BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - The Simple Systems Behind a 150-Unit Rental Portfolio (8-Hour Workweeks!)

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

When the dot-com bubble burst, Matt (the “Lumberjack Landlord”) watched his 100% stock portfolio go to dust. Having lost everything he had saved throughout his early twenties, his only option was to rebuild. But with what? He needed something that could help him offset his living expenses today and propel him toward retirement. That “something” was rentals. But Matt didn’t just buy a couple of rental properties and sit back. He did what many investors won’t: he house hacked. And again. And again. Nine times in 13 years. This, combined with the income from his nine-to-five job, allowed him to stack small multifamily properties quickly, and today, he owns a rental portfolio of over 150 units! Real estate investing has completely changed Matt’s life—not just the cash flow or the appreciation, but the freedom he’s already enjoying in early retirement. Despite self-managing all of their rentals, he and his wife spend just eight hours per week on their portfolio. In this episode, he’s giving you the simple framework you need to scale sustainably, whether you dream of owning a handful of rental units or a few hundred. Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠h⁠⁠t⁠t⁠ps://www⁠.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1300⁠. 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

Imagine waking up to discover that the wealth you spent years building is gone. That's exactly what happened to Matt. Well, the dot-com crash wiped out his 100% stock portfolio overnight. He was left asking, what now? How do you rebuild from zero? For Matt, the answer was real estate. But to keep his dream of early retirement alive, he'd have to make up for lost time. And he did.

One property snowballed into a few. A few turned into dozens. And today, Matt, known as the Lumberjack landlord, is retired in his 40s with more than 150 rental units. Many investors spend a lifetime getting to where Matt is. So what's his big secret? In this episode, he's going to share his exact playbook for scaling with small multifamily, including the systems and processes he uses to self-manage his really large rental portfolio, and he does it in just eight hours a week. So whether you're starting small, starting late, or starting over,

Matt is proof that financial freedom is never too far out of reach, and if you mimic what he did, it's probably much closer than you think. Hey, everyone, I'm Dave Meyer, joined as always by my co-host, Henry Washington. Our guest in the show today is Matt, the lumberjack landlord, who self-manages a rental property portfolio in New Hampshire.

Let's bring them on. Matt, welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast. It's great to have you here again. Super excited to be back, and now we brought friends. What's up, buddy? Yeah, this is going to be great. I'm glad we're all here together. Matt, you had a very fun first episode here on Bigger Pockets podcast,

but for people who didn't catch that one, maybe just give us a little bit of your background, who you are, how you got into real estate? you know, I lost, I lost my money in the dot-com bomb in the early 2000s. For a 20-year-old, I'd saved up a lot of money. It saved up like $27,000 at $20. Damn. You know, that was a lot of money.

And it was because I lived on almost nothing. And all I did was tuck it away and put the money away. And so I did that. And I was rewarded with two companies that got hush numbers. And I watched the, then one was found for fraud. And I watched my $27,000 largely evaporate. Man. You know, then started the search for what's the,

the next thing I'm going to do. And, you know, where can you get an asset that you can also live in? It also pays you to live in it. And by the way, it also appreciates overtime as well. I can't think of anything else like that. I did nine house hacks in 13 years. Then my wife finally said no more. So you weren't doing real estate.

You were just like house hacking, but you were working. Yeah, I worked a W-2 job until two years ago when I retired. That's awesome. I could have retired 10 years ago. but it was how big did I want to make this? And so I said, you know, I'm in the prime earning years of my career. I was in my late 30s, early 40s. I'd gotten to the executive level.

And so I said, you know what, let's just keep on rolling. And so that's what I did. But now fast forward, we range between kind of 52 and 55 buildings. What I like to say is over the last three years, we've been a net ad investor, meaning that we always are trading out of assets, but we always add more. Why haven't you bought bigger commercial or anything like that? I think we all see how commercial is going for all the big boys. It's really tough to re-steer a battleship of 180 units versus a building that's no longer

working anymore than might be 3, 4, 610 or 2-4-6-10. If I don't like an asset, how hard is it for me to sell that? I can sell it like that. I can wholesale it off if I want to or I can call a broker. I can get it on. And it's something that most likely with Fannie Freddie, it's easier now than it's ever been for people to do owner-rock deals. You can get 5% money on a 3-unit or 5% money on a 4-unit.

