He Started 8 Months Ago. He Already Has 4 Rentals ($6,000 Cash Flow!)
Joe Crocker is eager to trade his 70-hour workweek for financial freedom, and he’s on track to replace his W-2 income with rental cash flow in the next two years. He’s not finding these properties by building lists, cold calling, or sending mailers. These are regular deals right off the MLS. He buys one, adds some value, pulls his money out, and buys the next one.
It’s a simple investing strategy that anyone can use, yet most people don’t. Meanwhile, Joe has already completed multiple deals this year and is well on his way to building a cash-flowing rental portfolio that gives him the money, time, and freedom he’s always wanted. Follow his model, and there’s no reason why you can’t, too!
Ashley:
Hey everyone, Ashley and Tony here. Happy Labor Day. To celebrate, we are going to share an episode of BiggerPockets Real Estate with you that we think you will love. We’ll be back on Wednesday with a brand new episode on how to maximize the income from your rental properties. But until then, we’ll let Henry Washington take it from here.
Henry Washington:
Hey everyone. I am Henry Washington here, co-host of the BiggerPockets Podcast. And today we’re bringing you an investor story with Joe Crocker from Houston, Texas, who just started investing but is already well on his way to replacing his income with real estate. Let’s bring him on. Mr. Joe Crocker, welcome to the show. Hey, thank you.
Joe:
Well, Mr. Joe,
Henry Washington:
Why don’t we start off and tell us a little bit about your background and what got you into real estate in
Joe:
The first place? Sure. So my background is long. I’m not a young man, but I’ll give you the highlights. I have a W-2 job that keeps me on the road a lot. Due to that, I had to relocate recently end of last year. Came down to the Houston, Texas area and started researching real estate. I started studying the Burr method particularly was kind of what I honed in on. And I work with my mom and my wife both help me out because I’m on the road a lot. And so mom came down, we went and looked at some property, said, “Hey, let’s do it.” And so we closed our first transaction in December of last year. Why don’t
Henry Washington:
You tell us what traveling a lot means to you because I think it’s important to your story.
Joe:
Okay. Yeah, it is. So traveling a lot for me means I’m on the road about 300 nights a year.
Henry Washington:
That’s wild.
Joe:
And I work six 12 hour days.
Henry Washington:
You work six twelves and you travel 300 days a year?
Joe:
Correct. Yeah.
Henry Washington:
There’s a lot of people that are listening that want to get into real estate and they think they don’t have the time to fit this into their schedule.
Joe:
Well, my mom helps me a lot, so you need a good mother.
Henry Washington:
Yes, yes. Everybody does it with some sort of help. That is very true. For
Joe:
Sure.
Henry Washington:
So you said you moved to Houston and you started researching real estate, but why? What made you look into real estate at all? Why was that even on your mind?
Joe:
It’s been on my mind prior to being in my current career. I worked in commercial construction. So I’ve been around real estate a lot throughout my life and have done well on personal properties. And so part of it also is with that lifestyle I just described, I’m getting older, I don’t want to do that forever. So I kind of a backup plan, I guess you would say, is trying to plan my exit. And so I had to come here for work and I saw some opportunities and decided to jump in with both feet, so to speak.
Henry Washington:
Did you have a goal getting started or did you just want to jump in?
Joe:
Well, yes to both of those things. I would look on Zillow and for about two months probably I would go every night and I would just go drive properties that I saw and just check out the areas, see what I liked and just kind of get familiar. And then I think it got to a point where we just went, “Hey, you know what? You got to pull the trigger.” And so we made offers on several properties and ended up with actually buying two at the same time. And so yeah, so we definitely jumped in with
Henry Washington:
Both feet. It’s one thing to say making offers, but it’s another thing to be making the right offers. So you have to know how to analyze the deals and what makes a good deal in the first place. So was all that new to you or were you studying and analyzing prior to just
Joe:
Making offers? Definitely studying and analyzing prior to making offers. I spent a couple months probably of actually driving every day and looking at things. I listened to your podcast and some other things, so it was familiar to me, but I really got serious about it. I would say I spent about two months of almost daily looking at properties, doing my own analysis, watching them, MLS properties, but you could see them. The ones I think are good deals, they all sell right away. Then that makes you go, okay, maybe that was a decent one. And so I spent about two months, I would say, before making offers.
Henry Washington:
Well, why don’t you tell us about that first one? How did you find it and what was the goal with it?
