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WOLFBOX 4000A Portable Car Jump Starter for Just $59.99 on Amazon


WOLFBOX 4000A Portable Car Jump Starter for Just $59.99

This article contains Amazon affiliate links.

Amazon is selling the WOLFBOX 4000A Portable Car Jump Starter for $59.99, normally $119.99.

To get this price, use promo code WB2026MV24 at checkout to save an extra $60. Shipping is free.

This portable jump starter is designed to get your car running when the battery dies, without needing another vehicle or jumper cables connected to another car. It also doubles as a power bank for charging devices.

Features

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Fed preview: Inflation and jobs pulling FOMC in different directions, economist says


However, a softer-than-expected jobs report seemed to pump the brakes on an October increase. The Fed is widely expected to leave rates alone this week, and one economist says patience is the likelier path.

Sam Williamson (pictured top), senior economist at First American, said the Fed is more likely to hold off than act now.

“Election day may command the headlines, but the economic data will ultimately drive the Fed’s next move,” Williamson told Mortgage Professional America. “And in September, the data painted a mixed picture, with inflation coming in hotter than expected and job growth surprising to the downside. While an October rate hike remains a possibility, the Fed may prefer to proceed cautiously and wait until December.”

Why a pause looks likely

The jobs numbers in September spun the betting markets from a likely rate hike to a hold. As of Monday morning, CME FedWatch showed a 90.6% chance of a hold and a 9.4% chance of a quarter-point increase, compared with a 64.2% chance of an increase on Sept. 25.

In a LinkedIn poll after the last increase, some brokers said the Fed should have gone with a 50-basis-point bump. Williamson sees merit in the more cautious option.

The Best Types of Investments in an Unpredictable Economy



Author: Ben Fraser, President & CIO, Aspen Funds

Editor’s note from Peter: Aspen Funds is one of our sponsor partners. We asked them to share how they think about where to put capital when the economy is unpredictable. Their core business is real estate private credit, which is worth understanding whether or not you ever invest with them. As always, this is education, not a recommendation. Do your own due diligence. Here’s their take. Full disclosure at the end of the post.


When the economy is unpredictable and tumultuous, a few things happen.

The stock market (and retirement accounts) can have drastic fluctuations, often wiping out years of gains overnight.

People’s “risk meters” go into overdrive, keeping them in jobs they don’t like and scaring them away from continued investing. And in periods of high inflation, the future value of their savings is being chiseled away.

Navigating the complexities of a challenging economy without a crystal ball is tough. Knowing where to focus your investments to keep earning returns can be difficult.

Here’s something to consider. The best types of investments to focus on when the economy is unpredictable have two primary features: lower risk and income-producing.

Top Features for Investment Opportunities in an Unpredictable Economy

Lower Risk

Oftentimes, inexperienced investors view stock market investing as “low risk.” After all, if millions of other investors are doing this, it has to be safe, right? The truth is, the stock market has inherent volatility that many investors don’t consider.

And volatility kills the power of compounding. That’s why, when the economy is not stable, you want to focus on investment vehicles that are stable and carry lower risk.

How do you find lower-risk investments?

Finding investments that are lower-risk may seem daunting. Of course, you need to do your own research and due diligence, but here are a few steps to consider that can help you identify opportunities that are less risky:

  1. Look for inflation-protected investments. When inflation is high, it can have a big impact on your cash. Let’s say your money is tied up in a 5-year investment that doesn’t adjust for inflation, like a fixed-rate bond. By the end of that period, you may have “technically” made money on your investment, but the value of the dollar has decreased, and your terms didn’t adjust with inflation. So in reality, you made much less. Looking for inflation-protected investments, or investment vehicles that naturally adjust to inflation, can mitigate a lot of risk and help protect your capital. One of the more common inflation-protected vehicles is real estate. Property prices and rents have historically tended to track inflation. Other asset classes that can serve as a hedge against inflation, because they aren’t as sensitive to public equity markets, are commodities like oil and gas.
  2. Look for investments backed by actual assets. Investments whose value is (at least partially) based on a physical asset are often less risky than investments where this isn’t the case. Venture capital, for example, is a riskier investment because you’re betting on the future success of a business. Owning a share of a valuable piece of artwork, on the other hand, gives you the collateral of the actual piece of art. Its value may change, but it is less likely to go to zero. Common investment vehicles that are backed by assets include art, collectibles, and, most notably, real estate. Real estate can include everything from multifamily syndications to industrial properties to mortgage note investing.
  3. Look for a track record. Aside from the actual investment opportunity itself, it’s also paramount to evaluate the risk associated with the operator of the investment. When the economy is unpredictable and you’re looking to lower risk, it’s especially important to invest with operators that have a solid track record. Key things to look for in a track record include length of time in operation, total assets under management, whether any return payments have been missed or delayed, past capital losses, and historic performance during challenging economic environments, like during Covid. While past performance doesn’t guarantee future performance, positive indicators in all these areas can help mitigate some risk.

Want to learn more about a private credit fund targeting 10-12% annual returns?
Learn about the Aspen Real Estate Private Credit Fund.

Target returns are not guaranteed. Available to accredited investors only.

Income-Producing

Finding investments that produce regular returns in the form of monthly or quarterly checks is always top of mind for investors. But this becomes especially important in periods of economic uncertainty.

Income-producing investments can help supplement earned income or provide a financial buffer if you hit any road bumps during an economic downturn.

Types of income-producing investment assets

Alternative investments:

  • Real estate. One of the easiest places to find investments that will generate regular income is real estate. There are crowd-favorite options like syndications in multifamily, commercial, and retail properties. There are also lesser-known real estate investments that can offer a different risk profile and more predictable cash flow, like mortgage notes or private lending strategies such as preferred equity or mezzanine debt.
  • Oil & Gas. Investing directly into existing oil fields can produce strong yields. While these types of investments can have more volatility given the ties to commodity prices, generally the risk-adjusted returns can be compelling. And similar to real estate syndications, these types of investments are typically available to accredited investors.

