Real Estate Rookie

New construction is an enigma to many real estate investors, and especially to rookies. When building a new house, you need to understand engineering, permitting, construction, and a more complicated funding structure. This didn’t stop Donovan Adesoro, house hacker turned home builder from keeping the investment train going. Although Donovan had a background in engineering, he didn’t have much exp...

Five short years ago, Avery Carl didn’t own ninety-six rental units. She didn’t have her real estate license, she hadn’t founded The Short Term Shop or The Mortgage Shop, and she did not have a book written on short-term rental investing. But now, Avery has all those things, and she did all of them in only half a decade. Avery’s first venture into real estate started by her saving up every penny s...

Marching along Bourbon Street last week was a parade with some of the best real estate investors in the world, celebrating another successful BPCon, ready to take on the world. Throughout the past week, attendees of the conference heard from world-class business leaders, investors, and authors, learning about everything from running a business to short-term rental markets, to self-storage, and mor...

Tony Robinson has some great ideas, like creating a short-term rental empire in both Joshua Tree, California, and the Smoky Mountains over in Tennessee. Tony talked so highly of the latter investing region, that today’s guest, Cale Delaney decided to pack his whole family into the minivan and make the 10+ hour drive to check out the area. Shortly after, Cale was under contract for not one, not two...

This week’s question comes from Vince on the Real Estate Rookie Facebook Group. Vince is asking: After a 1031 exchange, can I refi/cash-out most of the funds and use it to purchase other property? Will I still be liable for taxes? While neither Tony or Ashley are tax specialists, they have had some experience in the past with 1031 exchanges. Firstly, make sure you understand the rules of a 1031 ex...

Susan Reehill has defied the odds time and time again. She was a teenage mother, having her first son at the young age of sixteen. For most young and single mothers, the chance of becoming a homeowner, let alone an investor is slim, to say the least. At forty-two years old, Susan decided to make two big jumps in her life and career: graduate from college and buy her first home. She succeeded at ac...

Social media investors are becoming the new normal. Whether you’re on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Clubhouse, or Twitter you can find successful entrepreneurs giving tips on real estate, stock trading, or investing in general. So, as an aspiring real estate investor, it would only make sense for you to use these platforms to lock down more deals, find more partners, and maybe even entice some priv...

Amanda Bolan, like many of us, had a “pressure cooker” moment where she realized that becoming a real estate tycoon was part of her future. At the time, she was working in the oil and gas industry without real estate investing experience. She took a leap of faith and decided to flip her first house in 2018, then flip another in 2019, then buy a 12-unit apartment in 2020, and another in 2021. Did w...

This week’s question comes from Mel on the Real Estate Rookie Facebook Group. Mel is asking: When working with agents, do your agents help in finding off-market deals, or do you mainly look for those as they send you on-market deals? While it isn’t uncommon for agents to have “pocket listings” (pre-market listings), most agents deal solely with on-market deals, working with buyers and sellers base...

What if you could own rental properties without the responsibility of landlording? Not only that, what if you were paid a hefty, non-refundable deposit for your home, minimizing your risk? Would you start investing under these circumstances? If you like the sound of that, you’ll love the rent-to-own strategy, or as Today’s guest Jessica likes to call her framework, the BRRTOR (Buy, Rehab, Rent-to-...

This week’s question comes from Roosevelt on the Real Estate Rookie Facebook Group. Roosevelt is asking: I’m currently preapproved with one lender but another lender has a loan option my current one isn't offering. Can you be preapproved with multiple lenders at once? And are there any issues I could run into with this? It’s commonplace in the real estate investing world to be preapproved by multi...

When you get started in real estate investing, you often don’t know what you’re doing. Is this deal going to work out? Am I choosing the right materials for my flip or BRRRR? Will this appraise at what I need it to? All these types of questions can flow through a rookie investor’s mind in the first months or even years of investing. But, if you’re making the right progress and doing what needs to...