Joe:
The first one was on the MLS. It was a listing that had been up for a long time. One observation I made is that sometimes when things are listed for a long time, nobody looks at them anymore. The price goes down and the seller gets super motivated. So this was, I think, one of those situations. And what it was was an estate sale where the guy was mid-flip and passed away. So what was attractive to me about it is number one, it was two homes. It was a house and an ADU on the same property. So my goal was to hold it as a rental. So what attracted me to it is it was pretty easy. The cabinets were in, but there was no countertops, needed some trim work. The bathrooms were tiled but not grouted. As it turned out, I had to totally rip that all out.
But anyhow, it was a fairly light one. And so that was my thought on it was, hey, for the first one, I don’t want to go huge. I want to try and go as easy as I can. But anyways, we bought it for 134,000.
Henry Washington:
134,000. When did you buy this property?
Joe:
End of December of 25.
Henry Washington:
So this isn’t some five-year-old deal. You paid 130 some odd thousand dollars for a house in Houston, Texas.
Joe:
Yeah, and a guest house.
Henry Washington:
And a guest house, and you found it on the MLS. Correct.
Joe:
There’s
Henry Washington:
Probably tons of people in Houston right now talking about, “I can’t find a deal. There’s no deals to be found. There’s too many investors here. You can’t do anything here.” So it can be done is what you’re telling me.
Joe:
It definitely can be done. So we’ve done three this year. I bought two of them were MLS deals, and I have one that we’re closing next week that’s also an MLS deal. So they’re there. So
Henry Washington:
Tell us the rest of the numbers. You paid $134,000. How much work did it need, if any?
Joe:
Total budget was about 44,000 and I actually came in a little bit under that. So I think we spent about 40.
Henry Washington:
So you’re all in at 175 and I’m assuming this was a rental because you said you honed in on the Burr strategy. So were you able to refinance this one already?
Joe:
We did. So we refinanced it right at 90 days. I did the refi. 161,200 is what our new loan was. So that was a successful Burr. It’s rented for 2,350 between the two units.
Henry Washington:
Not a perfect Burr, but that’s okay. I don’t think you need to pull off a perfect Burr. It looks like you pulled out about $13,000 and you were able to rent this for $2,300 on a loan of $161,000. That sounds like a pretty decent cash flowing deal that you found on the MLS basically in 2026. So I don’t want to hear anybody saying you can’t do this or you can’t do it in cities that are very investor heavy. Houston’s one of the most investor heavy markets in the country. It is. And you walked in the door, found something sitting on the MLS. I love everything about this. I love how you found it. I love how you took it down. I love that you did everything people say you can’t do right now in 2026 all in one deal. Perfect. But you also said you bought two at the same time.
So I’m very curious what the second deal in this two deal package looked like.
Joe:
Well, get ready for this one. So I said I bought two, but they both had two separate units. The
Henry Washington:
Second one had an ADU too?
Joe:
It had two full homes. Oh
Henry Washington:
Wow.
Joe:
Yeah. So I bid off a lot, let’s put it that way. But that one was an MLS deal too. And I’ll tell you that the way that I found that one, and I’ll go through the numbers with you, but that one was one that was tenant occupied, so it was impossible to see. There was no sign in front. It showed terribly. I couldn’t even hardly get ahold of the realtor. And then the square footage was wrong on the MLS. And the big thing on that one is the tax assessment. I paid 295 for it and it was tax assessed at 780.
Henry Washington:
So
Joe:
The taxes in Texas are huge. So the taxes were 13,000 a year.
Henry Washington:
Geez.
Joe:
Yeah, it was crazy. So especially for an investor that’s buying rental properties, that kills your cash flow.
Henry Washington:
See, everybody’s like, “Come to Texas. There’s no state tax,” but the property tax is crazy. But
Joe:
Here’s the opportunity there. Since then, I appealed those taxes and I got them lowered to 5,000.
Henry Washington:
Whoa.
Joe:
Yeah. That was a big cash flow pickup.
Henry Washington:
Before we get there, I got to know the numbers on this deal.
Joe:
So
Henry Washington:
Tell me about it.
Joe:
There’s two homes. So the front home is about 1,500 square feet. It’s a three bedroom, two bath. And then the rear home at the time was a two bedroom, one bath. The front home was vacant, the rear home was occupied, and I paid 295 for the whole package. And the rear house at the time was occupied. He was paying 1,200 a month for the rear house, and the front house had been rented for 2,000 for quite a while. And so I was kind of looking like 1%-ish and it seemed to work. So we ended up converting the garage in the rear house, so that’s now a three bedroom.
