How to Become a Real Estate Millionaire (NO Experience Necessary)

Ashley:
This is Real Estate Rookie Episode 215. My name is Ashley Kehr, and I am here with my co-host, Tony Robinson.

Tony:
And welcome to Real Estate Rookie Podcast where every week, twice a week, we bring you the inspiration, information, and stories you need to hear to kick start your investing journey. Now, I usually like to start the episodes with a quick shout out from folks who have left us a review. And this week’s review, five star review, comes from Solitaire Phantom Maniac. And this person says, “I love this podcast because I learned so much while I’m working. I’m really hoping to use these lessons soon to start my own real estate journey.” And that’s why we do this podcast, to help people, to inspire them. So if you are listening, if you’ve enjoyed, please you leave us an honest rating and review on whatever podcast platform it is that you’re listening to.
So with that out of the way, Ashley Kehr, what’s up? What’s new in your world?

Ashley:
I don’t know and how much. My son’s been playing football. So my Saturdays are now consumed with football. And it’s actually been fun. So I’m enjoying that element.
So today, I went to an apartment where the person had been evicted. They actually went to prison in April and it is now the end of August. And so they actually received a full rent payment from the county, so we received direct deposit payments from the county every single month on their behalf.

Tony:
Even while they were in jail?

Ashley:
Well, it stopped the month after So May, it stopped May was their last payment. So June, July, August, we didn’t receive payment. The eviction went through everything. The marshals came. Obviously, no one’s been there. So the apartment’s been considered abandoned. And no contact with this person at all. They’ve had no contact with the property management company, anything like that. So the lockout was done, we held their contents. And now, it’s time to get rid of everything.
So Darryl and I went through the property and it is just disaster. The one bedroom, you can’t even walk in there unless you’re walking on six inches to a foot of just stuff on the floor. So Darryl and I made the best of our time there while we’re waiting for the junk removal company to come and we made about 10 Instagram reels. So I’m going to release those slowly throughout the next week. So if you guys want some entertainment on what a destroyed trashed apartment looks like, head over to my Instagram @wealthfromrentals.

Tony:
Yeah, saw that first one you posted today. I got a good laugh out of that one.

Ashley:
Yeah. I tried to make it humorous as much as the situation is unfortunate. But, yeah.

Tony:
With me, nothing else too crazy happening either. I mean, we’ve got a bunch of projects in motion. We literally just yesterday wrapped up our last rehab. So now, we’re just waiting on a safety inspection for this new one. So hopefully, that’ll be another successful property for us. But just putting one foot in front of the other and trying to keep growing, keep things moving.

Ashley:
Well, I think today, we have a great podcast for that. It’s basically about, keep going to become a millionaire. So how to become a millionaire and what those steps look like. And I think it can seem like daunting to get to whatever that next step is for you. So this is going to be a great webinar for you guys to listen to if that is your next goal to become a millionaire. And you guys are in for a treat today.
We have Dave Meyer, who is going to be taking over this podcast episode. So Tony and I get to sit back and relax. You don’t have to listen to Tony’s boring monotone voice or hear me laugh throughout the whole episode. So I’m excited for you guys to be able to enjoy yourselves, relax, and learn a lot.

Tony:
And Dave is like literally … If you guys don’t know Dave, he’s the host of the On the Market Podcast. He’s also the VP of data and something.

Ashley:
And analytics.

Tony:
And analytics at BiggerPockets. But Dave is also literally one of the smartest people that I know in the world of real estate investing. So if you want to get some really good information about how to be successful, take notes, enjoy this content, because it’s coming from a super, super intelligent guy.

Ashley:
So before we bring Dave on to the show, let’s hear a word from our show sponsor.

Dave:
Hey, what’s going on, everyone? My name is Dave Meyer. I am going to be your host for today’s webinar, where we’re going to be talking about how to become a real estate millionaire. And if you’re sitting there wondering if this is for me, the answer is yes because this includes becoming a real estate millionaire is possible for anyone. And that means if you have no money, if you have no experience, you don’t have a network full of high net worth people. This is true for anyone. I genuinely, genuinely believe that anyone who really wants to achieve financial freedom to become a millionaire can do so through real estate investing.
I know that because I’ve done it and I’ve seen hundreds, if not, I’ve seen thousands of people accomplish this by following the same systems and processes that I’m going to teach you today. So I want you all to pay close attention to what we’re talking about today because these really are the things that establish successful real estate investors’ use. And as you’ll see over the course of this webinar, it’s really all about systems and processes. And basically following the path and following the things that other real estate investors have already done.
And I’m going to teach most of what you need to know to get on that path to being a real estate millionaire by the end of the next hour. So please pay attention. Super glad you’re here. And with that, let’s get into it.
I want to first just start by telling you a little bit story about myself and my own personal journey to real estate investing financial freedom. This is a restaurant and it’s called the Cherry Creek Grill. I worked there when I graduated college in 2009. And at that time, I was living paycheck to paycheck. I mean, not even, I guess it was like day to day because it was just the tips I took home every day. All the money I had, literally all the money I had, was in cash in my bedside table. And I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life. And I wasn’t spending time the way I wanted to. I wasn’t feeling fulfilled.
And not shortly after that, I got introduced to real estate investing. And fast forward 12 or 13 years later, now I am financially free. I get to live in Europe. I travel. I have my dream job working at BiggerPockets where I get to host a podcast, I get to talk to all of you about investing in real estate. And, yeah, I am a real estate millionaire. And that is wonderful, don’t get me wrong. But to me, it has always been about time affluence, about being able to spend my time and my life doing the things I genuinely care about, about the things I love with the people I love. And real estate investing has given me that and it’s an incredible gift. It is something that I am so tremendously grateful for. It’s something I’ve worked very hard to attain. But it’s not like I was out there on my own doing this making things up.
I followed a system and path that many others have followed. And that’s what we’re here to talk about today. And I genuinely mean this. If I could go from waiting tables 12 years ago to being a real estate millionaire, I promise you, so can you. This is not … I’m not special in any way at all. I don’t have any skills that you don’t possess. This is something that anyone could do and I really want to help you get there, and it’s something I’m extremely passionate and excited about.
And like I said, it’s not just me, you can see that other BiggerPockets members have become millionaires by following these same steps, too. Check this out from Kurt. He said, “I bought one duplex in 2003, house hacked it, realized it was awesome, continue to slowly accumulate duplexes over the years, went from negative net worth, negative net worth, to multimillion over the next 17 years from CAP appreciation, reinvesting rates, cashing out equity. Quit job, retired in 2012.” That’s amazing. You can also see Sergio, started with a triplex, just a triplex in 2012 on W-2 savings. Got another one, got another one, and now has a net worth of over $1 million in real estate alone. It’s incredible.
And Mario says he read Rich Dad Poor Dad, that’s how a lot of us got started, right, and decided to start small. Bought his first house in 2011 with FHA financing, only put 3.5% down. Check that out. So everyone who’s thinking you need 20% down to get started, not necessarily true. He was scared as hell like we all are, but made it work. And then I decided to get a bit aggressive, bought a couple more units. And now, he has a net worth of over $2 million in equity alone, operates several profitable businesses and generates over $750,000 a year. And I love what Mario ends this on because that’s why I put this in here. The most important part is still in love with every minute of it, right? Because, of course, we all want to get that amount of money, we want to become millionaires because it feels secure, right, and it gives us that time.