Other less-common alternative investments that can produce income are things like investing in farmland that generates dividends or buying catalogs of music that produce royalties.

Public markets:

  • Dividend stocks. Dividend stocks pay investors dividends, usually on a quarterly basis, based on company earnings. The dividend amount varies and is determined by the company’s board of directors each quarter.
  • Bonds. Bonds are essentially loans to a government or corporation at a fixed interest rate. You receive payments at this fixed amount on a fixed schedule according to the loan terms.
  • REITs. Real estate investment trusts are publicly traded shares in a company that owns physical real estate (like office buildings), collects rent from tenants, and distributes the majority of its earnings as dividends.

Why Invest with Aspen Funds

Aspen Funds is a macro-driven alternative investment firm providing private market investment opportunities to accredited investors in the U.S. Aspen focuses on middle market strategies with low correlation to public markets and attractive risk-adjusted return potential.

For more than 13 years, Aspen has built a track record of putting investors first and investing alongside them in every deal. This discipline has helped Aspen grow to more than $1 billion in AUM and has delivered more than $100 million in distributions back to investors.

Why invest with Aspen Funds

Were these helpful in any way? Make sure to sign up for the newsletter and join the Passive Income Docs Facebook Group for more physician-tailored content.

Peter Kim, MD is the founder of Passive Income MD, the creator of Passive Real Estate Academy, and offers weekly education through his Monday podcast, the Passive Income MD Podcast. Join our community at the Passive Income Doc Facebook Group.


Disclaimer: This article is sponsored content from Aspen Funds, one of Passive Income MD’s sponsor partners. The opinions are the author’s and have not been independently verified by PIMD. This content is for educational purposes only and is not investment, tax, or legal advice, and it is not an offer to buy or sell any security. Aspen Funds’ offerings are available to accredited investors only and are made solely through their offering documents. All investments involve risk, including loss of principal. Target returns are not guaranteed, and past performance does not predict future results. Please do your own due diligence and consult your own advisors.

Further Reading



Bose Bought Skullcandy for the 1 Thing Its Engineers Couldn’t Build. Its Biggest Risk Is Changing It



The acquisition gives Bose access to a new consumer group. Experts say the company now faces a critical test.

Bitcoin Price Prediction: The Crypto Trading Channel Called Down — Missed (+42%)



Weekly verdicts by email →
Every call, the day it’s made →

On June 25, 2026 The Crypto Trading Channel said BTC would go down within 98 days. BTC was $59,794 then and $84,880 at the deadline (+42.0%). Verdict: MISS. Not financial advice.

Source:

What every channel says about BTC right now:
Full scoreboard:

—
Trade on Bybit: (code LD7WR4E)
Trade on HTX: (code zhdd2223)

source

Anthropic’s S-1 shows $16.3 billion in revenue and an $80.7 billion net loss



Anthropic’s hotly-anticipated prospectus for its initial public stock offering has been made public, giving investors their first detailed look at the AI company’s finances.

The filing showed the company generated $16.3 billion in revenue for the first six months of 2026, roughly 13.5 times more than the $1.2 billion it made in the same period the year before.

The company also recorded a net loss of $80.7 billion for the six months through June 2026. That figure is one of the largest half-year losses any company has ever recorded. But most of that loss—$72.4 billion—is due to an accounting charge to take into account the increased value of convertible notes Anthropic has issued.

Anthropic plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker “ANT,” and is expected to target a Thanksgiving week debut that could see the company valued between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion.

Various parts of Anthropic’s financial picture have already leaked through draft versions of the filing and pitches to prospective investors.

This is a developing story, check back for updates.

Fortune Daily breaks the traditional barrier between audience and newsroom. The show transforms Fortune’s trusted reporting into actionable, conversational, and entertaining insights for an emerging class of business leaders. Watch here.

Rentals Helped Me Quit My 14-Year Nursing Job (And Start My Own Business)


Lindsay Barrientos didn’t start buying rentals after the 2008 crash or ride the low-interest-rate wave in 2021. She started in late 2022, after home prices and interest rates had already spiked. But she knew about the long-term potential of real estate and trusted the process—buying one house at a time and banking the rental income for the next down payment.

Now, just four years later, Lindsay’s 12-property portfolio has given her the flexibility to go back to school, quit her grueling W-2 job, and start her own business. And she didn’t do anything the average investor can’t do today. She lives in a high-cost-of-living area, so she invests in a real estate market where her money goes further. Her properties are 2,000 miles away, so she leans into her investing team.

No “perfect” timing. No big bank account. Just a plan and simple, consistent action.

Whatever’s keeping you on the sidelines—prices, rates, the economy—Lindsay’s story may be the push you need to get started today.

Henry:
Have you ever thought that maybe real estate investing isn’t worth it anymore? Well, Lindsay Barrientos didn’t start buying rentals after the 2008 crash or ride the low interest wave in 2021. She started in late 2022 after home prices and interest rates had already spiked, but she knew about the long-term potential of real estate and trusted the process, buying one house at a time and banking the rental income for the next down payment. Now, just four years later, Lindsay’s 12 property portfolio has given her the flexibility to go back to school, quit her grueling W-2 job and start her own business. Also, she didn’t do anything the average investor can’t do today. She lives in a high cost of living area, so she invests in a market where her money goes further. Her properties are 2,000 miles away, so she leans into her investing team. There’s no perfect timing, no big bank account, just plain and simple, consistent action.
Whatever’s keeping you on the sidelines, prices, rates, the economy, Lindsay’s story may be the push you need to get started today. What’s going on everybody? I am Henry Washington, co-host of the BiggerPockets Podcast. Dave Meyers here too, and our guest today is Lindsay Barrientos from Los Angeles. Dave, let’s get to it.