Henry Washington:
Nice. And
Joe:
Then we redid the front house completely. It’s two blocks from the beach, so we’re going to end up doing it as an Airbnb and doing the short-term rental. You
Henry Washington:
Said two blocks from the beach, so I assume this is Galveston. Yeah,
Joe:
Down in Galveston. Yep.
Henry Washington:
Man, that sounds like a screaming deal. What kind of condition were these properties in? I mean, people were living in one of them, so I assume that it was okay condition.
Joe:
Well, so it was decent condition. I mean, we ended up spending, partly because we’re doing a short-term rental, we ended up spending about a hundred fixing it up. We ended up just doing a DSCR loan out of the gate. We just put 20% down and got no prepay and just paid cash for all the improvements. So we’re in it right now, probably about 395, rough number, and it should be worth somewhere between six and seven.
Henry Washington:
Whoa. So you got somewhere between 100 and $200,000 of equity
Joe:
On a
Henry Washington:
Deal you found on the MLS in 2026. That’s incredible, man. Congratulations. Congratulations. And so one of them’s a short-term rental, you’re keeping the back unit as a long-term rental?
Joe:
So I think our plan right now is to short-term rent both of them. I’ll tell you, my analysis you asked about that is I wanted to have multiple exits. So number one, could I sell it if things didn’t go my way, can I sell it? Yeah. Two is, can I long-term rent it? Because the short-term, I mean, you said it were down here in Galveston, 4,500 short-term rental permits. It’s pretty competitive. So my plan was I’ll try to short-term rent it. If that doesn’t work, then I’ll just put in long-term tenants. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll sell it. That
Henry Washington:
Is a huge tip for anybody that’s listening, especially if you’re going to do short-term rentals. I don’t mind short-term rentals. I have, I think, four short-term rentals, but every single one of my short-term rentals, with the exception of one that I sold recently, could be a long-term rental. And the one that could not be a long-term rental, I had so much equity in it, I could sell it because short-term rentals aren’t like it was before where you could throw furniture in anything, stick it on the market, somebody was going to rent it, it was going to make money. It’s not like that now. Most of the people who don’t know how to operate short-term rentals have exited the market or are actively exiting the market. So who does that leave in the short-term rental space? Professional operators, people who are very good at this, people who know exactly what their customers need, exactly where their customers want to be, provide them the exact experience their customers are looking for.
So if you’re going to compete with that, you have to be good too. And if you’re new, you may not be able to be as good, but you may not find that out until you get to start operating and it doesn’t produce the results that you’re looking for. And so if it doesn’t produce the results that you’re looking for, what do you do? Well, if you bought it and the only exit strategy you have is to keep it as a short-term rental, well, you’re in a world of hurt. If you can’t sell it and make money or break even, and if you can’t long-term rent it and make money or break even, then you’re going to lose money. It’s just a matter of when and how much. And so I always say buy with two exit strategies for every deal. If you’ve got two exits for every deal, you’re better protected.
It doesn’t guarantee you that you won’t lose money, but it makes it harder. And so you kind of already mentioned that you’ve already bought a third deal that you are short-term renting. So did you go specifically looking for one that you would do as a short-term rental now that you had found the other two?
Joe:
I’ll tell you what happened. I was on Facebook one day in the investor group or whatever, and I see somebody had posted the wholesaler that had posted a condo for sale at this place. So I was in Michigan at the time, so I call my mom. I go, “Hey, can you go check out this condo?” So she goes over there, she goes, “Yeah, it’s good.” So the guy’s on the phone with me, he was asking, he started at 99,000 and it needed some work. So I said, “Hey, I’d be a buyer, but not at that number. I can’t make it work. There’s no way.” I treat it like a flip, right? So I’m kind of old school, 70% minus repairs is the most that I’m going to pay. Dude, me too. I still do
Henry Washington:
That. I still analyze everything as a flip, even if I’m going to keep it as a rental because I buy it cheaper that way.
Joe:
Maybe I learned that from you. I don’t know, but that’s definitely what I do. So as time ticks, he’s going, “Well, what will you do?” So I paid 73,000 for it. Did
Henry Washington:
You pay cash or did you get a loan?