But it’s fun to become a real estate investor. And it allows you so much freedom to do the things that you love. So again, I’m super excited to teach you these systems. We’re going to get into all of that today. But first, I do want to address the elephant in the room because I know a lot of my job here at BiggerPockets is studying the housing market. And when I do that, I recognize that there are some scary things out there in the economy right now. I mean, let’s just talk about it. Recession, people are talking about interest rates have gone up a lot over where they were during the pandemic, and there are super high prices on houses. And all these things are true. That does make it a little less obvious, I would say, how to get into real estate investing.
But let me tell you something, every single, experienced investor I know, and I really mean this, every single investor I know is still buying right now. And that is why … And I know that seems counterintuitive because there are people on YouTube or on social media are saying, “The housing market is going to crash, I’m selling everything.” That’s a lot of hysteria. The people who actually are real estate investors and who do this for a living are all buying and active right now because they know, like I know, and like you will know, is that you can make money in every type of market. Doesn’t matter if the market’s going up, if the market is going down. There are always opportunities. And yes, you do need to change your strategy a little bit and you have to be disciplined in this type of market. You can’t just go out there and buy anything.
But if you know how to buy the right properties, in a down market, it’s actually a great time to buy because sellers are more motivated, people are on the sidelines, they are scared, there is less competition. And so there are great opportunities to buy right now, as long as you learn how to identify the right properties. If you can run the numbers and be confident in what you’re buying, you can buy in any type of market. And I genuinely believe that. I’ve done several deals already this year. I’m doing due diligence on two more right now. And so this is true of everyone I talked to, and I just want you to not be discouraged and say that you’re going to get out of real estate investing before you ever get in because that’s just what happens with people is they think there’s all these barriers and they construct these barriers in their head, but that’s not necessarily true.
You can find good deals right now. I’m 100% sure of that. I’m going to teach you how to do that today. So just keep that in mind that in every market, there are opportunities. Which opportunities you find might change, but there are always opportunities. And by the end of this webinar, you’re going to learn how to do this. You’re going to have the tactics, the strategies, and tools needed to become a real estate millionaire. And that’s even if you’re brand new to real estate, like I said. That is even if you’re starting with zero money, that’s what I did, and it’s even if you live in expensive and competitive market, which is pretty much every market right now, they’re all expensive and competitive. Well, not all, but a lot of them are expensive and competitive. And we’re going to talk about still how to find great deals in that type of market.
Today’s agenda is going to be first following this simple four-step strategy called LAPS. This is what almost every real estate investor I know uses to find great deals. We’re going to talk about how to get crystal clear on the best property for you, so that when you analyze a deal and you get the numbers you want, you know exactly when to execute and you can jump in. Third, we’re going to talk about how to finance real estate investing because I know a lot of people are probably thinking, “I don’t have money.” That’s how I started. I thought … I literally had no money for a down payment. I had never applied for a loan before. But you can figure out how to do this, millions of people have, and I’m going to show you how to do that today.
Then we’re going to talk about how to analyze deals, which if you know anything about me, I’m a data and numbers guy at heart. And so I’m excited to talk about analyzing deals because I think, personally, that’s the most important part of learning how to be a real estate investor is running the numbers. So we’re going to go deep into that. And then we’re going to talk about BiggerPockets Pro and how we here at BiggerPockets have built tools to help you become a real estate millionaire.
All right. So I’ve talked a little bit about this at the beginning. And the reason I’m talking about this is I want to talk about your why, basically, why you’re doing this because a lot of people when I develop these webinars and I say millionaire, maybe people think about these kinds of things, right? Like going out on your yacht, or buying a Ferrari, or a Lambo, or going shopping. And you could do all that. If that’s you, go for it. But for me, that’s not what [inaudible 00:14:09] has been about. To me, it’s about traveling the world. I get to live in Europe right now. That’s awesome. I get to spend time with my family. And maybe if you have kids, you can watch your kids grow up and spend more time with your siblings or your nephews or your parents. You can take them on adventures. You can help them see the world and explore and empower them to do the things that they want to do.
It’s really about being able to do what you want, when you want. At the end of the day, it’s about time freedom for me. And I keep talking about this at the beginning because real estate investing, it’s not complicated, but there are going to be times where it gets hard, where you have to figure something out. And for me, that why has always been what continues to motivate me. The money is great, but I love to daydream about traveling or spending time with friends and doing something amazing and feeling like my life is purposeful and valuable. And that’s what has always made me feel excited.
And so today, we will talk about how to make that dollar number in your bank account read $1 million. But I also want you to think about why do you want that million dollars. Why are you going to work hard for the next couple of years to take action and pursue this? Because, really, that’s what it takes, it takes action and consistent action. And there will be times when you’re feeling a little lazy or not motivated, it happens to everyone, and having that why crystal clear in your head is going to help you.
BiggerPockets. If you want to know why you should be listening to me, I just want to … And you’re not familiar with BiggerPockets, I want you to know that BiggerPockets has been around for 17 years now. We have over 2 million members, big podcast, and we have helped literally tens of thousands, if not, hundreds of thousands of people become real estate millionaires. And the reason we’ve done this is because we have very firm beliefs. And here’s what they are.
Real estate investing is the greatest tool. This is what we believe, that real estate investing is the greatest tool on the planet for the average person to build wealth and passive income. Now, we also believe that it’s not a get-rich-quick scheme. And that’s what I was just talking about. This is going to take years of hard work. It’s not crazy. It’s hard being broke, right? It’s a lot easier to be working towards something that’s going to make your life better in the future. But if you think … If you’re here to make a quick buck, real estate investing is probably not for you. There are probably other, I mean, really high-risk ways to do that. But real estate investing is a much more safe, proven, consistent, slow build kind of thing.
For me, it took about nine years to get to financial freedom. And I actually went slower than most people. But at BiggerPockets, we really believe in all of these things that you see on your screen here that anyone can do it, it’s just about consistent action and a long-term perspective. For me, just so you know who’s talking to you and why I’m qualified to lead this webinar, my name is Dave Meyer. I’ve been a real estate investor for 12 years, like I said. And my full-time job, I work because I like my job, I love my job, is as the vice president of data and analytics here at BiggerPockets. I mostly invest in rental properties. Since I moved to Europe about three years ago, I do a lot of passive investing. I invest in syndications. So these are large multifamily, complexes, value add kind of things.
I also have the great pleasure of hosting On the Market. It’s a podcast talking about what’s going on in the world of investing. We talk a lot about the housing market. We talk about interest rates, businesses, everything you need to know to make informed investing decisions. So if you are into that kind of thing, check out that podcast. I have a book coming out this fall all about deal analysis. And just like you, I was once a newbie. I had no money, I had no experience, and I still figured it out, thanks to BiggerPockets and countless other real estate investors who showed me the path. And now, I get to pass that along and to give back to this community. And that’s why I’m here leading this webinar today.
If you do want to connect with me after this, you can do that best on Instagram. I am @thedatadeli because I love sandwiches and just generally any kind of food.
All right. With all of that, hopefully, I’ve given you a good introduction about why you’re here, why you should be paying attention to me and to this topic. And now, let’s get into the meat of this thing. The funny thing about becoming a real estate investor and hopefully becoming a millionaire through it is that it’s actually boring. It’s not like all glitz and glamor. There’s really not that much to it. It is a time-tested system, right? And I’m going to show you a little bit about it. Here’s the math behind it. You … I guess this isn’t math, these are the steps and then I’ll show you the math in just a second.
But first things first, you buy a property with a loan, right? That’s what everyone does. You go out, you find a great deal, we’re going to talk about that, then you get a loan. Then over time, you pay off that loan. And the great thing about real estate investing, unlike buying your primary residence, is you’re not actually paying it off with your money. You’re paying it off with rent. You’re paying it off with … Someone else is paying off your loan over time. Hopefully, your property goes up in value over time. We’ve seen that like crazy over the last few years. But even if it goes back to the average, which is what I think is going to happen of about 3%, your property value does go up over time. And if you do this with multiple properties, you’re going to become a millionaire. It is really that simple.