Dave:
Lindsay Barrientos, welcome to the BiggerPockets Podcast. Thank you for joining us today.

Lindsay:
Thank you for having me. This is an honor.

Dave:
Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you joining us from today and what’s your story with real estate so far?

Lindsay:
Yes, so I live in LA. I’m a nurse and I’ve been working as a nurse for 14, 16 years now. And I’ve been investing in Rosto for the last four, and I also invest in a city that’s not popular, out of state investor in Gary, Indiana.

Dave:
As a nurse living in a very expensive market, what influenced you to not just invest, but to invest halfway across the country?

Lindsay:
So I actually was a pretty happy nurse in the beginning. It wasn’t until 2020 during COVID times that I became a front care worker. So I had to deal with a lot of COVID cases, a lot of deaths, a lot of tragedy and a lot of depression actually. A lot of nurses left the workforce during those times and I came with the realization that maybe nursing is not for me. Maybe nursing is not what I want to do for the rest of my life. And I was just 30. I’m like, okay, I’ve been doing nursing for the last 10 years. What else is there? How am I going to be supporting myself and making this income? At the time, I already purchased a single family home in Los Angeles for myself. I had multiple nursing friends and I was renting out rooms to traveling nurses because I was single and I had a four bedroom house and I could just live with my friends, the single girl life.
But when I became extremely distressed and depressed and rich for therapy and medication and got out of that hump, I decided I have to find something else that’s going to be income producing that’s going to either take me away from nursing part-time or take over completely. So I went to Google and I was just like, okay, what do rich people do? How do they make money?

Henry:
I also Googled that when I was looking for extra ways to make money.

Dave:
That’s Henry’s story too. Yeah.

Henry:
Absolutely.

Lindsay:
And Google said, “Well, you can start a business.” And I’m like, “Well, I don’t know how to start a business or you can invest in real estate.” And at the time I was already renting out rooms in my house, so I was just kind of doing real estate. I’m offsetting my mortgage here in LA by renting out rooms. So let me see what else. Can I buy an additional house in LA? And they were like, “Okay, well, if you’re going to buy an additional house and do a conventional loan, you’re going to have to

Henry:
Put

Lindsay:
20% down.” And I’m like, “20% down at a million dollars, that’s $200,000. I don’t have the kind of money. I’m a nurse. So I’m just going to see where else can I invest, maybe out of state, maybe whatever.” And then that came with also another realization that the rest of the country is less expensive than Los Angeles, California.

Henry:
How about that?

Lindsay:
Yeah. So I started doing my market research and then obviously Google told me, “Listen to BiggerPockets, listen to podcasts, read these books.” So I ended up reading a lot of Brandon Turner’s books initially, and then I turned into BiggerPockets and learn about market indicators and what do you want to look at? Cash flow, cash and cash return, reserves, repairs. So for my situation at the time, I decided I need to be in a state that is landlord friendly and a market on lease that has a high cash on cash return. So the first market that ended up investing is in Northwestern Indiana, Hammond. And that’s when I found a network of investors already investor in Northwestern Indiana. And I was introduced to many property managers and realtors and actually a network of investors there.

Dave:
I want to call out that you’re selling yourself a little bit short, Lindsay, because you were an investor and you did start a business. Even buying a single family home and renting it out to your friend is a successful business in itself. I guess you just never even saw yourself as an investor when you were doing that.

Lindsay:
Yeah, I didn’t. And even after I got A properties, I was going to real estate meetups around my area and I was like, “I guess I’m an investor. I’m not sure.”

Dave:
It’s very humble of you and the opposite of what you hear on social media all the time. But investing in Indiana, it could be scary to do that. We’ve never been to the area, but you at least look back on your time renting out rooms in your home and see the potential for it. Did that give you some confidence at least?

Lindsay:
It gave me confidence in terms of like, okay, I have this much income and I have this much expenses by house hacking at the time I didn’t know I was doing that. I was decreasing the expenses that I had. So I had the extra amount of income to deploy it in an investment. So I was like, “I’m saving this much money and I can just funnel it into this investment that’s also going to bring me more money.” So I was just like, “Okay, I can see how that can compound over time.” Even though at the time I wasn’t looking like, “Oh, I’m going to get 10 houses or 12 houses.” I’m just like, “Two or three houses.”

Dave:
Right.

Henry:
So many new investors or even seasoned investors struggle with the idea of where should I invest? Can you give just a little more context as to how you got comfortable with the decision you made?

Lindsay:
Yeah. Initially I was ready to take a traveling nursing job and I was like, okay, I have to go to a city that it’s going to be competitive for me to get a contract so I could possibly house hack. And I’m like, okay, I could go to New York. And I’m like, what am I going to invest in New York? I could go to Chicago, I can maybe house hack a condo there and I can start renting out rooms like I’m doing in Los Angeles. And I was like, but if I’m going to be in Chicago, let me see what’s near there. Driving distance. And Northwestern Indiana is 30 minutes down south from Chicago. So that’s when I started looking at that. And then I was just like, well, who else is investing there? Let me find out. So BiggerPockets, blogs, podcasts, all of those, reaching out to people online that had a small YouTube channels and small followings that were investing, that were putting their numbers, all social media and being very transparent about their journey.
That’s who I connected with, especially two people, Millennial, Mike, and Masky Finance. And because they were smaller creators, they were willing to talk to me or interact with me via comments or emails or even phone calls at times, like voice audio chats on Instagram that were going on for three minutes at a time. I’m just like, I’m just so happy that I was able to tag into this type of a small community starting. And then so when I looked at Hammond, Indiana, Norwest Indiana, there was already a WhatsApp group chat of investors that had 40 investors at the time. They were sharing tips about realtors, property managers, contractors, and stuff like that. So I felt comfortable because there were vetted people, not just by me, not just out of state. Some people were local. So that’s where I felt, okay, if these people are doing it, then maybe I’m okay to start dipping my toes in it.

