Real Estate Rookie

This week’s question comes from Brandon through Ashley’s Instagram direct messages (follow her @wealthfromrentals). Brandon is asking: I live in a great neighborhood where my rent is less than a potential mortgage. I’m looking to invest in a different town experiencing great growth, but I would live there myself. Is it a bad idea to purchase a rental property before purchasing my primary residence...

To be a successful entrepreneur and investor, you need to learn how to turn a no into a yes. Today’s guest, Anthony Michael, has earned his title as a successful entrepreneur from doing just that. Through determination, calculated risk, and finding ways to create value, Anthony has done thirteen flips while also becoming a trusted lender.   Anthony’s real estate investing journey started when he r...

Getting fired usually isn’t a good thing. But in retrospect, it was arguably one of the best things to ever happen to Tony Robinson. Before being the internet’s poster boy for short-term rental investing, Tony Robinson spent his days working for someone else while climbing up the corporate ladder. When he unexpectedly got fired (2 days before Christmas), he had to reimagine what his life would and...

Most people describe their start in real estate investing as a thought-through process. It usually includes a tedious plan with an incredible amount of time spent gaining background knowledge—but that’s not always the case. Today’s guest, Jan Trisler, stumbled into real estate investing by accident but hasn’t been able to look back after having four successful flips, while currently working on her...

From time to time, Ashley and Tony both have questions they need answering. And thankfully, they both host a show with a real estate investor in complementary niches. This week, Ashley is prepping to scale her short-term rental empire, so she wants to know from Tony what his six top tips for vacation rentals would be. Although Tony has only been hosting for a few years now, he has a sizable portfo...

When you think about your ideal life in 5,10 or even 15 years, what do you see? When you think about your finances, what is it that you want your money to do for you? As today’s guest, Aaron Latal, so elegantly put it, when setting goals it is best to start backwards. After graduation, Aaron landed a high-paying job as an engineer and genuinely enjoyed the work he was doing, yet he felt like somet...

This week’s question comes from Mack through Ashley's Slack channel in the Real Estate Rookie Bootcamp. Mack is asking: How can I buy an investment property without putting 20% down? Mack has the question that many real estate investors do: how to buy with low or no money down? Thankfully, the world of real estate has a plethora of financing options from low down payment conventional and FHA loans...

We usually get to hear from our amazing guest speakers, but as the year comes to an end, it’s time to hear directly from our dynamic show hosts. Besides hosting rookie podcasts, Tony and Ashley are living proof of how lucrative real estate can be when done right. In this end of the year special we explore Tony and Ashley’s business goals, challenges, and motivations. While it might be hard to imag...

Once again, Ashley’s DMs are open for questions! This week, Brendan direct messaged Ashley asking: I’m looking at a 10-unit property at $1.9M. The current owner only has 4/10 units rented, but banks require 75% occupancy to finance. The seller would be interested in owner financing. Where do I start? It’s good to note that no two seller financing deals are the same. Different sellers want differen...

What 2022 real estate tax strategies do you have prepared? Or maybe the better question is: have you even started to plan for taxes in 2022? If you’re a real estate rookie, you probably are just dipping your toe into the wonderful world of real estate tax deductions. But, without a good bookkeeper, accountant or CPA, you could be missing thousands (if not more) in tax savings. Joining us today for...

This week’s question comes from Daniel, who reached out directly to Ashley through her Instagram (@wealthfromrentals). Aside from giving Ashley some more movie quotes to use, Daniel is also asking: How do I gather local rent numbers for my rental property?  Landlords can struggle when trying to price a rental appropriately, that’s why rental comparable (comps) research can be so important when loo...

Do you ever feel out of place as an employee? The W2 route isn’t for everyone and maybe you’ve started to feel the entrepreneurial itch. So what steps do you take when it’s time to transition into working for yourself all while building wealth through real estate? After years of being in and out of the prison system, Sterling Shrout needed a change. His whole life he considered himself a “bad empl...