Let me give you some simple examples here. First, take this chart here. When you buy a house and you put 20% down, let’s just use really simple numbers and say that you’re going to buy a house that’s worth 100,000. And you’re going to have a loan that’s worth 80,000, right, because you put 20% down, that’s 20k in this scenario. And you have a loan for 80,000. Then over time … So you have 20,000 in equity, right, that’s your down payment. Over time, two things happen here. First, the value of your property, that’s that green line, starts to go up. That’s your net worth. But at the same time, because like I said, you are paying down that loan, the amount you owe on that loan has gone down.
So in this graph, we see that our value of our property went from 100,000 to 105,000. And the amount we still owe the bank went from 80,000 down to 70,000. So instead of having just $20,000 in equity, now we have $35,000 in equity. That’s pretty good, right? I mean, I haven’t put yours on here, but that just happens over time, right? Then it keeps going. We owe the bank less, the property is worth more. We do it again. We do it again. We do it again. And the spread, how far apart these two lines get, that is your net worth. That is how much money you have, right?
So now that your property is worth … Let’s just keep going. Now that it’s worth 135, 140, 145, once you get to 145,000 and you owe the bank only 65, let’s do some quick math, now your equity in that property is $80,000. So this isn’t even including cash flow, right? You went from $20,000 in equity to $80,000 in equity just by buying a property with a traditional mortgage and holding it over time. That is why investing in real estate, specifically rental properties, can make you a millionaire so easily.
Let me just give you an example, right? I bought this single-family home a couple of years ago. I put 20% down when I did and I bought it for about 400,000. So my equity was 80,000. Now, just a couple of years later, I’m making $800 a month in cash flow. And I have $140,000 in equity. So that’s $60,000 in additional equity. That’s an example of a single family. I also did it with this triplex here. So we have this triplex that I bought a couple of years ago. Originally, it was about 650 grand, I think. So that’s probably about 120 in equity, now 220 in equity, so over $100,000 in equity gained off this all while I’m making $2,500 a month. Sounds pretty good, right? So just between these two properties, I have a couple 100 grand in equity and I think over $3,000 a month in cash up.
What about this? Short-term rental. You can do it with short-term rentals as well. I bought this short-term rental three years ago maybe. This one’s done incredibly well for me. I’m making about 1,500 bucks a month. And I think I’ve gained, this is a conservative estimate, at least 100 grand in equity, maybe 150 on top of what I put down. So I hope you can see that this isn’t anyone’s strategy. You can do this with small multifamilies. You can do it with single families. You can do it with short-term rentals. And I’m including my cash flow here. But that chart I showed you before doesn’t even include cash flow.
The way to build long-term wealth to get to that million dollar number, in my opinion, is not through cash flow. You do want cash flow, that is also important, but that millionaire number is going to come from building equity in your property over time. The truth is, it doesn’t take that many properties to become a real estate millionaire. I just showed you three properties, three random properties I own, that’s probably about halfway there, right? I just bought three properties, I’m generating almost all of my monthly expenses in income from those three properties and have made almost half a million dollars off those three properties. And that’s just the truth is that it doesn’t take that many properties, it just takes the right ones. You have to be able to identify the properties that are going to go up in value, that are going to provide consistent cash flow and are not going to cause you a million headaches because at least, for me, that is a big deal. I don’t want to have a lot of headaches.
So in addition … I should have mentioned. In addition to buying the right ones, not headaches, and it’s just time, right? Just buy good properties and wait. It’s … People say this all the time. Don’t wait to buy real estate, buy real estate and wait. Dennis, I love that saying because it’s so true. People get so concerned about the market fluctuating, but over 10 years, over 20 years, your property’s going to go off, you’re going to pay off your loan and you’re going to be a millionaire. It’s almost guaranteed.
So if you look at this, going back to this, it’s a perfect example that I was showing you earlier one example of one property at a time, right, but think of this at a portfolio because you don’t become a millionaire of one property, you become a millionaire by assembling a portfolio over time. And so this is just random numbers here. But if you bought $2.6 million worth of real estate, which sounds like a lot, right, but that’s maybe five properties worth $500,000. And you would only need to put down $800,000 for that. And again, that sounds like a lot of money. But we’re going to talk about how to get that money in just a little bit. And over time, you went from having 800,000 equity. Remember, it’s 2.6 minus 1.8, that’s 800,000 to having $3.5 million in equity, and you are well into being a millionaire.
So that is how … That’s where you need to get to and to start thinking about is just buying good properties, holding them over time, you will become a millionaire, it’s pretty much guaranteed. So … Oh, I got ahead of myself, you can see here 3.5 million less closing costs, that’s about your equity. So just think about it this way, right? Think about it like a stack. You don’t need to do this all at once. You just start with one property. It could be a single family home, it could be short-term rental, or I started by getting a small multifamily. I bought a quadplex first. And that’s honestly before I really knew what I was doing, it was just the best deal that I found. I would have bought a single family. Short-term rentals weren’t a big thing when I first started, but I started with a quadplex, but I still buy all three of those things.
Then maybe in the next year, you buy two properties, or maybe it’s even two units, doesn’t even need to be two separate properties, you buy duplex. Then buy a quadplex or four units or whatever. Then eight and then 16. And that’s it, right? Then you’re a millionaire. And it’s not that hard. You can actually do this one per year and become a millionaire in probably five to 10 years. So buy one single family, I’ll just go in reverse, right? You buy one single family, buy a duplex, buy a triplex, maybe buy two quadplexes and then buy a small commercial property with 16 units, five years, one deal a year. You can do that.
I know thousands of people who do this. I’ve done it. You can absolutely do it. It’s not that intimidating. So don’t think about, “How do I get to 100 units?” And on the podcast and social media, you hear these people who have thousands of units and it can be intimidating. I understand that. But you don’t need to think about them. Just think about this. It’s so much easier. Just be, “What’s my first deal? I’m just going to buy a deal, buy a deal and wait.” Next year, what are you going to do? I’m going to buy a duplex and wait. The next year after that, I’m going to buy four units and wait. And I’m going to buy eight and wait. Like I said, it’s boring. I know this is boring, but it is true. That is how it’s done.
The key here is really being able to find good deals. So … And I know that’s what a lot of people are at. So hopefully, you understand the stack. Hopefully, you understand it’s about buying good properties over time. Now, let’s talk about how to find good deals. And we call this here the crystal clear criteria, Triple C, or you might hear this often referred to as a buy box. I like to call it the buy box as well. It’s basically identifying the criteria that you want to see in a property because we’re going to talk about the systems you need. And the systems require you to see a lot of deals, analyze a few deals, and then being able to execute on them when you find the ones you want.
And so the first step in that process is to find that what do you want. So first thing here is location. Location, something I talk a lot about on the podcast, this can be within your own town, it can be in your own sub market. I really recommend you try to pick two to three different markets that you’re interested in. You can read some of my writing on the blog about different markets that I like. But you can really do it almost anywhere. You can go find a start at a broad level. So I mostly invest in Denver. So let’s say I pick Denver and then I want to find a couple sub markets. Go drive around and find areas that you think are really good, that have good potential to appreciate, that have good quality of life. People are moving there, there’s good jobs, those are the things I really like to look at.
Economic growth and job growth, super, super important and population growth. If I had to narrow down to two things I care about when I’m talking about location, those are the things, economic growth, usually measured as job growth, and population growth. Those are super important. You can check out more of my writing about location somewhere else on BiggerPockets to talk about this a lot.