Henry:
These were gems. I hope people were listening to this and taking notes. I love that you said, look, I knew I’m going to be in Chicago, so what’s in driving distance? Because if it’s not easy to get to your out-of-state market when you need to get there because something’s going to happen, you’re going to need to get there and it’s going to interrupt your life. And the harder it is to get there, the less likely you are to do it. So including some of these real world scenarios in your market selection is a big deal. The second tier of choices you have to make is very personal. The first tier of choices is about the numbers. You want a market that has a good cash on cash return, that has good jobs, that has enough demand. All the numbers make sense. But once you get past that, the rest is vibes and feelings and are you actually going to go?

Dave:
Also, the people you surround yourself with in that market, that is just so incredibly important. I always tell people, get it down to three to five cities that you like. The vibes are good, the numbers are good. And then where do you have the best people? Because that is going to make a much bigger impact on the performance of your investments than macroeconomics. It really is. Macro, you have to just kind of not screw up, is kind of the way I see it. It’s just find something that’s pretty good. But as anyone will tell you, two investors can invest in the same market. One can be incredibly successful and one can completely fail because they’re not good at it. And so investing out of state is so much about finding people who are good at it.

Henry:
I though that was such a brilliant thing. You said you specifically picked smaller creators. That’s a great niche, a great thing to target. Smaller creators investing in a market that you like, you know they have a tracker, or you at least think they do, and you can do enough research, they can probably have the time to answer you. That’s super smart. Great thing to do.

Lindsay:
Nichingin is definitely whatever market you’re looking at, if it’s Columbus, Ohio, Facebook groups, meetups, whatever you can do to reach out to them and then start talking to maybe not the person that’s a host, but everybody that’s submitting comments or liking or doing anything like, “Oh, have you actually checked out the area? Do you live around it?” Just making conversation and people, especially in Facebook, people going through deep, deep conversations in the comments.

Dave:
That’s great. And I think what you’re showing here, Lindsay, is that this common perception that real estate is really competitive is false. People generally want to help each other. People want to tell you about what they’re doing and want to bring you along. I really love that about real estate, that it’s not this zero sum mentality that if you win, I can’t win. It’s kind of this collective approach. So Lindsay, I want to hear about how specifically you leveraged this community to get your first deal, but we got to take a quick break. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Podcast. I’m here with Henry and investor Lindsay Barrientos talking about how she found a community across the country that helped her buy her first conventional rental out of state. So Lindsay, how did you use the community that you found to identify and ultimately buy your first deal and what did it look like?

Lindsay:
Yeah, and the first step was vetting the people. There’s 40 investors, 40 investors are using about three or four property managers, three or four realtors, different realtors. So you start talking to them and trying to see what they know about the market. And every time, because you don’t know much about the market other than what you find on Google, but the more that you talk to somebody, the more the property manager’s going to be like, “I’m not going to go into that pocket.” And the realtor is going to be like, “Well, most of,” because they can’t really say it, “This zip code doesn’t work for you. Most of my transactions happen in this zip code, right? So you get information from different people, not just the “experts” like property managers, realtors, whatever, but the other investors like, “Oh, this is where a new gymnasium was built.
This is where the casino is coming to be built.” The more data that you have, the better it’s going to be for you.

Dave:
And let me just ask, in this group, were there multiple realtors and property managers or was there just one you knew?

Lindsay:
There was multiple.

Dave:
And how did you decide? Because it sounds like a great group of people. How did you pick which person to work with?

Lindsay:
I think that you have an affinity for certain people when you start talking to them. And then I don’t know about you, Dave, but I feel like I’d like to see more action than talking. You can talk to me on the phone.

Dave:
That’s a good way to put it. Yeah.

Lindsay:
You can talk to me on the phone for two hours, but let me see how many transactions you closed in the last month. What actually are you willing to negotiate for myself? Really test your boundaries a little bit.

Henry:
So Lindsay, what I hear you saying is that you’ve got a good bullshitter, and as you started to talk to people, you could tell who was full of crap and who was actually about their business.

Lindsay:
I would like to think so.

Dave:
I like that. All right, so tell us about this deal. What did you buy?

Lindsay:
Yeah, I did buy a three bedroom, two bath, single family home, 25% down conventional loan. And like I mentioned, I rented the next week that I closed the home and it was rented for $1,400 a month.

Dave:
Wow.

Henry:
135, 25% down. So yeah, 25% of 135 is substantially less than 25% of one million in California. So you did the right math there.

Lindsay:
Yeah.

Henry:
No renovation. Sounds like it was turnkey and you got a decent amount of rent for it. That’s pretty awesome. So just a conventional loan, nothing fancy.

Lindsay:
Nothing fancy. And I think the debt service was 880 at that time because the interest rate had gone up. My interest rate on that first property was 6.01.

Dave:
What was the cash flow at the end of the month?

Lindsay:
1,400 minus 880 plus the property manager is like $400 a month.

Dave:
Wow. Okay, great. And did you have any issues or was it as turnkey as you were expecting?

Lindsay:
It was turnkey. I think I talked to the property manager once in six months about something else. Then after one year, I was trying to make that my proof of concept. So I didn’t want to look at even real estate after that. I bought it. I wanted to be like, “Is this going to work out for me? This is a new venture for me. I’ve never done this.” So let it run for one year. I took it like it was an additional bill, so I just pocketed whatever income I had from the property. And after one year I had $16,000 save and I was like, “Okay, maybe I can look at this Gary Indiana market that my investor friends keep telling me about. They keep buying things over there.” So I’m like, “Okay, maybe I can do that now since I am seasoned. I have one year under my belt of having one rental property.” So I took a look at Gary Indiana and the house was priceless in 2023 when I was looking at it were like 50, 70, 80,000 for a single family home.
So I was just like, “Okay, that’s a significantly less down payment that I have.” But I was like, “Let me try this add value things that BiggerPockets keeps talking about. Buy something that needs a little

Henry:
Bit

Lindsay:
Of work.” So I bought a second home for $55,000 that needed a new roof and new floors, small house, 800 square feet, two bedroom, one bath. And I bought it for 55. I think I put maybe 16 into the house and I rented out for $1,100 to a Section eight voucher holder. So I was just like, “Oh wow, that’s like the 2% rule.”

