,000 a month in expenses.
But you're probably cash filling three or $4,000 per person that's living there.
Wow.
And just as you scale up, I assume you got more residents over time.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, we have a lot more now.
So we only had that one for like five months.
But then as we were doing well, the caseworkers, I guess, noticed and they sent us a little bit more.
So right now we're at 13.
13 residents across how many properties?
So we have four properties right now that are active where we have residents there.
Wow.
So there's residential care, which is that type of assisted living.
But then there's something called supported living where they live in a home and then
there's a staff that comes and takes care of them.
So we have six clients that are residential.
Then we have the rest that are supported living.
So they're not involved in our real estate portfolio.
They're like their business.
So how big is this business grow?
Like what is your revenue now?
Yeah.
So this year we're set to do $1 million.
in revenue, maybe even 1.1 million, depending on how things go.
Wow.
And then net out of that, we should be getting at least $200,000 this year.
So right at about a 20% margin.
That's amazing.
Obviously, you know, created a business that you can, I would assume, comfortably live
on it.
I don't know your living expenses, but based on the stories you've told me, I assume that
you can comfortably live off of that.
Can you break that down just like, how many units is that?
like how many properties across?
I guess it comes out.
It's about $83,000 a month that we're getting a total.
For the real estate side of things,
it's about $70,000 of our revenue is coming just from the properties that we have.
So we have four functioning properties.
Two of them, it's about like $25,000 to $30,000 a month
because there's about two residents in each one.
And their funding is a little bit different.
Like it's not always 15.
15 is kind of on the higher end.
if they need a lot of staffing.
Okay.
So for the first two properties, there's $25,000 to $30,000 a month.
And then on the other two, they're like just one or two bedroom condos.
And those pull in $6,000 a month each.
And then the remaining revenue is from sort of the staffing that you do in other people's properties?
Yeah, exactly.
So that would be non-real estate related revenue.
Very cool.
Yeah.
I'm curious if you have any advice for our audience here,
because I assume a lot of people are hearing your growth trajectory, your revenue, your profit margin, all super impressive.
But you're also running a more sophisticated business that's more complicated than buying just a regular rental property.
And you're taking care of people.
Like, this is a super important role that you are playing.
So what kind of investor, what kind of person do you think could succeed with a strategy like yours?
I think if someone wants to have a choice of how they make their money and they still care about it.
about people because it is caregiving in a way where you still have to care about the people.
It's not all about the money even though we wouldn't be able to do it if there wasn't any money.
But you do need to care about the people and if you do care about people, you have a way to take care of people and meet your needs.
And it's incredibly satisfying.
Like I remember working at my job and I hated getting up in the morning.
I hated like going to work.
I hated like having a boss telling me what to do.
I hated having to beg someone for time off and saying, like, hey, I want to go do this
or like feeling sick and still feeling the need to go to work because you have to suck up to
somebody.
So like someone that doesn't like being an employee, and I hate being an employee.
Like I hate and I think I'm a bad employee because of that.
Like I just, I don't think I'm good at listening to other people.
Well, that's kind of what I was saying at the beginning.
Like, you clearly have this entrepreneurial spirit, even in high school.
If you're selling stuff on email, like there's something.
Like there's something about you that wants to take your financial future into your own hands.
Oh, yeah.
And I feel like a lot of people feel that way.
It's just they don't have a vehicle to realize that dream.
And this is a way to do that where you can use real estate.
And I love real estate and a way to fund my lifestyle too and be able to meet my needs
and my family's needs while meeting other people's needs too.
Yeah, I love that mutually beneficial approach.
thinking about, you know, creating a business that obviously works for you and your family,
but provides value to the people that you are serving at the same time.
You've obviously, James, accomplished a lot in just a couple of years.
It's amazing.
What are your goals from here?
Yeah, I think we're kind of on the upper end of where we want to be, at least on the
business side.
We might get another property or two because right now we have six.
And it was really easy to scale and buy more properties when you just have a lot of money
coming in. And we didn't get paid for a really long time because we would just put that money
towards down payments and doing more subject twos and doing that. But I think what we would want to do
is buy a couple more properties, but we'd still love to have the long-term rental real estate too.
Because I do like the idea of having a tenant that only bothers you every once in a while instead
of every day. And you have someone that is really high maintenance. Like even though there's more
revenue on this side of things, it is nice to have some things really stable, which is what
long-term rentals are. So we want to use the revenue that we're getting and the profit to
have higher down payments and just buy really good cash flowing real estate.
Makes sense. Yeah, just balance out the portfolio. A little bit higher revenue, higher work.
Some is a little bit lower revenue, but lower work. Building like a sort of a portfolio of
different properties that have different values, different purposes in your portfolio is I think
where most real estate investors want to get. So thank you, James, for sharing that with us.
And thank you so much for being here and for sharing your story with us. It was really interesting
to hear. And I'm sure our audience got a lot out of it. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me on.
And thank you all so much for listening to this episode of the Bigger Pockets podcast. We appreciate
you being here. And we'll see you for another episode in just another couple of days. We'll see you then.
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 Calicoke.
And editing is by Exodus Media.
If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter,
please visit www.w.w.w.w.com.
The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only.
All host and participant opinions are their own.
Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk.
So use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing.
You should only risk capital you can afford to lose.
And remember, past performance is not indicative of future results.
Bigger Pocket's LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.