Next, property type. Do you want to buy a short-term rental? Cool. Do you want to buy a small multifamily? I recommend it, I really like them. But I also buy single families because in Denver, there aren’t that many great single families and they’re really high demand so they get excellent rent. So I buy those two. But you can decide, especially if it’s your first deal, I recommend you just focus on one property type. And that can be small, I would say either a small multifamily, two to four units, or a single family are probably the best if you’re just getting into this.
Next, condition. And listen, if you are experienced and you want to do BRRRR, you can buy some properties that need work. But if you’re new, again, I recommend buying something that’s not a lot of complicated work. You don’t want foundation issues. You don’t want to buy a new roof. If you can do some cosmetic work, I recommend that for your first deal.
Now, if you’ve done two or three deals and you’re ready to scale, then doing value add can be really great. And when I say value add, I mean buying a property that needs work, renovation, add a new bathroom, fix up some of the tile, whatever. That can really add to your net worth quickly. And so I do recommend that for people, but not necessarily on your first one. If it’s your first one and maybe you have a background in renovation or construction or design, maybe you’re ready for that. But you don’t need to do that stuff if you are brand new, you can find a deal and properties that are already in pretty decent condition.
Next, set your price range. And we’ll talk about this a little bit. But if you want to buy with your own equity, then you might want to just estimate what 20% down would be or what you think a good price range is in your neighborhood. Maybe you think that there’s a lot of demand for homes that are in the $300,000 to $400,000 price range. And that’s going to be your price range. But generally speaking, if you had $80,000 to invest and you divide that by 20%, that would give you your estimated price range, which would be about $400,000. So you take 80,000 divided by 20,000, that would allow you to at least get your traditional mortgage.
Last is profitability. Think about what you care about. For me, I am usually willing to accept a lower cash on cash return, maybe 5% or 6%. If I think it’s in a neighborhood that’s going to appreciate a lot, because for me, I want that spread that we were just showing to keep going up and up and up, I still work full time. So cash flow is not as important to me. I want to see my net worth grow as quickly as possible. But for other people, it could be different. So you might prefer to have more cash flow. And usually, that comes at an expense of appreciation. That’s not always true. You can find ones that are good, but think about in your head what’s most important to you.
And if you … You can read about this and think about this. But over the next couple of days, let’s say in the next week, I want you to think about where you’re going to buy, what type of property you’re going to buy, and what your price range is. And that is going to help you understand because if you know, “Hey, I want a single family in Denver, I want it to be at least in pretty good shape where I don’t have to do a heavy renovation, my price range is 500,000. And I want at least an 8% cash on cash return.” That’s the level of specificity I want you to have so that you know where you’re going to buy, what you’re going to buy, and what return you’re looking for because then the systems I’m about to show you are going to help you a lot.
It’s going to help you analyze deals. And when you find … Because when we learn how to analyze deals in a couple of minutes, and you get all those numbers, then you’re ready to go, then there’s no questions about what’s going on in the market, is there a better deal out there, because your buy box and your crystal clear criteria are already set. And then there’s a match, right? You’re like, “This is what I want. The deal calculator tells me that I have it, it’s time to jump in and buy that deal right now.”
And I want you to remember, especially if this is your first deal that you want to set these criteria, but don’t be so ambitious, right? You don’t say, “I want a 15% cash on cash return.” You’re not going to get that. If you even get a 5% cash on cash return, I would argue that that’s a good deal because what else are you doing with your money? As long as it’s improving your financial situation, I’d still think getting your first deal is all about momentum. It isn’t that you’re not going to hit a homerun on every deal. You don’t need this to be the best deal you ever do. What you needed to do is, one, improve your financial situation. So is it going to get you cash flow? Is it going to help your net worth? Great, because what it’s really going to do is start that stack and start building and teaching you how to get those next five or 10 deals that are going to get you to the financial freedom that you really care about and that you really want.
I love this quote, it’s more important that you decide than what you decide. And so that’s why I want you to think about this criteria is it’s not like you have to get the perfect thing and pick the perfect neighborhood and the exact right return. It’s all about picking so that you’re ready to act. It’s not about making sure that you have the best deal of anyone ever. That’s not going to happen. You’re new to this. It’s about knowing what’s good enough so that you can get started and jump into this.
Another way of putting this, I love this quote, is more is lost from indecision than the wrong decision. I absolutely love it. It’s so true, right? It’s like you just sit around and can’t decide and you wind up doing nothing forever. Well, you’re not going to make a wrong decision if it improves your financial situation. And you can do it, jump in, you’re going to learn, it’s going to be great, I promise you.
So now, you’ve identified that you have the right topic to write, but how do you find those, right? People are always talking about, “There’s no good deals out there.” Well, to find incredible deals, all you have to do is follow a process that me and millions, I don’t know, thousands of other millionaires who are getting wealth through real estate have followed. It is called the LAPS system. And it is really just coming down to a numbers game, right? It’s all about this funnel. And you start at the top, that is the broadest part of the LAPS system, it’s called leads, right? So how many total properties can you see? That is a lead. A lead is like you think there’s a good deal out there, it’s a house, it’s a link to Zillow, it’s your neighbor telling you that they heard someone selling you, all those are leads. It’s just a threat, it’s a whisper that there is a good deal out there. You need a lot of leads. That’s why it’s the top of the funnel is you need a lot of leads.
Next, you need analysis. So if you get 100 leads … We’re going to use simple numbers, right? If you get 100 leads, that’s a good number. If you had 100 leads, you’re going to find a great deal. Then maybe of those 100 leads, you follow up on them and you analyze 20 of them because you’re like, “Some of these are going to work, but I really need to run the numbers to know which one is really going to work.” Then you have to pursue them, right? Not all of them are going to work. Maybe you need to raise money and you can’t find a partner. Maybe the seller doesn’t take your offer or someone else bids higher, right? So you’re not going to be able to get every one of them. But one of them is going to work. And this is the process I want you to think about.
Real estate is ultimately a numbers game. Start with 100 leads, you go down to 20 to analyze, you go to five to pursue and just one of them, all it takes is one of them to work for your stack to grow. Remember before I was saying that if you just bought one property per year with escalating size, you could be a real estate millionaire in five to 10 years. That’s 100% true. You just need to follow this system. It’s really not all that hard, right? You can absolutely do this.
So here’s another example. I threw a picture of Brandon in this because he loves the LAPS system. But basically, he uses a different number, 300 leads, 42 and analyze, 12 to pursue and one to succeed. And if you think, “How am I going to get 300 leads?” It’s not that hard. A real estate agent can send you dozens of deals a week. If you want to use an off-market deal-finding app, you can find hundreds a week. And analysis, how we’re going to analyze 40 deals? I’m going to teach you to do that today. So don’t get intimidated by these numbers.
So where do you get leads from, right? That’s the most important because we have to start broad and get a lot of leads. So here’s where we get them. The MLS, people love to say the MLS doesn’t have deals, that’s absolute nonsense. Listen to my podcast, On the Market, there are people out there and far more prolific investors than me like James Dainard, Henry Washington. They are getting dozens of deals off the MLS every single month. This just happens. So go find a real estate agent in your area, preferably an investor-friendly agent. We have a tool on BiggerPockets, it’s biggerpockets.com/agent. And you can get matched with an investor-friendly agent 100% free. They will start sending you deals, it’s a great source of leads.