Henry:
Yeah, you got way better numbers on that deal.

Lindsay:
Yeah. And obviously I’m learning this new market because I did move from Hammonton Gary, which is 15 minutes apart probably by driving, but it is a rougher market and it’s actually according to Business Insider in 2019, one of those most miserable cities in the United States.

Dave:
And you were like, “I want that.”

Lindsay:
Yeah, I want that. There is so much upside.

Dave:
Well, I’m curious. That would scare me.

Lindsay:
So I know that coming into this new market was risky, but the potential for cash flow was higher. And a lot of people think when they look at the tenant pool also there, they think that’s going to be a lot of work. But from my investment strategy, I have a property manager. So majority of the things that I do are through property management because I work a full-time. At the time I was also going to school full-time. So I really needed to see what my set of skill was going to be and my risk tolerance. Am I able to risk more, I guess, headaches for the cash flow? But when I closed on that second property and I rented it right away and I was like, okay, well then my debt service is $388 a month and this is rented for 1,100. Even if the house is empty for a couple months, I’m still pretty much very good about this.
And then the potential for add value was there. So I’m like, okay, let’s do what happens with these two properties. Then the next property, I attempted to do the burn. I attempted to do the burn. And this is a story that’s probably going to, people are going to think I’m crazy, but I bought this house for $33,000.

Henry:
33,000?

Lindsay:
Yes. And I needed to be a whole bird, so I had to put another 30,000 into the house, but my ARB was at 85. So I was like, “Well, I can get most of the money out of this.” And then one of the beauty things about scaling, when you are doing burrs, you can recycle that money. So I was like, “Okay, I don’t have to penny pinch every single paycheck that I have if I’m able to do this successfully or even semi-successfully.” So when I did that burr, I finished, I was getting my refinance done, and I think I had my appraisal scheduled on a Tuesday, and my property manager calls me on a Monday and then tells me there’s been a fire on the house.

Dave:
Oh, no.

Lindsay:
Yeah. So I got on the phone with her. She was like, “I don’t have many details. Let me call you back in two hours. I’m dealing with it right now. The fire department is there.” The house was not occupied at the moment, so that was great. So that already was a relief. Okay, there’s nobody inside the house, but I just finished rehabbing this house last week, and I’m waiting for that refinance. So by the time she comes back, she’s like, “There’s been a faulty lighting on the kitchen that basically burned.” And because it burned, most of the damage that came was from the fire department bolting their way into the door and putting the high pressure hose, right?

Henry:
That’s it.

Dave:
That’s what they sell. I know that came.

Lindsay:
Very nice new drywall painted and everything blown by the pressure of the hose. So that came with the second rehab. At the time I was like, “Oh, maybe I shouldn’t invest in real estate anymore. I don’t know what this looks like.”

Henry:
That’s a fair though to have. I have that moment every week, but go ahead.

Lindsay:
I was talking to Jesus and saying, “Oh, let me just get through this. Maybe I try to do more than I can handle.” Anyways, I talked to my lender and my lender said, “Oh, no worries. Let me know when the house is ready.” Because it ended up being a very small fire. So I was just, okay, I guess I’m going to rehab it again and leave the money that I rehab for the second time into the deal. So I put an additional, I want to say $11,000 into the house to rehab it a second time, obviously going over my ARB, and I was just like, “Oh, I’m just going to leave money behind on the deal.” Refinance the appraisal came back at 160,000 for the house that I bought. So I told myself, “You’re just very bad at comping, comping houses.”

Henry:
You comping way too low.

Lindsay:
Yeah, I did comp it way too low. So I was able to get all my money back from the first rehab, from the second rehab. And then so I did a successful burr and I got the money back. At the time, the money came from a HELOC I leveraged on my single primary residence, so it wasn’t even money I had saved. It was leverage money from the HELOC. So I was like, “I can do this again.” So I did many more times. I ended up racking up 12 properties over the last four years.

Dave:
Wow.

Lindsay:
And the last five had been creative seller financing, and the last one was a 0% down deal.

Dave:
That’s unbelievable. Wow.

Henry:
Yeah, I like those.

Dave:
So I want to hear what you bought. You just casually were like, “Oh, I just bought 12 units,” which is a story in itself that we want to hear about. We do have to take one more quick break though. Stick with us. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to the BiggerPocket Podcast. Me and Henry are here with investor Lindsay Barrientos talking about how she has been scaling up long distance in Indiana. You’ve had some good ones, you had a tough one, but you kept going. What have you been buying?

Lindsay:
Yes, so 12 total now. All of them are single family. I only have one duplex. So the more that I learn about real estate, the more that I talk into wholesalers, but direct front seller, learning about creative financing. When I learned about creative financing throughpocket sales, I was like, “I need to get a house that is creative basically. I got the bug.” So I started telling my realtor to put cash offers and creative offers, and obviously make the creative offer more appealing than the cash offer. So everybody will be determined. But anyways, and that same network that I had, for example, Facebook people that I would talk to online and the WhatsApp group that I would also talk to different investors. There were other investors there that were offloading some of the properties, so that’s where we got connected. That’s how I started getting creative.
I also started a personal brand on YouTube. I opened up a YouTube channel after I think the bird that I did. I felt like maybe this information would be better to be put on videos so people can connect with me or even see what I’m doing or see how the cashflow is possible, even though this was 2024, 2025 with the rates being at seven, eight, you guys have seen it. So I started putting a lot of content out there and then people were offering me deals from Gary Indiana after a while, and that’s how I was able to get creative.