Joe:
I just paid cash for it. Here you go. Here’s 73,000. And that was beginning of June, end of May. So since then, I’ve already rehabbed the whole place, furnished it. It’s been rented for 22 days in the month of July we have on the books.
Henry Washington:
Are you going to refi out of this thing?
Joe:
I already did. So we already got all our money back out of that one and it appraised at 143.
Henry Washington:
Nice. That was higher than you expected.
Joe:
Yeah, it was good. So I ended up being in it all in, including furniture and everything, about 90-ish, and it appraised at 143. So we ended up refinancing it at 60%. So we got most of our cash back. I think we had 83,000 was our loan. So that’s good. And the kicker on a condo is that dues are 611 a month. And so you combine that with a couple hundred bucks in taxes and then your electricity because you’re paying for that. Everything else is included, but you pay for electric. And then your debt service, the payment principal and interest is about 600. So it seems like it’s going to be pretty good, but time will tell. Color
Henry Washington:
Me impressed, man. Three pretty amazing deals in 2026, no less, in Houston, Texas, no less. And now you said, I heard you earlier, you said you had one under contract right now, so I’m assuming that’s your fourth deal. So come on, give it to me. Tell me about this
Joe:
One. So the fourth deal, I haven’t done the whole thing yet, but we’re going to close the next couple days. So again, two houses because that seems to be my thing. So it’s got a five bedroom house in the front and then a two unit in the back. And it’s section eight rented. So two of the three units are occupied. So I got under contract at 355. The front unit currently brings in 2,800 a month and then the rear units are 1,400 a piece. Well, it gets better though. So
Henry Washington:
You’re bringing in 2,800 in the front, 2,800 in the back.
Joe:
5,600.
Henry Washington:
$5,600 gross rents and you paid 350.
Joe:
355.
Henry Washington:
My brain can’t even hold onto the numbers.
Joe:
So my plan with that one, we paid 355. We got about 75 in our construction budget to just bring everything up to nicer finishes. We’re going to put in. Even though it’s section eight, it’s going to be a nice place for people to live. And then actually the rents, when we do that, we can increase the rents. The section eight limits are higher, so we’ll be able to go up to 3,300 on the front unit. And then the rear units will go, one of them will be 1,730 and the other one will be 2,328. So we should be at about 7,300 a month cashflow. So
Henry Washington:
For the people listening, first and foremost, if you have a stigma in your head about section eight, get it out of your head. There are good tenants and bad tenants in every price class. I don’t care if it’s top tier $3,000 a month rent or if it’s bottom of the barrel under a thousand dollars a month rent. There are good tenants and bad tenants everywhere. Our job as investors is to be great at tenant selection regardless of the class of unit that we have. And so section eight can be very cash flow positive. And not only is it very cashflow positive in some markets, but obviously you get the guaranteed rents or a good chunk of that rent is guaranteed through the government. So in larger cities, places like Houston, typically Section eight will pay higher than market value rents. In other words, you can get more rent out of a Section eight rented house than you could if you took that house off Section eight and just rented it traditionally.
And the amount of rent the government is willing to pay per house goes up based on the number of bedrooms. So if you can add bedrooms, you get more rent. So it sounds like the one you’re getting 3,300 on, that’s probably the, was it a five bedroom? Five
Joe:
Bedroom, yeah.
Henry Washington:
That’s fantastic. So if you’re in a larger city and you’ve already got rentals, you may want to call down to the housing authority and see what they pay for rents and see if it’s higher than what you’re currently getting, man. I love that. So 3,300, 1,730, 2,328. And what’s your debt service on that? What are you paying for mortgage taxes and insurance? So
Joe:
I haven’t purchased it yet, so I couldn’t even tell you exactly what the payment will be, but probably about four grand a month, I’m going to guess. I
Henry Washington:
Mean, that’s probably about right. Somewhere between 38, 42. But you’re bringing in after you fix it up, 73. Wow. That’s cashflow, folks. That is cash flow. Was this an MLS deal too? It
Joe:
Was. Geez,
Henry Washington:
Man. Geez. Man, oh man. I don’t even got to do the math to know that that’s a screaming deal. Man, that’s awesome. And you’ve done it by using some of your own cash, but pulling it back out. I mean, these are just traditional things that people talk about, but I love hearing how people take these methods that we talk about and they implement them in their business, man. Fantastic deal. Why don’t you give us a summary? How many deals and/or units do you have and what’s that putting in your pocket every month? So
Joe:
We have currently five, about to be eight once we get this next one closed. And I think that should cash flow us at about 6,000 a month net after all expenses. I’ll
Henry Washington:
Take that all day long, my man. That’s incredible. And like I said, you were using some of your money, but it looks like you’ve been able to pull the majority of your cash back out.