Next is off-market deals. You can drive for dollars. This is when you go out and you try and buy a distressed property. So my friends have a good way of saying this. It’s like you’re not buying a property, you’re buying a situation. I love that because in every town, in every market, there are sellers who don’t want to put their house on the market on the MLS for some reason, right? Maybe they had an unfortunate family situation or they don’t have the time to fix up the property. You hear a lot about quarters or absentee owners who inherited a property and they don’t want anything to do with it, right? These are situations where there are motivated sellers.
And as a real estate investor, you can go, be proactive and find them, and you might be able to get a better deal by going off market. And if you want to go and become a Pro member, I’ll talk about this later, we actually have a masterclass on finding deals that comes with the Pro membership, which we’ll talk about.
Next is direct mail. This is a different version of off-market. The first thing I should have clarified is the first way to do off-market deals is driving for dollars, where you actually drive around and you find distressed properties. And you’re like, “Oh, that one was tall grass,” and like, “Oh, no one’s living there. Let me find that owner and talk to them. So that’s one way. The other way is you could just start sending out mailers to properties that you like. And this is a numbers game, right? You’re going to send out mailers and you might send out a thousand and only get 10 leads, but those 10 leads might be the ones that ultimately get you that really good deal. And it’s worth it. Honestly, a lot of real estate investors I know do this very, very successfully.
The last is relationships, right? And real estate … People think it’s this independent lone wolf game, but it is not. It is all about relationships. Sometimes people who I know who are real estate investors will pass me deals. And if you’re thinking like, “Oh, why would they do that if it’s such a good deal?” Well, sometimes they don’t have the money. They’re between deals, right? They’re saving up for a bigger deal. Or maybe they’re working on flipping right now. Or they’re really into short-term rentals and I’m into small, multifamilies. If you have relationships with people, they will pass you deals and leads if you reciprocate, right? I do that for my friends. I don’t flip houses personally.
So if I found a deal and I have friends who flip houses, I would pass that along to them. And I would hope that they would reciprocate in the future if they found deals that they thought met my crystal clear criteria, right? Again, that is why it’s so important to have your criteria because I know what deals work for me. If they’re not going to work … If I have a lead that’s not going to work for me, I’ll pass it along. And other people are going to do that for me as well. So these are just some of the ways you can get leads. Again, if you go Pro, we can get you this masterclass, it’s going to teach you dozens of ways to find deals and it’s great.
Next, let’s talk about money because this is a big one, right? Everyone is like, “How am I going to get leads? Am I going to save for it? Do I have to save up?” Yeah, that is a good way to do it. If you have a high-paying job or a sufficient income where you can save, you can save up enough money. Personally, I’d in. If you want to BRRRR, in BRRRR, you do need money down, but it is a good way to recycle that money quickly. So if you had 100 grand to put into a property, you could renovate it, refinance it, and take out, let’s say, 80 grand and use that 80 grand to buy another one. And you can do that over and over. And you can recycle the capital that you’re using to buy multiple properties. That’s a great method.
If you want to do low money down, the occupied loans. So this is like house hacking, owner occupied, you can put as little as 3.5% down. One of the examples I gave at the beginning of this webinar, someone used 3.5% down. So you can do that, too. Also, partnering. This is how I got started, just so you know. I got started … I found the deal. And I had three partners who we each put in a quarter of the down payment, right? But remember, I said I had no money. I further partnered and I borrowed money from one of the other partners for my down payment and paid them a 6% interest rate on my down payment on my one quarter of a down payment until I could get enough money to pay them back. So just think about that.
I found three partners, so four of us split a deal. And then I didn’t even have any money. So I went out and borrowed even more money to be able to put my quarter of the down payment down. And listen, I am lucky, I knew some people who had enough money to be able to lend and to partner with me. Not everyone has that, but you can network and meet those people. But I knew some people and I was able to do that, right? I had no money, but I thought creatively about it. And most importantly, I had a good deal. And investors, no matter who they are, will not turn down a good deal.
So these are some good options. But you can … So just to summarize here. And again, actually, if you go Pro, we have a how to invest with low and no money down workshop that Brandon Turner put together that you can check out because there are so many more ways here. But I want you to focus on these, right? So I would say focus on partnerships. That’s how I got started. So I think that’s a really great way to do it. If you have a high-income job, you can either do a low. Not even high income. If you have a W-2 job where you can get a loan, you can save up for it or you could do an owner-occupied house hack. So those are my three personal favorite ways to get started because putting 3.5% down is super easy. If that’s on a $400,000 property, it was probably a nice property, that’s only 12 grand, right?
So if you have a W-2 job, you hopefully can save up 12 grand. And if you can’t, go partner for it. That’s what I did. So these are good things to do. But I want you to focus on something that I just said and it’s really important. If you find a good deal, you will find the money, right? Everyone thinks, “I need to find the money first and then I go find a deal.” No, it is the complete opposite of that, right? Imagine going to someone and asking, “Hey, can I borrow some money? I want to buy real estate.” They’re like, “Sure, yeah, what’s the property?” And you’re like, “I don’t know, I’m going to go find it.” The partner is going to be like, “What? I mean, I have no confidence in that.”
If you think about it the other way around, if someone came up to me and they’re like, “Hey, I have this amazing deal, it’s going to generate a 12% cash on cash return and you’re going to get a 20% annualized ROI over the next 10 years,” I’d be like, “Yeah, okay, that sounds like a great deal. Where do I sign up?” So think about this when you’re thinking about money, it’s about getting the deal first and then you can have an opportunity to go partner. And this is if you don’t have the money to buy up on your own. So think first about finding great deals and, second, about finding the money because if you have the deal, you’ll get the money, but you have to be able to analyze the property, right?
If you’re going to come up to me as an investor and say, “Dave, I want to partner with you on this project, I have this great deal,” and you don’t have an analysis for me to look at, then what are you doing, right? I don’t know if it’s a good deal.
So next step is to analyze deals so that when you go out and partner or if you’re just going to fund it yourself, you can go and show them what a great deal you’ve found. So one way to do it is by hand, you can build an Excel spreadsheet. And I used to do this because I have a master’s degree in analytics and I know how to do this stuff. And other people do do this. But honestly, I use the BiggerPockets calculators just because it’s so much easier. And I don’t want to have to build a new spreadsheet for every single property I analyze because, remember, when we talked about the LAPS system, we need leads and then analysis. And you might be analyzing 20 or 30 properties a month and you need something to do quickly. And the BiggerPockets calculators, honestly, let you do this in five minutes.
And so if you’re doing that volume, if you’re trying to follow the LAPS system, as I hope you do, you’re going to want to find a tool that works quickly. So I highly recommend using the BiggerPockets calculators. We’ve got tons of them. And I’ll show you how to use it. Let’s just do this right now. We’re going to analyze a deal together.
Okay. So all I’m going to do is go to tools. And then I’m going to click on rental property here. And I’m opening this in another tab. And you can see … Just so you know, guys, the rental property tool is part of BiggerPockets Pro, which is an amazing tool for people who want to get into real estate. Talk about that in a minute. But you can use it five times for free. So if you want to follow along or test this out, you can do that. I came to this page first because I just want to show you that I really use these. I actually don’t always use pictures until I’m going to show them to a potential partner or to a lender. I don’t usually put pictures in, but I do this all the time. You can see, hey, look, good deal or cash flow, 5,000, this one was not so good in Austin for negative 14,000.
So show you all sorts of different kinds of deals, different cash flow. I’m using this all the time. But let’s get into this, we’re going to run our deal together. So this deal, I’m just going to copy and paste this here, street address and in Kentucky. And I’m going to add a photo. And this is really important because, remember, in the LAPS system, a lot of this about finding a partner, maybe you want to find a lender, and it’s super cool to just show them a really professional-looking report because they’re going to want to know what they’re investing in, what they’re lending on. And these calculators are a great way to do that.