Henry:
You said you had your agent mention that you were willing to do a creative offer. So how did you pitch seller financing or how did you get your agent to pitch it to people as an option for you?

Lindsay:
Yeah, so when you’re a realtor, you can just send a regular offer or you can set an addendum offer, like a regular cash offer or conventional offer or an addendum offers, which if the seller is open to seller finances, they will be able to reply or negotiate the price back. But my experience has been the majority of people that do seller finances because they’ve been investors themself at one point. And so they bought the house a few years ago, so they already had some kind of knowledge. I never been able to convince somebody that’s never heard about seller finance to do a seller finance deal.

Dave:
So you were going out looking for these seller finance deals, and you said you were making cash offers at the same time.

Lindsay:
Yes.

Dave:
You had enough cash to go out and buy these deals, whatever your offer was, if you wanted to, but you gave them two offers at the same time. Can you tell us a little bit more about why you did that?

Lindsay:
Yeah, I heard from Michael Subert, this is something that he used as a technique in the past of when he was buying houses in Fresno. He would present two offers to the seller, especially during these last years where transactions have been low. If you find a motivated seller, you present those two offers. Let’s say it’s a house that I’m buying cash at $60,000. My cash value would be I’m going to offer you $50,000 for the house, but my seller finance deal is going to say, “I will pay you $60,000 for this house, but with my terms.” So that could be lowering the interest rate, that could be a lower down payment, whatever is more preferable to me that also works for the seller. So I would submit those two offers to everybody basically.

Dave:
Wow. I love that. It’s so brilliant. And I think this goes to the exact environment we’re in right now in real estate where sellers, you don’t really know what’s motivating them right now. There are more and more things coming on the market and there’s better opportunities to negotiate, but you don’t necessarily know what they want. Some people want cash and to get out as quickly as possible. Other people, as Lindsay, you stated, if they’ve been an investor before, they might say, “Hey, I’ll take a six or 7% payment well into the future. That’s passive income for me.” And by offering two offers, one, you’re showing the seller that you are willing to understand what they’re looking for and to work with them. And two, it sounds like you can kind of steer them in the direction that you want because you say, “Hey, I could pay cash, that’s probably tempting, but I could pay you less.” And you can sort of orchestrate it so that sellers see the mutual benefit in the seller financing offer.
Curious, how effective is it? How often does that work?

Lindsay:
It works when the market is like this and the sellers are motivated. I was able to get out of the 12, five of them are these seller finance.

Dave:
Yeah, I love that. I mean, that’s better than regular offers, that offers so much better. And how are you identifying people? Because if you’re going 50%, you must have really targeted list of people that you’re approaching for seller financing.

Lindsay:
Yeah, my zip codes are very narrow, so I only invest on three zip codes. And then single family, I know a lot of people like to do multifamily, but in my area, because there’s more supply than renters, I feel that people do want to rent a single family more so than a small rental unit. So that is where basically I’m concentrated. And then it might be a small market, but in Gary, there is a turnkey company that sells houses that flips houses. They also have a podcast. They also are currently posting a lot of content about Gary Indiana and possibly even coming, we have the bears coming to Hammond, Indiana. So just having more information about that. That’s

Dave:
Awesome.

Lindsay:
Yeah. Having more information about that just tells you to exactly reinforces what you invest in already or where you want to be investing.

Dave:
So what’s next for you, Lindsay? I mean, you’ve been scaling up, you’ve been doing a lot, you’re getting the Chicago Bears in Indiana, which is hilarious. What comes next for you?

Lindsay:
Yeah, I also built an ADU in my single family residence. Nice.

Dave:
Are you still in LA?

Lindsay:
Yes. So I did that. I put it as a midterm that’s now rented for $2,000 a month, and I have enough space to put an additional ADU that is in the process of permitting three bedroom, two bath. That will be a small house basically. So hopefully to do a midterm or Airbnb, we’ll see what I can do with it.

Henry:
That strategy in California is just called how to live in California. How to be able to afford to live in California.

Dave:
The good thing is that they are allowing these kinds of developments, right? Because obviously not everyone can do it, but if you can, you are providing housing in a community that really needs it and you are able to make your own cost of living go down. It really is a win-win if you can pull it off. So Lindsay, now that you’ve done this, you’ve done a lot of cool stuff, but your original goal was to get out of nursing. Have you done that yet?

Lindsay:
Not fully, but I’m on my way. So I had two plans. One was to invest in real estate and the other one was to go back to school and get my nurse practitioner license and work outside of the hospital setting. So I achieved that. I worked for the last three years as a nurse practitioner. And since I have the income coming from real estate and I’m house hacking, I decided this is the perfect time to leave my W-2 and start my own business, be a nurse practitioner. So now I’m a psychiatric nurse practitioner.

Dave:
Oh, that’s amazing.

Henry:
So cool.

Dave:
Yes, I like it.

Henry:
That’s

Dave:
So

Henry:
Cool.

Dave:
That is unreal. That is so cool. I’m very happy for you. Wow, what a great story.

Lindsay:
Full circle, right? The Google search in the beginning, invest in real estate, open your own business. That’s basically what I ended up –

Henry:
That’s exactly what you did. That’s exactly what you did.

Dave:
I love it because I mean, you must have been working your butt off the last couple of years. Going to school to become a nurse practitioner is no joke, and investing long distance is no joke, but you did it all. And I imagine you’re feeling like this investment in time and effort has been worth it.

Lindsay:
Yes. And this year it was a whole year plan to quit my W-2. So I had to set myself up for being able to have no paycheck technically, and then it’s still 12 houses, and I still have a house in LA, and I just built an ADU and I’m building another EDU. So I had to set myself up financially to be able to take this big step, and finally the time that I put in my mind has reached, so now I’m fully off W2 being my own boss.