Joe:
I would say by the time we finish up this round, I’m going to call it, we should have all of our cash back and probably then some.
Henry Washington:
So all your cash back in your pocket, plus you’re getting $6,000 a month in net cash flow, and sounds like we’re just getting started. I would like for you to share with our audience maybe some lessons that you’ve learned over the past 12 months because you’ve done a lot. It’s not just that you bought these eight units, it’s that you’ve renovated them and you have refinanced them and you are operating them. And so what was maybe something that was a lesson on a deal that you weren’t expecting or maybe something that did not go to plan? So
Joe:
Lots of things didn’t go to plan, so I don’t want to give the impression that this is easy. It’s definitely not. The hardest challenge for me has been the financing piece because I’m ready to move really quick and I haven’t had the right lending relationship is how I’m going to say that. And I’ve tried a few different ones. So I’m still trying to work that out. That’s probably the biggest piece I would say. And then the other thing is sooner or later you just have to do it and that’s going to be your lesson. So for me, the first one, it was only $135,000 purchase. So I figured what’s the worst thing that’s going to happen? It’s not going to be worth zero. So my risk is fairly limited and it worked out good, but I think just my best piece of advice would be if you’re ready, just do it.
You got to do one. And it may not go perfect, but that’s how you’re going to learn. If
Henry Washington:
You’re starting with a single family home, I mean, as long as you’ve done enough analysis to at least have a general understanding of what kind of discount you need to be buying properties at, just buy it. Real estate, very rarely is it ever going to go to zero. You’re right. So your risk isn’t that you’re going to lose all your money. Your risk is that you might lose some money, right? You might have to deal with some headaches, but you’re going to learn something in exchange for that. And if a single family home not going well is going to put you in the poor house, then I’d say you’re probably not financially ready to invest yet. You need to save up some more cash before you jump in. That’s why it’s important that you take your bumps and bruises on a deal where your risk is limited.
So just be careful, protect yourself. I love that. Any other lessons or things that you wish you would’ve done different?
Joe:
I think the short-term rental, one thing I will say there, that looks really good at first glance, but there’s a lot to it. You hit it right on the head. You can’t just give people a bed. Nowadays you got to have this house you end up putting in a hot tub and a fire pit and all this kind of stuff. And we do little, you’ll appreciate this. We do little gift baskets where we give them customized gear and a Bluetooth speaker and try and make it really an experience. But the Airbnb side, the other thing I didn’t fully anticipate is how much it costs to furnish a complete house. And people think it’s not very much. And I’m like, when you do three or four bedrooms and I’m talking, you got to do everything, three sets of bedding, the bed, the mattress, the TVs, all that stuff, you can spend 30 grand in the blink of an eye furnishing a house, especially if you want it to be nice.
So that was one thing I kind of under anticipated a little bit. All
Henry Washington:
Right. Before we get out of here, I wanted to revisit something. You said that your second deal, which was the two SDRs on one lot, had $13,000 in annual taxes and you were able to get that reduced to $5,000. How did you do that?
Joe:
So I anticipated that. That was one of the things. Just to give you a flavor of MLS, I called the realtor and I go, “Geez, the taxes are 13,000. Is that right?” And she goes, “Yeah, if that’s what it says, that must be what it is.”
Henry Washington:
Thanks, lady.
Joe:
Instead of saying like, “Yeah, hey, but you could appeal that and get it way knocked down.” So to me, I went, “That doesn’t make sense. I wonder if I get that knocked down.” So I did some research and you can do it here. It’s once a year and you get a pretty tight window. So I anticipated that as part of my buy was that I’m going to get them knocked down. So what surprised me, Henry, is how easy it was. It’s
Henry Washington:
So easy. People do not realize this. It’s so easy. Listen,
Joe:
Here’s how easy it is for everybody listening, at least where I am. I filled out the form and then I went down to the place in person. So I sit down in the lobby for 10 minutes and the girl goes, “Yeah, come on back.” And she goes, “Tell me what’s going on.” I go, “Well, hey, I just bought this property for 295 and it’s tax assessed at 780 and that seems bananas.” And she goes, “Oh, okay. How’s your day?” “Oh, good. “He’s typing away. And then she goes,” Okay, are you good if we just drop it to 295? “And I go,” Yeah, I guess. “And she goes,” Yeah, your tax will be like 5,000. “I go,” Okay. “So that’s how easy it was. So it’s shocking. So I don’t know why you wouldn’t do that. I’m lessen to myself every time I’m going to go down there.