I was not that lucky. I was having to put 20% down moving into those things. One of the cool parts about real estate is you can invest to your level of risk tolerance. Yes. And everybody's risk tolerance is different. I have a very similar risk tolerance to you. It sounds like I play in the single and small multifamily space. There are some warm, fuzzy reasons why I play in that space, but there's really a managing

risk factor about why I play in that space because, A, I don't want to raise a bunch of people's capital because I would lose sleep. That's just not, I just can't. Thinking about that gives me stress. And so I can use my own money or maybe one private lender, you know, to do a deal. I'll have multiple exit strategies on a deal because I'm going to buy a really good deal and being able to pivot is important. But I think people talk about, you know, investing to your risk tolerance when you're like researching and getting started. But then once you get in, that kind of goes away

and everybody's like more, do more, buy more, do the bigger. It's the same level of effort for bigger than it is for smaller. You should do bigger, right? Like the voice of the investor changes than when you you got started. And I kind of got caught up in that. And we've made some pivot since then and I've sold some assets. And I'm, I'm in a much happier place with a more manageable size portfolio that has options instead of, you know, large-scale multifamily. You got one, you got one exit, buddy. Right? Like, you got to get that thing to perform or you're in trouble. The cool thing is, is that with small multifamily and Henry, you know, especially a duplex, I can put that on the market. It can be an investor. It can be a house hacker. It can be. It can be.

like a mother-in-law, it can be multi-generational. It can be all of these things, right? And so when you look at the grand scheme of things, people say, oh, real estate isn't liquid. Oh, yeah. Put a duplex on the market well priced and see how fast it lasts. Right. Even now, even in a sell market. Yeah. No problem. We're going to do a 1031 and I've been shopping and there have been in the last 40 days, there have been 40 buildings go on market and 37 are under contract. Guess what the other three are overpriced. I just put a duplex on the, market. I got six offers. Yeah. First weekend. Yeah, I think that small multifamily, and that doesn't mean buying in bad areas. You know, my focus is still, you know, buying in B and C class areas and making

A and B class product. That's the goal. The other thing that residential doesn't have when we're talking about risk is, and I think what most syndicators who are losing their shirts right now, I think what a lot of people got wrong is they misunderstood supply risk. Like, everyone's like, oh, the debt's better, But with small multifamily, with residential, the idea that a builder is going to come in and totally change how much supplies in your market, it's just not a risk. Like, it's not going to happen. In multifamily, if builders all of a sudden get excited about your market, you have no control over what other people are doing.

They could all start building right next to you and totally diminish the value of your product. You're dead on. I mean, in my market, there are 700 new apartments coming online in the next two years. and this is an area of about 70,000 people. That is a lot of supply. And so the cool thing is, is we're going to leave it to all those guys to fight it out and fight over the nice, shiny quarters

and the people that are 800 credit scores. I'm just taking the people that need a place to live that are working for a living that I can rent out for less than what they can rent out because my debt is much different than theirs. Yep. So people should be excited. Yeah, the first five years is awful.

The next five years, it gets a little bit better. The next five years, you really start to getting to enjoy the fruits of your labor over a 10-year period. You really start to see significant returns in a normal market. All right. Well, clearly Matt has proven that you can scale successfully with just using residential, small multifamily, single-family homes. Clearly, Henry has two that you can absolutely do this. But I want to learn exactly how you're doing this, Matt, because that's a lot of units that you're managing. And I'm sure audience would love to learn how you're doing it. Stick with us. We'll be right back. Some listeners may wonder why their insurance quote only took 30 seconds. Some listeners may wonder why their insurance quote took 30 seconds. A better question is, how long will that policy actually hold up when you need it?

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rates as low as 3.75%. They've partnered with bigger pockets for over a decade, helping thousands invest smarter. If you want to do the same, visit biggerpockets.com slash retirement to learn more. Welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast. I'm here with Henry and the lumberjack landlord talking about how he has scaled up very successfully just using residential real estate. Matt, how do you do it? You self-manage, right? All 150-ish units you got?

Yep. Yeah, we self-manage. So the first 120 I managed while I had a career in tech. And when you say we... My wife and I. Okay. Yeah, just the two of you. Wow.

How on earth did you do that? Systems and processes. They can completely change the complexion of your business. So for us, everything was very templatized. Our kitchens, our colors, our management process, our application process, our go-to-market process on a unit, how we draft our ads, you know, how we screen tenants. Everything became very templatized, which meant for us it was very, very very, very easy to scale because now it was just wasn't about acquiring another asset or another building

and then saying we better figure all this out. No, it was acquiring the asset and acquiring the building and I use asset and building interchangeably. But it was about acquiring it and then saying, all right, we just snap it in. Here's our processes. Here's all the things that we do when we buy something. Here's all the things that we do. We're getting something to bring to market. And now that's something that we can do in, you know, 15 to 30 days after acquisition if, for example, we're buying something that's vacant. Right. For the person that's listening who wants to manage their properties on the road and start to build some of these systems and processes, but they have no idea where to start. Yeah.