Dave:
So you’re just crushing it is what you’re talking about. You’re just absolutely crushing every part of your life.

Lindsay:
It looks like that from the outside, but in the inside it’s a lot of lack of sleep, I feel like.

Dave:
That does come with it, but there are times to grind, there’s times to enjoy the fruits of your labor, and it seems like you’ve grinded really hard for a couple of years, and now you are reaching your goals. It’s incredible, and you’ve done it in a really fast timeline. I should say that doing it in a couple of years is amazing. And hopefully between having your existing homes, having your own practice, having these ADUs, you can continue to grow in multiple ways. You can be a nurse practitioner, you can grow your practice, and you can grow real estate at the same time. It’s super cool.

Lindsay:
Thank you, thank you. And I also, I built a podcast called Real Estate Chisme, and then this is where we have a free school community online. Anybody can come and check it out. Our goal, I have a co-host, Bileta Sandoval, and we are trying to encourage women, people of color to come and check us out and talk about real estate if that’s something that you want to look at, invest in, or even learn about.

Dave:
Awesome. Thank you so much, Lindsay, for sharing your story and these resources with us. We really appreciate it. And we’d love to have you back soon. We would really like to hear how your story progresses from here.

Lindsay:
Thank you so much.

Dave:
And thank you all for listening and watching this episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast. I’m Dave Meyer. He’s Henry Washington, and we’ll see you all next time.

 

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[CA, UT, CO In Branch] Columbia Bank $250 Checking Bonus


Update 10/24/26: Also available in Colorado at this link.

Update 10/17/26: Available in Utah now as well at this link.

Offer at a glance

  • Maximum bonus amount: $250
  • Availability: CA branches only 
  • Direct deposit required: Yes, $3,000+
  • Additional requirements: See below
  • Hard/soft pull: Soft pull
  • ChexSystems: Unknown
  • Credit card funding: None
  • Monthly fees: $3, avoidable
  • Household limit: One
  • Expiration date: None listed

The Offer

Direct link to offer

  • Columbia Bank is offering a $250 bonus when you open a new personal checking account at participating branches and complete the following requirements:
    • Enroll in online banking.
    • Maintain at least a $3,000 average deposit balance for 90 days.2
    • Direct Deposit a total of $3,000 or more within the first  90 days from your account open date.

The Fine Print

  • Limited time offer.
  • Existing customers with a checking account or customers who had a deposit account in the last 12 months do not qualify.
  • You must open a new deposit checking account in person at a participating branch to qualify.
  • Only Pinnacle, Embark and Foundation checking accounts are eligible.
  • Your promotional offer must be activated by your banker at account opening.
  • You must enroll in online banking within 90 calendar days of account opening to qualify.
  • Once all requirements have been met, the bonus will be paid within 45 calendar days, deposited directly into the qualifying account.
  • Account must be open without a negative balance to receive bonus.
  • The bonus will be reported as interest earned on IRS Form 1099-INT and recipient is responsible for any applicable taxes.
  • Limit one $250 bonus per qualifying account. Limit one $250 bonus per household per address. Fiduciary accounts and nonprofit organizations do not qualify for this offer. Employees of Columbia Bank, its affiliates and subsidiaries are not eligible for this offer. Offer may not be combined with any other checking account offers.
  • We reserve the right to restrict or change this offer at any time.
  • All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them

Avoiding Fees

Monthly Fees

Embark has a $3 monthly fee, this is waived with eStatements 

Early Account Termination Fee

Account must be open at time of bonus posting. Other than that I don’t think there is any early account termination fee.

Our Verdict

Shame it’s only CA branches, there has been a business bonus in the past as well. Will add this to our best checking bonus page. 

Hat tip to reader snailrock

Useful posts regarding bank bonuses:

PepsiCo started losing the cola wars when its CEOs lost focus



Good morning. PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta knows that he has a cola problem. He said “we’re not competing well in soft drinks” on his third-quarter earnings call. And last week KFC said it will switch to Coca-Cola products at its 3,700 U.S. restaurants, ending a 40-year partnership. As my colleague Phil Wahba writes, “Pepsi has suffered many setbacks in recent years, but perhaps few were as symbolic as being jilted by a long-time partner it used to own, KFC.” (Taco Bell and PepsiCo did renew their U.S. deal for 11 more years.)

Why is PepsiCo’s beverage division struggling? I’d start with the decisions of Steve Reinemund, who ran PepsiCo from 2001 to 2006. Although he broadened the portfolio through the 2001 merger with Quaker Oats, which gave it Gatorade, he also created a less flexible distribution structure and added more complexity to the business. As PepsiCo leaders shifted to talking about crop yields and health trends, Coca-Cola moved in and struck a deal in 2003 to displace Pepsi at Subway, its largest fountain customer, business that Pepsi won back last year.

His successor, Indra Nooyi, continued the trend, dividing the company’s portfolio into “Fun for You” (fatty, sugary foods), “Better for You” (lower-calorie or lower-fat versions), and “Good for You” (nutritious foods like oatmeal and hummus). In an era when cities were trying to ban big sugary drinks or impose a vice tax that put cola in the same camp as tobacco, attention to soda further waned.

Meanwhile, Coca-Cola was shedding its low-margin bottling plants and focusing on building a “total beverage company” that resulted in 32 billion-dollar brands. PepsiCo has fewer billion-dollar brands but a lot more stuff, generating more than twice as much revenue as Coca-Cola with a market cap that’s about half as big.

Are there advantages for PepsiCo in being a diversified conglomerate versus a pure-play beverage brand? No doubt, especially as trends like GLP-1 use increase demand for healthier foods. The brown fizzy drink that spawned these two competitors is a small part of the overall beverage market. And PepsiCo remains a powerhouse of innovation, marketing and talent. What’s slipped since the days of the cola wars is focus.