This week’s question comes from Scott (@hotdads1) through Tony’s direct messages on Instagram! Scott is asking: How are expensive properties profitable? Is it a mindset shift to buy expensive properties, or should I look in cheaper areas? Should I purchase in a quickly appreciating market?  This is a very 2021-type question. We’ve seen numerous markets around the United States (and the world) see...

Purchasing one rental property is an accomplishment in itself, but what about purchasing 26 units in your first year of real estate investing? Not many do it, but someone who has is Amelia McGee. Amelia didn’t have any formal training on real estate investing. She wasn’t a broker, an agent, or a contractor; none of her family invested in real estate either. You could say that Amelia had to take a...

This week’s question comes from Rhett on the Real Estate Rookie Facebook Group. Rhett is asking: How do you inform an inherited tenant of changes in ownership after you close on a property? When you inherit a tenant, you often inherit a lease as well, so it’s important to know exactly what the tenant is paying for rent, their security deposit, and their lease terms during your due diligence period...

Nick Cooley was driving through Texas as part of his medical device sales job. At the time, he didn’t have much money on him. He pulled over to fill up his company car with gas, scraped every nickel and dime from the seats and cup holders, and came up with just over one dollar in change. This was Nick’s meal budget for the night. He settled on an ice cream sandwich before getting ready to spend an...

This week’s question comes from Steven on the Real Estate Rookie Facebook Group. Steven is asking: I’m about to try to make an offer on a house but the property is on market, so I’m talking with the agent. When I make the offer, is there any official document I need to submit, or do I just give them the price I want to offer? Many rookies have this question, especially when trying to purchase thei...

We have lots of fun phrases in the real estate community, phrases like house hacking, live in flipping, and BRRRRing. Now, we may have one new phrase to add...land hacking. Kai Andrew describes land hacking as extracting as many income streams as possible from one piece of property. That means having the main house for long-term rentals, a small ADU for short-term rentals, a glamping tent in the b...

Last episode, we had Brian T Bradley, Esq on to talk about all things related to wealth and asset protection. Now, he’s back to answer questions from the BiggerPockets Real Estate Rookie community. We’ll go over a handful of questions from different rookies in the community, questions like: Can I create an LLC and sell my property to it? Will converting a property from my personal name to an LLC t...

As a rookie, you’re in the best position possible to start protecting your growing empire of rental properties, but what’s the best way to legally shield yourself from liability and litigation? We talk to awarded asset protection attorney, Brian T Bradley, Esq, who answers questions ranging from when to buy umbrella insurance, how to set up LLCs, and whether or not S-Corps are worth forming. If yo...

This week’s question comes from Dan on the Real Estate Rookie Facebook Group. Dan is asking: For those of you that have gone through the eviction process, did you go it alone in small claims court or did you hire a lawyer?  While Tony (thankfully) doesn’t have experience evicting any tenants, Ashley has had to evict multiple out of her personal investment properties as well as from properties she...

Derrick Acuff was hungry for success in real estate. So hungry for success, that he would be picking up calls from sellers in the middle of performing his job as a waiter. He was trying to do everything he could to get his first deal; sending out direct mail, texting probate listings, and meeting with potential sellers. Finally, he scored his first wholesale deal, netting him and his wife a combin...

Heather Blankenship was on a road trip from Florida to California, stopping at RV parks and campsites in between driving. She saw how busy these parks were and thought it would be interesting to own one. On her way back to the east coast, she ended up buying a campground in Tennessee for over three million dollars. She had no experience, no team, and no money. Now, that campground is worth over th...

As a successful real estate investor, you may be looking for bigger and better deals to take on, but sometimes those deals may come in a different shape and size. Kier Vogt had mastered buy-and-hold rentals, house hacking, and flipping. She wanted to take on a bigger challenge, something that would give her more responsibility with even more upside. After taking a cross-country drive, she found th...

Brandon Turner owns a lot of real estate. Some are single-family homes, but much of his portfolio is small and large multifamily properties. Why did he go into this niche and does he see value that many investors simply overlook? Brandon hits on some key aspects of becoming a successful multifamily owner, diving deep into topics like why rookies should start in small multifamily, how to find a men...