How do you figure out where to start? And what's the difference between a system and a process? So this is what I spend my time teaching. What I spend my time teaching is, essentially how we've automated our business. And here's how we've done it. Something silly, we actually print magnets and put them on two or three different places in the apartment. And we just say, hey, if you ever have an issue, just reach out to that number. And then anytime that there's a problem, they can send a text message to that or they can call that.

Transcription, we actually have it go into an email where there's a group of three of us that see it. And somebody gets to it and forwards it onto the contractor or says, or I say, hey, this one's yours. you take it. That's it. So we all have phones. I run my entire company from this. I am an elite email forwarder. And that's the thing is it's all there. People might need to be taken through that.

And that's what I kind of, that's what I spend my time teaching people is here's the, here's exactly how you do what I've done. Yeah. But it's building those systems and building those processes and taking all of those steps. And it puts people on the right path to imagine having that framework. That framework didn't exist 24 years ago when I started. What I like about what you just said is, A, you were using tools that didn't cost any money.

Yep. And B, it wasn't over automation. I think when people start implementing systems and processes, they want to make it as like overly automated as they can. But what I've learned is that if the system slash process is too overbearing, I will avoid it and do it the manual way. Yes. And so like I need a system up and to a point. Like I like that you, it just transcribes it and then I get an email and then I have to forward it. And so what I want people to hear from this is like design the system that you would use, not the most perfect automated system.

Design the system up until the point that you're comfortable with it. You're not trying to eliminate everything and everybody. You're just trying to eliminate the parts that you suck at or that you have. I'm trying to bridge the gap for where my skills, talents, and abilities drop off. Perfect. That's what I'm trying to do. I have to say, though, Matt, you must be good at time management, too, because, like, I worked full time and was self-managing, I don't know, 10 units at a time.

And I felt busy as hell. Like, I don't know. I just was constantly doing stuff. So, like, how do you do it? Because that's one example, right? That's maintenance. But then you're leasing. You're managing rehab.

So your skill must be somewhat in time management because that's a lot of stuff to do in one day. Yeah, it is. I mean, I think it's, you know, I won't take credit for it. It's really something that Steve Jobs and Elon Musk do really well. They have the top three things on their list that have to get done every day. And then the rest of them can potentially be done tomorrow. So I make sure that every single day I get the three things done that I need to get done that have to get done. And then the next day, hopefully I don't have three brand new things.

There's some stuff that might be on the list that can bubble up that I can get and rip through. But the other thing too is that recognizing that my other option is working 10 hours in some soulless job while I'm making some other man's dream come true. I don't really like that. That doesn't sound wonderful to me. What sounds wonderful to me is that I get all the fruits of my labor and that my family gets that and that we then get to help others accomplish that same task. So time management I certainly think is a piece of it.

But again, if you can deduce running this entire business essentially down to having great contractors that listen that you pay on time. That's like 90% of it in my opinion. Knowing that they're going to do it. Right. Well, here's the thing. How many people, and I would be willing to bet, I'd love to see this in the chat because I will go back and review the chat, how many people don't inspect when the job's done?

They just pay the bill. A lot of people do. But see, this is what I mean about time management. You're running around a 50 properties inspecting properties. On all of these amazing devices is a high-deaf camera. Oh, okay. So you're virtual inspecting. Yep.

And I'm either doing it live on a video or I'm saying, hey, just send me 10 pictures. Because what happens with that email of that video? I can get to that at 9, 10, 11 o'clock at night. I can get there. And so how much time am I spending every single day? Not hours. The only time I'm spending that kind of time is when we're doing a multimillion dollar big, big project down to studs.

And we're basically going through nine contractors to do something. something big project. How many hours a week do you think you work? On the actual management of existing assets, probably six to eight hours a week, I would say. Total? Yeah. Dude. Yeah. Man. Had to become elite at something. I'm that good. So I think the key for it, again, I think the big thing that people miss out is they feel like they can't ever see that result coming for them because they see what they're going through at 10 units. I promise you. I promise you. there's not that much big of a difference bet between 10 and 50. There just isn't.

I mean, honestly, the reason 10 was a lot or whatever it was just because I was trying to fix things myself. Like, I think I wasn't forwarding stuff. I should have just been forwarding email. Listen, the first 50 I did all of that on and I get that. Yeah. That's an expanding problem, right? Yeah. You can't accelerate through growth when you have one set of hands for throughput.