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com

Top leadership news

United CEO has another idea: national service

Scott Kirby caused a stir last week when he said the U.S. should have a national wealth tax, but the United Airlines CEO also offered another idea for national service. “I think if everyone had to spend a couple of years as a teacher, as a firefighter, serving in the military—I think that’d be good for our country.”

How True Religion’s CEO is rebuilding the brand

Michael Buckley is courting Gen Z and millennials with more affordable clothing, music partnerships, and in-store experiences, while letting go of something the brand once prided itself on: setting trends. “We like to be first to be second,” he said. The idea is to catch a trend once it’s proven rather than start it, and give customers what they want “at the price they want.”

Democrats have a 78% shot at the Senate

Thomas Miller, a prominent data scientist who’s a professor at Northwestern University, accurately predicted the 2024 presidential race and is using his methodology on the 2026 midterms. Since Oct. 14, the Dems’ odds of taking the majority have jumped from 71.5% to 77.6%. If the current odds in all those contests hold, the Democrats would win 18 of 35 races and shift the majority from 53-47 for the Republicans to 52-48 for the Democrats.

The markets

S&P 500 futures are up 0.30% this morning. The last session closed down 0.52%. The STOXX Europe 600 was up 0.31% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was up 0.45% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.80%. South Korea’s KOSPI was down 1.46%. China’s CSI 300 was down 0.04%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 0.51%. India’s NIFTY 50 was up 0.41%. Bitcoin is down at $80k.

Around the watercooler

‘There’s nothing temporary about a temporary store’: How Spirit Halloween’s CEO took it from 130 stores to 1,550—and swallowed your mall’s Hot Topic by Catherina Gioino

Boss of $1 billion WNBA team Valkyries says she rejects work-life balance because she loves the grind: ‘I’m not apologizing for what brings me joy’ by Emma Burleigh

France’s latest debt warning describes a country where governance is breaking down — and even doing too little, too late is barely possible by Jason Ma

KFC’s president started washing dishes at 13 but dreamt of being the ‘female Richard Branson’—so she quit jobs that wouldn’t embrace her personality by Preston Fore

The U.S. military and NASA have power problems. Nuclear microreactors might solve both by Jordan Blum

CEO Daily is curated and edited by Joseph Abrams, Jason Ma, Claire Zillman, and Lee Clifford.

Fannie Mae Ups 2027 Mortgage Rate Forecast to 7.5%


Each month, Fannie Mae releases a forecast for home prices, sales, and mortgage rates, among other things.

Between September’s report and October’s, they raised their estimate for the 30-year fixed a staggering 80 basis points (0.80%).

The unusually large move reflects just how bad mortgage rates had it over the past month and change.

But the last week saw a bit of a recovery and raising their forecast so aggressively month-to-month might be unwarranted.

Depending on how things go, mortgage rates could actually move lower in 2027.

Fannie Mae Says Mortgage Rates Will Average 7.5% for All of 2027

In Fannie Mae’s October 2026 Housing Forecast, they increased the expected 30-year fixed average to 7.5% for all four quarters next year.

Previously, these estimates were 6.7% for each quarter, representing a massive 80-bp increase.

The reason is pretty straightforward. There was a global bond rout over the past month that led to the highest bond yields in decades.

And it seemed like it was just going to keep getting worse, with no relief in sight.

But then we got a reversal last week, which is not reflected in Fannie Mae’s latest report, dated on October 12th.

So there is some matter of timing here, with Fannie capturing the absolute worst of the mortgage rate increase (and none of the recovery).

Of course, mortgage rates are still pretty elevated, around 7.40% at last glance, per Mortgage News Daily.

In other words, they remain very much near the top of their recent range, even if they enjoyed a little pullback last week.

That means Fannie’s estimate doesn’t sound crazy here, but it does feel a little like they’re overshooting.

To raise your forecast nearly one full percentage point from one month to the next seems excessive.

However, they could turn out to be right if the economic data keeps coming in hot and bond yields stay elevated.

Is Fannie Being Too Pessimistic on Mortgage Rates?

Ultimately, Fannie Mae and other forecasters just look at the data in front of them when drawing up their reports.

So if the 10-year bond yield was 5.25% when they drafted the report and they saw an implied spread of say 230 bps, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise to say mortgage rates will average 7.6% next year.

But yields have since come down to around 5.15%, and it’s possible they could keep falling if the story of last week (tech selloff) continues.

There are some who feel the bond rout was overdone and yields could be attractive at current levels.

The logic is tech stocks are risky now and might yield negative returns going forward, while a government bond is guaranteed and paying more than 5%.

All of a sudden there’s a shift from equities to bonds, especially if investors also sour on AI-related bonds, which are getting labeled high-risk nowadays too.

Long story short, if we see the recent flight to safety hold, mortgage rates could actually move lower in 2027.

[Compare mortgage payments side by side with my mortgage rate calculator.]

How Mortgage Rates Could Defy the Predictions and Get Back Below 7%

Right now we’ve got basically everything working against low mortgage rates.

We have a war in the Middle East (and elsewhere), all of which is putting pressure on energy prices and thus inflation.

We have (had) a global bond rout where investors were balking at buying bonds, even with the highest yields in decades.

And we’ve had economic data continue to come in hotter-than-expected, whether it was a healthy jobs report, CPI, or retail sales.

So on the one hand, you could argue that mortgage rates are priced for the absolute worst.

That means you get one or several of the above issues to reverse course and mortgage rates can come down as well.

In that sense, there are a lot of possible levers to pull to get mortgage rate relief, but none are guaranteed to materialize.

But if they do, it wouldn’t be improbable to get the 30-year fixed back below 6% in 2027 and beyond.

Read on: How to track mortgage rates.

Colin Robertson
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