181: A Slow, Steady, and Sustainable Way to Buy Rentals with Julie

BiggerPockets Money Podcast

You may hear of 20 year olds with $1,000,000 in real estate, or a novice flipper doing 50 flips a year, or even a wholesaler who made six figures on one deal. What about the everyday investor who slowly grinds and acquires a steady stream of passive income all while building hundreds of thousands in equity overtime? Those are the real people in real estate, and that is a success story worth sharing.

Julie, software engineer and former BiggerPockets employee bought her first house after realizing that a mortgage would be cheaper than her rent. After getting together with her (then) boyfriend, they decided to buy a bigger house. As her first house sat on the market, she waited for an offer, and then made the decision to rent it out.

A few months after buying her second home, she broke up with her boyfriend. Problem? They were both on the title and mortgage. Julie had enough money in her cash reserve to buy him out of the property. Now the property was all Julie’s and she rented out a room to help her pay off the mortgage.

Now Julie has 7 properties, spread out across Iowa, Tennessee, and Kentucky. All with very interesting stories, and all pay her passive income, every month. Julie is proof that with some financial restraint, you can slowly build a real estate empire, without even trying to do so in the first place!

In This Episode We Cover

• When you should own and when you should rent a house
• The dangers of buying a house with someone who may not be in your future
• Why you should borrow less than you’re approved for
• The importance of keeping a substantial cash reserve available for investments
• Never rent to someone who has no credit, no references, and no job
• Diving into real estate, even if you don’t know all the tips and tricks yet
• And So Much More!

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