One thing I've learned across all levels of property. So A class, B class, C class, whether you're paying $500 a month rent or $3,500 a month rent. There are bad tenants in both classes. So do you have some golden rules for tenant selection or some systems or processes and tenant selection that help you stay on top of being very good at selecting good tenants? So I hired an agent. I hired her for not a high amount of money, like in the $30 range. I said, this is how I want my unit shown. But I provided copy, which is the actual ad. I provided the pictures.

I paid for those. She was no money out of pocket. Her job was to follow my three criteria for bringing in great tenants. And that is this. We do not have an application fee. I like that. Even though it does cost you money to run their background check, you eat that. At the end, it does, but I don't do it in the beginning.

Because in the beginning, I say, I want three things from you in the beginning. I want a pay stub. You just need proof of payment of your last three payments to your landlord. If they pay on the sixth, the ninth, and the 15th, they're probably not somebody I want when it's due on the first. And then I just want a screenshot of their credit score with their name on it. Who am I to say which credit scoring models correct? Vantage 3, Vantage 10, Experian 4.

Like, it doesn't matter to me. Just show me a picture of the credit score with your name on it. And that's all I need to get you a spot in the arena to get a chance to actually rent this apartment from. me. And that helps us drive significant traffic to our units. I probably get two to three X. In fact, we've done studies in Zillow. And we get on average 250 to 300 percent more traffic to our properties than other properties because of our process. I love this idea. I do the same thing where it's basically like, I'm only going to charge you when I get charged essentially, which is like they

charge you whatever it is, 40 bucks to go run a background check. and anything. It's like until then, I'm going to evaluate everything else about your application. That way, if you're not a good fit, you're not incurring any cost. I'm not incurring any cost. But at the point where I need to pay 40 bucks, you pay 40 bucks, I'm not making any money off of this. Like, that's the fair way to do it. Absolutely. I have friends who rent and they just apply for all these apartments to get rejected. It sucks. It's bullshit, honestly, to like have to go out and get rejected 10 times. You're out 400 bucks. because you just like, even if you're a good candidate,

maybe you just got in too late. Like it's just, it's nonsense. The people I really, really hate when landlords try and make money off rental applications fee, it drives me. Well, you see it. Like in a lot of the cities, they're the ones that are most guilty in where they do that churn. And it's disgusting how much money they make on the churn.

Yeah. It's, you know, they're like, well, hey, I can afford to do a lower priced unit because I'm getting $5,000 bucks in fees when all these people are applying. It's disgusting. It is. We don't do it that way. I agree. We legitimately want somebody to find a house with us.

That's legitimately what we want to do. That is the only sentiment to have if you're getting into this industry. Yes. Like the idea of just profit off churn is ridiculous. You should earn money by providing a service. That is the industry, right? Like if you are just making money off application fees, you're providing nothing. You are just leaching money from other people.

It's messed up. Absolutely right. All right. So much good stuff here from Matt, but we got to do. to take one more quick break. We'll be right back. Everybody has a space that's sitting there quietly, costing them money instead of making it. A guest room holding random storage and a treadmill that hasn't been used in months. A second home that only gets used a few weeks a year.

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Head over to bolt.new.new slash Bigger Pockets with code BP26 and start building. All right, we are back on the Bigger Pockets podcast with the Lumberjack landlord. I wanted to ask about some tenant red flags. So as you're evaluating some of these tenants, are there some red flags that you're like, this is an absolute no? And are there some green flags potentially where you're like, this is the kind of tenant that I'm looking for. And I'm not looking for the, you know, obviously, there's some very obvious red flags that people should look out for. But maybe what are some

things that maybe some other landlords might overlook because they weed these people out? Like, example for me, one of my best tenants is a convicted felon. And most landlords rule out convicted felons. I do not. I do not either. Listen, they paid their debt. Who am I? I'm not special. They paid their debt to society. Everyone does the wrong thing eventually in their life. Some get caught, some don't. And the ones that do and they pay their debt so long as they're not a future risk to others, then we can have that conversation.

Absolutely. And I think that that's just, that's the human side of it. So for all those people that call people slumlords, hey, listen, at the end of the day, there's a lot of people that need that hand up. And I like to be one of those landlords that provides that, even if it burns me every once in a while. Amen. You still got to do the role and be the salt, right?

So I love that. Yeah. I think that, you know, the red flags for me are when they come in and they're already complaining about their old landlord, there certainly is you send me nine messages in like six hours. Yeah. urgency. You need to spend some quiet time with yourself.