All right. So that’s it. Next, we’re going to move on to our purchase. Let’s assume that we’re going to buy this at asking … This was for 240,000, was the asking price, and closing costs is 5,000. Now, you’re probably thinking, “Dave, how do I know purchasing closing costs, how’s that 5,000?” Well, I’ve been doing this a long time. But if you haven’t, you can just click on these help tips over here. Just click on calculating closing costs, and you can see around 1% to 2% of purchase closing costs. I’m going to use 2%. You can use whatever you want, you can talk to a loan advisor, that’s a good way to know, for sure. But if you just want to estimate it, 5,000 is great.
Let’s just say we’re going to rehab this property. We’re not going to do a big bird calculation, but let’s just say we’re going to put some money into it and we think if we put 25 grand in, it’s actually going to bring the value of the property up to 300,000. Again, after repair value, that takes some time to get good at it. But look at this, we have all of these tools for you to learn how to estimate ARV. I highly recommend you read these so you can get good at estimating it. But for now, I just want to walk you through the calculator and how easy this is to use.
I’m just going to say, let’s just say, it costs us 30 grand, I don’t know, sounds about right, for repair costs. And that’s it. So now, what we’ve done just so far is all we’ve done is put on that property information, we upload some photos, we got purchase price, closing costs, our ARV and repair costs. Next, it’s time to talk about our loan. I’m going to say that we’re going to put 25% down because as an investor, I’m not living in them. Usually, if you’re not living in, you have to put 25% down. Depends on your lender. But for me, that’s usually what I put down.
And I’m going to put 6% interest rate. I think that’s actually higher than interest rates are right now, but I’m going to just say 6% for this. We’ll be conservative, right? We don’t want to buy the wrong things. We want to buy something that fits our crystal clear criteria. And I’m going to put a 30-year fixed rate loan because I love 30-year fixed rate loans. Again, you want to learn more about it, just click on these super easy things, right? We’re flying through this, guys. We’re more than halfway done.
Now, it is time to put in our rent income. And I know that this can intimidate people. But lucky for us, we just go to the BiggerPockets rent estimator and we can just put in our rent, our area. So we’ll search this address, we know that this is … I’m actually going to do this as two bed one bath. If you remember, this was four units, they were all two bed, one bath, and I’m going to search this address. And look at this. So 725. That’s what we’re seeing. And look, confidence is high. This is one of the things I love about the BiggerPockets rental estimator is that it tells you how confident it is because there are some places where there just aren’t good comps, maybe if it’s like super rural, or it’s a seven-unit, a seven bedroom or something random like that, it’s hard to estimate, but a two bed one bath usually get high.
And you can see on the low end for maybe a not great property, you’re getting about 507. For a high-end property, you’re getting almost 1,100. I’m going to assume this property, again, I’m just making this up, I don’t know that well, is right in the middle. So I’m going to use 725. If you want to look around and see the comps, wow, this is near a place called Spaghetti Junction, which is hilarious. I love that. So this property is near Spaghetti Junction apparently, great sounding place. And you can click on any of these comps if you want to see. But look, there’s a lot of comps over here. So you can see that’s why we have this high confidence is that there’s a lot of properties around here.
And listen, this is a great way to estimate rent. But if you really want to know for sure, call a property manager in your area or you can go on Craigslist, or Zillow, or whatever and just see what things are renting for in that area. Or maybe you’re a renter right now in your neighborhood. And you might be able to do that. So 725 times four is 2,900. So I’m going to do that as our gross monthly income. And that’s it.
So again, use the rent estimator on BiggerPockets that it’s a Pro feature, call a property manager if you don’t know, go on Zillow. Those are all great ways to estimate rent. But, obviously, if you’re using BiggerPockets, that’s an easy way to do it.
All right. Down to our last one, expenses, property taxes. This one, I’m going to estimate it at about $2,500 per year. And you can determine this a lot of ways. A lot of times, it’s public data. So if you see here public data, you can probably go … This is in, where was it in, Frankfort, Kentucky, in Frankfort, Kentucky, you could probably go on their government website and look up what the taxes are. So you don’t even have to estimate, you can just go know, for sure, which I recommend you doing.
Insurance is usually a little bit trickier. But for a single-family home, it’s usually around 1,200. For my multifamilies, I usually pay around 2,400. So I’m going to estimate that again. These are just for running the numbers quickly. If you get to the point where you’re going to offer on a property, you’re going to want to call an insurance broker and know exactly what your numbers are. But in the context of the LAPS system, if you’re running 40 deal analysis, you can use these rules of thumb just to narrow it down, which ones you’re going to offer on and then refine your search, which I’ll show you had to do in a second, overtime.
Repairs and maintenance, vacancy, CapEx, all these are a percentage, and I like to just use fives, 5% for repairs and maintenance, 5% for vacancy. Vacancy in the US is 2% right now, but you should look up your local area because it can really depend on where you are. A lot of high-priced cities, where there’s not a lot of rentals available, have really low vacancy. Rural areas sometimes have higher vacancy rates. So you definitely want to check that out for yourself.
Again, I just want to show you how to use the calculator here. CapEx, which is like repairs and maintenance, but it’s actually for the big ticket items. If you needed a new boiler, you need a new roof, it’s treated a little bit differently in your taxes. And so you want … That’s why we have them separately here in the calculators, but it’s 5%, I think, is probably pretty good. For repairs and maintenance and CapEx, you want to go by the condition of the property. If you have a brand new build, you can estimate on the lower side. If you have something that’s rundown and needs a lot of work, you’re going to want to jack that up to make sure you have a cushion and that you’re not putting in yourself at risk for needing to have to come out of pocket to make those repairs.
So for some people, it might be 10%. Let’s just make the 7%, I don’t know. I’m just making numbers up here. And management fees are the last one. So if you want to self-manage, you can put zero. I recommend that, honestly, for people who are just getting started because you learn so much and you generate more cash. But let’s just say this is my deal, I don’t live in Kentucky, so I’m going to estimate 8% on management fees. That is a personal decision whether you want management or not.
Now, for me, my personal preference is to find properties where I can bill electricity, gas, water, all of these utilities as separate, that I can just bill them directly to my tenants. They sign up with the electric company. They sign up with the water company. I don’t even have to get involved, right? It’s so much easier. So I personally just put these down to zero because the tenants take care of it. They pay for what they use, it’s fine. I don’t need to be involved.
Next is HOA. I don’t buy properties in HOAs personally. I do not like them. I don’t like the idea of this like governing board of people who I don’t know, who may have no experience at all in real estate investing, dictating what I’m allowed to do at my property. That’s not for me. Some people do it, not for me personally. But if you are going to do a property with an HOA, I recommend you do a lot of due diligence on the HOA, learn about who’s on it, what the rules are, what their power is, or try and get on the HOA, right? If you’re going to buy a property in an HOA, try and get on the board so you can have influenced the decisions. That’s up to you, though.
Garbage, I think I usually pay this stuff. So I’ll just say [inaudible 00:56:00] 50 bucks a month, it’s 25 bucks a month. And that’s it, guys, we have done everything we need to do for property analysis. And I know that probably took me, what, five, seven minutes, but I was talking a lot. So if I was just doing this on my own, I could have done this in probably two or three minutes. And that’s what’s so cool about this is if you’re doing this LAPS system and you’re getting deals from your agent and your deal machine or whatever, you can run these deals in an hour, you could probably do 15 of them.