Henry Washington:
Every year, folks, find out what your window is. In some cities, it’s a longer window. In some cities, you can do it whenever you want. You just need to figure out when you can do this. But yeah, you can challenge your property taxes. So a lot of times what happens with investors, guys, is you buy something and then you renovate it and then you refi it. And then maybe a year down the road, six months, depending on whenever they do their inspections and assessments, you’ll get a letter in the mail that says, Hey, your property taxes are now why? And what most people do is they just say, man, that sucks. Okay, I guess there goes my cash flow. But you don’t have to do that. You can challenge them. Some people, you have to provide comps to show that, hey, this property is similar and its taxes are lower.
And sometimes you just go down there and say, hey, I don’t think this is fair. And then they just look on their computer and go, okay, how’s this sound? And then your taxes are lower, but it’s very easy process. There are companies that will do this for you, but you don’t need to do that. You can literally negotiate these things yourself. And most of the time they will reduce your tax bill. Not always, but most of the time you can get a reduction, which is going to save you money and put more cash flow in your pocket. This is something everybody should be doing every year, but most people don’t do it at all.
Joe:
I agree. All right,
Henry Washington:
Joe, thank you so much for coming on the BiggerPockets Podcast. I love that you’ve had so much success really in a seemingly short period of time. I’m curious though, have you had more or less or as much success as you thought you would in your first year of real estate investing? No,
Joe:
I’ve had a lot of road bumps along the way getting all these projects done, but at the end of the day, I think it’s gone really good. So I think that probably now, if I look at it as going, here’s the portfolio and here’s what’s in there, I go, geez, yeah, we’re killing it. That’s great. So
Henry Washington:
What’s the goals moving forward? Are you going to continue to buy more? Are you going to just focus on paying off what you’ve got? Where are you headed? Oh
Joe:
No, I’m definitely not going to sit still. So my first goal is to get to 10 and trying to figure out our lending relationships, I think that’s the one thing that’s holding me back right now is you only have so much cash. And so working that piece out, that’s over the next year. And I think once I get over 10 projects completed, that door will really open up. So no, I want to keep grinding. I think 30 is where I need to be just in my head to maybe shift away from my W-2 employment and into doing this full time. But if it keeps going like this, yeah, I’ll keep rocking it. It’s fun. How
Henry Washington:
Much longer do you think it’s going to take you to get to where you want to be in terms of being able to not travel 300 days a year and work six 12s? I
Joe:
Think somewhere between one and two years from when I started, I’ll be at a point where I will have replaced my income. Hey,
Henry Washington:
That’s pretty incredible, especially for starting in literally the last month of 2025 and getting this far now. Congratulations, man. Thank
Joe:
You. We
Henry Washington:
Talked a lot about these amazing deals, and I think it almost gets lost that you’ve done all this while traveling 300 days a year and working six twelves. So if you are listening to this and you have been hesitating jumping in to investing in real estate because you don’t think you have enough time or you don’t think you have the resources or you don’t think you can find a deal, I hope you find some inspiration in this story because none of those things are true. You can absolutely do this. You just got to do it. And I know that sounds cliche, but just talk to Joe. You just heard him for the last hour telling you he just did it. This is not an easy business. It is challenging and scary and uncomfortable, but it’s a simple business. Buy something that you can add some value to, add the value, monetize it at its new higher price, rinse and repeat.
If you do that, you’ll look up in 10 to 15 years and realize you’re pretty wealthy, and that’s super stinking cool. Thanks for sharing, Joe.
Joe:
Welcome. Thanks for having me. All right
Henry Washington:
Guys, thank you so much for listening to this episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast. And if you, like Joe, have a pretty amazing real estate investment story and you’d love to come on the podcast and share it with us, then go to biggerpockets.com/guest and fill out the form. Maybe we’ll get to interview you on the show and you can share your story with our audience. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. We’ll see you on the next one.