Yeah. You're not that important. If you're that way trying to get the place, imagine what you're like once you're in there. Yeah. Well, it's like you're either a little bit crazy or. there's some reason why you like need to be out quickly, which isn't always a red flag, but it's worth asking some more questions about that. Yep. There's that. There's that piece.

Asking for a discount on the rent. Oh, yeah. No. Already. My favorite is we have as many issues. So we'll make some exceptions with people in 500 credit scores. You know, medical debt. Oh, yeah. Medical debt doesn't bother me at all. Yeah. So there's some exceptions that we'll make, but they're consistent exceptions, if that makes sense. Yes. Medical debt divorces don't bother me. Yes.

Yep. So what we're looking for in those particular cases, honestly, we're looking for much more of a you got the opportunity to walk the place based on your credentials. If you get the place is based on how you treat my people when you're in there. Amen. I like that. Or how you treat me. Oh, boy.

Yeah. Yeah. We actually, so we had somebody that said, yep, absolutely love the place. I want it. We're like, okay, this is great. And we're like, okay, we told her exactly what it is. Paid the deposit right now when you sign the lease. We'll send that over to you in the next few hours.

Sent it over in the next few hours. She didn't sign it for a day, didn't sign it for two days. Now that's bad. The third day we sent back and said, hey, just wanted to double check, see if anything has changed. She wrote back. She goes, nope, I still plan on signing it. And I'm like, well, we talked about the fact that, you know, we have other showings

that we canceled because you said you were good to go. we want to call those people back and have them come look at it. She just went, you know, went vacant again. That was one of the lessons that taught us. We don't take assets off the market unless you've signed a lease and paid the deposit. Yep, that's, yes. So it was just silly things like that. Like we expect, if you want to expect performance from us, we can certainly expect performance from you.

That's total fair. It's a mutual exchange of benefits, right? Like, that's what this is and every business. The amount of people who, when I let them in to look at the unit, just assumed I was a helper or a worker or a property manager and treated me poorly. And then at the end, asked me when the owner would be in touch. It's flabbergasting to me. All right, Matt, well, this has been a lot of fun. This is great advice for everyone listening.

Before we get out of here, though, I remember last time you were on the show, you were telling me you were converting an old. prison, I think, right? Yeah. Remind us what it is and give us an update because I remember it sounding very cool. Yeah. So one of the strategies that we've started spending a lot of time on is there are very often our buildings that municipalities, cities, towns, counties that they want to get away from, that they want to abandon or they have been abandoned and they are just, they turn into plight or they turn into things being in disrepair. So we had actually found specifically a building that had been vacant for about 15 years.

We had talked to the city about selling it. They had a formal process that I had to put it out there for sale, and I was like, this is a building I want because I can make an impact in the local community with it. And so it was a police station and a jail. So it actually has a functioning jail in it. Multiple cells. I think it was six jail cells.

So the cool thing was, is we then just got in the building, and we did four luxury apartments. We did two for disabled vets. We love the patriots that fight for our country, whether you're active military or you are retired. We love you and we appreciate you and we want to be a part of the solution. So we look for buildings that we can turn into units that will get people the next step in their

life and give them their life back because so often disabled vets can't get access to something that gives them all the amenities that they need. And so that's where that's one of our focuses. And so we'll be live in probably. probably the next 60 days. We're waiting for our final set of inspections. But yeah, very, very exciting. We'll have an indoor kids playground, along with a cold kitchen.

The idea behind that is we want to deliver for the community that doesn't really have anything like this, something for less than 20 bucks where kids can go play for the day and they can eat food too. Wow. Dude, this is so cool. I love your approach to all this. Just thinking about mutual benefit,

how to benefit tenants, yourself, the community at large, everyone can win. Henry and I talk about this in the show all the time. It's not a zero-sum game. As you know, in us to lose for you to win. You can actually improve people's lives through this industry. Matt, you're a great example of that. I love hearing what you're up to.

Appreciate it. Well, thanks for being here, Matt. I loved catching up with you, and hopefully we'll have you back on again soon and hear what you're up to because your story is super inspiring and relatable. and not that it's not impressive, but I love that it's just things

that normal people can do. These are things that everyone in our audience can mimic if you want to build the kind of portfolio Matt has built. There is nothing really from stopping you. Matt showed us that you can really start from anywhere and achieve this. So thanks for being here, man.

Always a pleasure. Henry, great meeting you on the podcast like this. It was great to meet you again. And Dave, always a blast. Hey, look forward to the next one, boys. We'll give you an update soon. Awesome. Looking forward to it, Matt. Thank you all so much for watching this episode of the Bigger Pockets podcast. For Henry Washington, I am Dave Meyer. We'll see you next time.

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. 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.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,

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