So let’s check out this deal. Where does it come out? Oh, that’s a pretty good deal, right? $662 per month in cash flow, a cash-on-cash return of 8%, which is … For me, I would love that. This is great. Annualized return of 17%. All this is excellent, right? So we can see here that for most people, this is probably going to be a great deal. And if you come down here, you can start to see the long term of what I was talking about.
Remember, on those slides before, we had this green line that was going up, that’s your property value. And then we have this purple line, which is how much you owed the bank. And you can see the same exact thing here as we showed in the slides on our chart here that shows our value is going up and up and up over time. And you can see the profit if sold, at first, it was 33k. By year 30, it’s not $125,000, [inaudible 00:57:22] a millionaire from this one property guys, right? It’s incredible. So that’s why these calculators are so helpful.
But I also want to show you one thing. We got lucky here, I picked this random deal. This turned out to be a good one. But say in your crystal clear criteria you only want a 10% cash on cash return. Okay. So maybe what you need to do … The thing I want you to know is that every deal has a number that works for it, right? You want 10% cash on cash return. So maybe this deal isn’t for you. But let’s just see, let’s see what else happens. What happens if you can increase your rent to 3,000 a month or 3,045, right? Maybe you make some more repairs. And you can do that.
All right. Now, we’re at 9.75 for cash on cash return, not bad. Pretty good. So let’s put this back. Maybe instead of 2,900, maybe I keep rent, and I don’t think I can raise rent. What if I offered the seller 220 or let’s just say 225? What happens then?
Now, we’re at 9.94. Let’s … Okay, I’m just going to go to 223. Okay. Now, we’re at a 10% return. And I’m, obviously, fudging these numbers, but that’s what real estate investors do. If you need a 10% cash on cash return, don’t just say, “Oh, this is a bad deal. I’m not doing it.” Go offer, what was it, 223. That’s going to get you your 10% cash on cash return, right? They might not accept it, but like I said, it’s a numbers game. Remember, you do 100 deals and then … 100 leads, analyze 20, pursuit five, if you’re getting five people this offer, maybe one of them accepts it and you got a deal for 10%. And that’s why I love these calculators because you can make it work for you.
I think there’s something that a lot of real estate investors say is that you don’t find great deals, you make great deals. And this is a perfect example here. If you wanted a 10% cash on cash return, that was your crystal clear criteria, then you make it a great deal by offering 223,000. They don’t accept, fine, that’s fine. That’s why you have so many leads. That’s why you’re analyzing so many deals. You’re not attached to this one deal. But if you could do it, great. That’s what’s so cool about this. And that’s what’s so important about being able to analyze the deal accurately.
Last thing I want to show you about this is you can share these things, which I think is really cool. So you can enable report sharing and hit Download PDF here. And you’ll be able to download these entire PDFs. And when you’re going to partner, remember we talked about using this deal analysis, if you have a great deal, people will want to partner with you, people will want to lend it to you. And so look at this, it’s a great deal. I can now show this professionally developed analysis to people and say, “Look at what I got, I have a deal that’s going to produce 10% cash on cash return.” Over the 10 years, you’re going to get an annualized return of 13%. Look at how I’ve estimated my expenses, look at how I’ve estimated my income. I’ve done this in a professional way and you can share this with people to great way to help you raise money. So don’t overlook this part of sharing these deals.
And let me … I should just mention that people come to me and ask for money in partnership a lot. And they offer me these Excel spreadsheets, and I know how to do this stuff. But I don’t want to learn how you did Excel, I don’t want to look through every cell and see if you made all these mistakes or how you’re calculating cash flow, if you do CapEx, right? When someone comes to me with something like this that’s professionally created and as a system, I’m much more likely to believe them because I know that a team of people here at BiggerPockets or whatever have vetted them and have created this.
Okay. So that’s analyzing a deal, right? So what we’ve talked about today is the LAPS system. We’ve talked about how to find these deals, just get an agent, look at off-market deals, then analyze these deals and pursue them. Is it really this simple? Is real estate really as easy as just following this simple? Well … I mean, this simple step? Yeah. Yes and no. I mean, first thing you need to know is that, yes, the number one thing that holds most people back from their true potential is fear. So, yes, it is really as simple as following these steps, but it’s not so simple because fear is real, right? It is a lot of money, it is a big step that you need to take. And there is fear.
I get that real estate often feels like jumping off a cliff. You’ve saved off this money, and it’s this huge decision, and it’s going to change your whole life. And it will change your life for the better, but it is not like you’re doing this alone and jumping off a cliff and it’s this risky, unknown thing. In fact, it’s much more like this. It’s like hiking. And it’s like hiking with friends, you have people to support you. There are people who have done this before. You are not jumping off a cliff. You are doing a slow climb to the top of a hill. And it’s a well-worn path that people have walked before.
At BiggerPockets, we know all about this because this is what we do. We build tools to help investors on their journey towards their goals in life. So, yes, is it this simple as following this path? Yeah, it really can be if you can get over the fear and if you are inspired to take action and to take control of your life to become a real estate millionaire to earn the time and financial freedom. I’m guessing if you’re sitting here that you really want that it really can be that simple.
So as we’re winding down here, here are three big questions that you need to ask yourself. First, are you prepared to define your crystal clear criteria? Because that focus is what’s going to help you run the LAPS system. If you know what you want, you’re going to know what are good leads, you’re going to be able to analyze good deals, and you’re going to know which ones to act on.
Number two, do you know how to use the LAPS system funnel to build your pipeline? Hopefully, right now. It’s pretty simple, right? Go out, find great deals, analyze and act on them. I keep saying it over and over because it’s that easy.
And lastly, do you know that by finding a great deal, drill this into your head, by finding a great deal, you will be able to finance those deals because people like lending and they like partnering on deals that are really good deals. So hopefully, you said yes to all three of those things. That means I’ve done my job here today and taught you how to run these systems. That’s all great. But if all it was is about information, that would be great. If all it took was knowing how to buy it, then we’d all be millionaires, right? I love this quote, if more information was the answer, we would all be billionaires with perfect abs, right? It’s not just about knowing those things.
The key to success is also about taking action. It comes down to consistent practice. This isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme, remember. This is something that you have to do every day. And the LAPS system is all about numbers. You need to be consistently working your deal funnel.
Next, it is about continued education. Congratulations by being here on this webinar. You’re already doing this one. But keep in touch with BiggerPockets, listen to podcasts, read books, blogs, most of these things are completely free and can help you continue on your journey.
Next is accountability. I love this one. Because if you have people who are also investing in real estate, who are also pursuing the same goals that you are, you’re much, much more likely to be able to achieve the goals that you set out for.
And lastly, it’s all about action, right? Really, you can sit here and a lot of people are going to come and listen to this and think, “This isn’t for me,” and that’s fine. Or maybe I’ll do this one day, but there are some of you out there sitting there right now thinking that, “This is for me, I am ready to do this.” And if so, all I can recommend, the thing I can recommend is go start taking action right now. Take the momentum that you’ve built by sitting through this webinar and go to find your crystal clear criteria, go start getting those leads right now today, go find an agent today, and start building that action and momentum.
So I just wanted to show you guys that this works. Dennis said that I want to thank you and BP after attending your webinar on how to make 1 million in real estate, I got inspired to take action. Last week, I closed my first deal, now have a triple that has rented and will cash flow very well for me. Can now call myself a real estate investor, have a plan for moving forward, and will make my business a success, right? That’s what it’s all about, guys.