If you’re wondering how to buy your first rental property, there is arguably no better place on the internet to learn than BiggerPockets. Ashley Kehr should know, she tripled her portfolio after she found the BiggerPockets forums. But, in order for Ashley to triple her portfolio, she had to make the leap and buy her first deal. Today, she’ll teach you how to do the same, so you can reach financial...

Real estate is a relationship-based business. As you establish more relationships within the industry, your job continues to get easier and today’s guest, Jay Simpson, is a prime example of that. With the help of his mentor, he has successfully flipped two houses and already turned one into a rental property. The primary reason he got into real estate was because he wanted the time to be actively...

This week’s question comes from Neil on the Real Estate Rookie Facebook Group. Neil is asking: I’m reading a book on financing strategies — if a loan is amortized over thirty years, how is there a balloon payment at fifteen years? What’s the difference between the two? Most real estate investors don’t run into things like balloon payments until they’ve started taking loans from private lenders or...

What if you knew you could be fresh out of college and already owning property? Why wait for a “stable career” to start building wealth when you can dive into real estate investing, whether that be in or out-of-state? Would you start looking into investing earlier if you knew it was without age limitation? Today’s guest Karina Mejia, a 24-year-old investor, goes over her house hacking journey that...

We often hear entrepreneurs talk about how they want to “be the best” in their field. It’s the same with many real estate investors. They want to be the best wholesaler, flipper, short-term rental host, or landlord. But, does “being the best” really matter much to your customer if they can’t tell the difference between you and your competition? Probably not. Mike Michalowicz, author of Profit Firs...

The more “traditional path” encourages a lot of waiting: waiting to get into the right school, waiting to get the right degree, the right internship, and the right job, but what about the right now? As every current and aspiring entrepreneur knows, time is money so capitalizing on the right now is essential. How do you do that? Real estate investing! Today’s guest, Rachel Morrow, knew the importan...

This week’s question comes from Rob on the Real Estate Rookie Facebook Group. Rob is asking: How do I make sure a wholesaler that is sending me deals is not a scam? With wholesaling, as with any other sector of real estate, you’re always going to have your good and bad actors. Many wholesalers are running professional businesses, but some are simply inexperienced, while others have malicious inten...

What if you treated the lowest point in your life as a beginning instead of an end? What if you were told real estate investing could be the second chance you’re looking for? Why give up when you could level up? Today’s guest, Jason Peterson, took back control of his life by doing exactly that. Instead of giving into adversity and strife, Jason found a way to turn his life around, through real est...

Ashley and Tony have been on a tear this year, buying up more homes than ever before. They’ve also been branching out into bigger commercial deals, like RV parks, campgrounds, hotels, motels, and more. While every real estate rookie knows the thrill of finding a new deal, many don’t understand the struggles that go with it. Today, Ashley and Tony walk through the biggest hurdles they’ve been facin...

Military members in the real estate community love to preach about how great the VA loans are for financing primary residences. They also love the fact that these primary residences can be turned into rentals, quite easily, when the military decides to station you elsewhere. This is exactly how Angel Garcia got his start; accidentally investing in real estate, all while stationed overseas. Angel b...

This week is less of a Rookie Reply, and more of a “Rookie Ramble” as Ashley likes to call it, as Tony and Ashley ask each other questions about their road to full-time investor status. They talk about first jobs, best degrees for real estate investing, the industries they chose to go into after college, and the skills they wish they had learned earlier. Both Tony and Ashley didn’t have the end go...

You could say that Brin Amberlee isn’t a traditional real estate investor. She doesn’t have tons of experience with property management, construction, or investing, but she does have the will to succeed. After buying her primary residence in Las Vegas, Brin was prompted by friends to start listening to The BiggerPockets Podcast, where she learned about the mind-blowing BRRRR strategy. Brin's fundi...

We’d all like to imagine that Ashley Kehr and Tony Robinson are perfect investors. They do perfect deals, have a perfect team, and everything runs smoothly in their lives. While they are two phenomenal investors, they still face the challenges that most entrepreneurs and real estate investors also face off-camera. From shiny object syndrome to letting go of the entrepreneurial reigns, Tony and Ash...