Also, I love that they’re saying that they did it a week later. That’s what I really think is important here is that he kept up that momentum and was able to keep taking action. So if you are ready to keep taking action, what is the next step? Well, I would recommend becoming a BiggerPockets Pro member. BiggerPockets Pro is a suite of tools that are designed to help you analyze properties and get to your next deal, whether that’s your first deal, your second deal, or your third deal, get to your next deal faster, right? Because that’s what we want, right, is to get to that financial freedom faster. It is not a get-rich-quick scheme real estate, just to make that clear. But if you use tools like BiggerPockets Pro, doesn’t need to be 10 or 20 years in the future. It can be three years or five years into the future. And that’s what BiggerPockets Pro is designed to do.
Now, this isn’t for everyone. If you’re at home and you learn this information and you’re like, “Oh, maybe I’ll do this one day,” we want people only to go Pro if they’re ready for this. If you’re ready to take action, and you’re ready to pursue this financial freedom, BiggerPockets Pro is a great tool for you. If you’re not ready for that, that’s totally fine. But I’m going to assume that you are one of those people who wants to start taking action and just show you what we got here.
So number one thing you can do with Pro is confidently run the numbers, right? That deal analysis tool I showed you is just pure gold. It is so incredibly valuable to investors. That’s the one of the core features of BiggerPockets Pro. We also have the rent estimator that I showed you because to analyze good deals, you need to know what they’re going to rent for. And you can do that using the rent estimator.
Next, show the community that you mean business by being a pro. There are so many one wantrepreneurs … Have ever heard that term? It’s like people who want to be an entrepreneur and they talk about it, but they’ve never done anything. They don’t have any skin in the game. They’re wantrepreneurs. Well, show people that you’re serious by signing up for Pro and accessing these tools, and being someone who’s in it, who’s in the game. I promise you by being a pro and by having some skin in the game, people are going to be more likely to answer your questions, they’re going to show you deals, they’re going to want to partner with you, much more than if you’re someone who’s just sitting on the sidelines and kicking the tires a little bit.
Next, you also have access. I love this. You have access to our boot camps. I know so many experienced investors who are going to BiggerPockets boot camps because they’re so valuable. They have this accountability element, right? It’s like people who are doing the same things on the same timeline as you, which is just really cool. And you’re going to learn from experts like Ashley Kehr and Tyler Madden. There’s just so … And Matt Faircloth. All these really experienced investors teaching you and you can only sign up for boot camps if you’re a Pro. So it still costs a little bit more, just to be clear. It’s 199 per course, which is an absolute steal.
Do yourself a favor, go look at what other people’s mastermind’s boot camps cost, $499. That is an incredible deal. And that’s because at BiggerPockets, again, we believe that anyone can do this and everyone should do this.
You also get all these Pro exclusive videos and webinars, you can watch the whole archive. There are hundreds and hundreds of webinars, just like this, teaching you different strategies for real estate investors. We have landlord forms. So I love this because I own property in Colorado, but I also have been looking at deals in other states and we have landlord forms like leases, pet addendums, break lease forms, whatever it is, in all 50 states and they’re updated every single year, so you just get to stay on top of things.
When I first started investing in real estate, I paid 500 bucks to have a lease written. This just comes free for part as Pro for as many states as you’re investing in. We also have BiggerPockets partners, huge companies like Mashvisor, Roofstock, AirDNA, that have great information for you and you get discounts by being a BiggerPockets Pro. And these are all really nice features. I use pretty much every single one of them. But the number one reason to consider going pro today is because it works. I know, it sounds stupid. Sounds simple, but it does. It really works. We have spent years, decades crafting these tools around being a successful real estate investor.
BiggerPockets believes that every single one of you, if you want it and you are ready to take action, can become a real estate millionaire. And we have built BiggerPockets Pro to support you on that journey. It just works. I’ve literally seen tens of thousands of people … I’ve worked here for seven years, I’ve seen tens of thousands of people become successful in real estate investing, thanks to BiggerPockets Pro.
One of those people is Aaron, he said, “BiggerPockets calculators are my go-to for analyzing potential properties. There’s no way I could analyze the volume of properties I do without being a Pro member. I locked up my first three unit almost a year ago, and now I’m selling for almost a 70k profit that will go towards something larger. The BiggerPockets calculators were a huge factor in making sure my numbers were right.” That’s awesome. That’s exactly what we’re going for.
Patrick said, “Back in June, I attended one of your webinars. Right afterwards, I signed up for Pro. In the next couple of weeks, I analyzed a bunch of deals.” See, I love that because he’s taking action immediately and getting that momentum. Eventually, I found a fourplex. I got it under contract three weeks later, it’s after signing up for Pro. It’s amazing. A week later, close on another property that was six units, big thank you to you and the entire team. Final quick tip, sign up for Pro. I made my money back at the closing table.
I love that. And these are just some of the thousands of people who have done it. So if you are ready to take action, you can do that. And you can actually save 20% today by using the code, millionaire web, that’s millionaire W-E-B. You can just do that by going to the Pro checkout page. And I should mention that it’s normally $390 a year, which is an incredible deal in its own right. Again, if you want to, you should … If you’re curious, other courses, other things out there on the internet literally costs like $10,000 for a weekend. But because of our core values at BiggerPockets, and that we believe that everyone should have access to real estate investing, we have priced it so that anyone can afford it.
So 390 bucks is what we charge. But because if you’re here today, you get that 20% off, it’s only $312, which is even more of a screaming deal. So use that code, millionaire web. And on top of that, I got some more gifts for you just for going Pro today because we really want you to start taking that action if you’re ready.
Number one, you’re getting a $40 value of the intention journal. This is awesome. Brandon created it. It is a way to keep track of your thoughts for the next 90 days. I promise you, if you follow what I just taught you and you use this journal for the next 90 days, you’re going to get your first deal. I promise you, I’ve seen it so many times, you can absolutely do it. And so we’re going to give you this intention journal for free if you go Pro in the next few days.
Next, I mentioned this earlier, you can get the investing with low or no money down workshop with Brandon and David. That is a $200 value as a nine-part video series. If you want to talk about … If you’re thinking, “I don’t know how to start that LAPS funnel, the top of the funnel,” this is a great way to do it. You can learn all about investing with this and how to build that lead funnel, how to get a ton of leads with this. We also have finding great deals masterclass. We also have … So we have all of these tools here. We have low or no money down, we have finding great deals masterclass, all this adds up to thousands of dollars in bonuses.
So we have a cheap product to start with. It’s 20% off, $1,000 value and bonuses, all a great reason to start taking action and go Pro today. Again, we really want you to do this because we believe, we truly genuinely believe that this is the best way to financial freedom, to becoming a millionaire, to living a life that you are excited about and that has purpose for you. So if you’re interested, go to biggerpockets.com/proupgrade. That’s where you do it, biggerpockets.com/proupgrade. Make sure to use that code, millionaire web, is going to get you 20% off and it’s going to get you access to all the bonuses I just gave out.
Last thing, if you go Pro and you don’t like it, we’ll give you your money back. No questions asked. You have 30 days and 100% refund. And if you start using it and think, “This isn’t for me,” we’ll give you your money back. But we are confident that if you start building that momentum, if you follow the steps and the systems that I taught you today, you are going to love it. You’re going to love BiggerPockets Pro, and in the next 90 days, if you follow that journal, you’re going to be on the path to becoming a real estate millionaire.
All right, everyone, I will leave you with some parting words from Jim Rohn. He says if you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, find an excuse. So get out there and find a way. Take action, start building that momentum, and you will be on your path to becoming financially free. I promise you, I’ve done it myself. I’ve seen thousands of people do it and you can absolutely do it, too. So good luck to you. I hope you’ve learned a lot on this webinar.
Again, if you have any questions or you want to reach out to me, you can do that on BiggerPockets or on Instagram where I’m @thedatadeli. Thank you all so much for watching and good luck out there.