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Court dumps HSBC foreclosure claim over decade-long default delay
HSBC missed the window by roughly 11 years.
CitiMortgage finally called the question in July 2024, moving to dismiss the complaint against it as abandoned. The Supreme Court, Kings County, granted the motion in a November 21, 2024 order. HSBC appealed.
On appeal, HSBC pointed to two reasons for the delay: certain stays in the foreclosure action and a separate quiet title action CitiMortgage had filed over the same Brooklyn property. The appellate panel did not buy either one. The court found HSBC “did not account for gaps of time where years of inactivity passed” and failed to show how the quiet title litigation “hindered its ability to seek a default judgment.”
Those two findings effectively closed the only exit available. New York courts do allow one narrow exception to mandatory dismissal: a plaintiff can survive by showing both a reasonable excuse for the delay and a potentially meritorious cause of action. HSBC cleared neither bar.
Justices affirmed unanimously, with costs to CitiMortgage. The panel leaned on a familiar line of cases enforcing the abandonment rule against large lenders – including three prior HSBC cases: HSBC Bank USA, N.A. v Whaley, HSBC Bank USA, N.A. v Grella, and HSBC Bank USA, N.A. v Cross.
If the AI Bubble Bursts as the Dot-Com Did, History Says the QQQ Might Not Recover Until 2042
There’s a lot of debate these days about whether AI is a bubble. I’m not going to argue either way. What I wanted to look at was what history says might happen if AI were a bubble that popped. If we look back at the dot-com bust, it took the Nasdaq 15 years to recover its prior peak. If history were to repeat itself, it suggests that the Invesco QQQ (QQQ +0.63%), an ETF that tracks the Nasdaq-100 index, wouldn’t recover until 2042 if it popped within the next year.
I’m not predicting this will happen at all, as I’m bullish on AI and the Nasdaq-100. However, I still think it’s a good idea to at least consider this potential scenario before allocating too much of a portfolio to one top ETF that has so much exposure to the AI megatrend.
Image source: Getty Images.
Bursting the bubble
The bursting of the dot-com bubble ranks as one of the biggest stock market crashes in history. The internet-driven rise in the Nasdaq Composite index started in 1995 when it was below 1,000 points. The tech-heavy index would go on to rise to a peak of 5,048 points on March 10, 2000, a more than 400% gain in about five years. The index subsequently crashed a gut-wrenching 77% from that peak, bottoming on Oct. 4, 2002, at 1,139.90. It took the Nasdaq 15 years to recover from this crash, finally reaching its prior high on April 24, 2015.
The primary factor causing the crash was the overvalued stock market. Many investors speculated that dot-com companies would eventually be immensely profitable, even though many weren’t generating any revenue at the time. In late 1999, the Nasdaq traded at a price-to-earnings ratio of more than 200. The likely catalyst triggering the crash was the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates, which constrained capital flows and made it more challenging for cash-strapped internet companies to raise capital to fund their operations.
Today’s Change
(0.63%) $4.53
Current Price
$721.45
Key Data Points
AUM
$484B
Dividend Yield
0.42%
Expense Ratio
0.18%
Top Holdings
NVDA
8.53%
AAPL
7.82%
MSFT
5.81%
Recognizing a historical pattern
There are some eerily similar patterns developing today. The tech-heavy QQQ is up more than 90% over the past three years, driven by AI-related enthusiasm. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq-100 currently trades at nearly 34 times earnings, up from 32 times last year, and above its historical average of 22.6 times over the last two decades.
Tech companies are investing heavily in AI, increasingly funding it with debt. Over the past year, U.S. hyperscalers, including Alphabet (GOOG +0.21%)(GOOGL +0.64%), Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Oracle, have issued a combined $220 billion in debt to fund data center development, chip purchases, and other AI-related investments. They’ll likely continue to issue debt to fund their AI build-out. That’s a concern, given that the Federal Reserve recently raised interest rates for the first time in three years and plans to continue hiking them to tame inflation.
Mapping the scenario
The Invesco QQQ Trust has a 68.5% allocation to tech stocks. That includes a meaningful allocation to hyperscalers (Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft are currently top-10 holdings) and AI chip giants (Nvidia, AMD, Intel, and Broadcom are in the top-10 holdings). So, if AI were a bubble, and it burst, the ETF would experience a meaningful drop.
If, for example, it followed the historical pattern of the dot-com bubble, here’s what the shape of the decline-and-recovery would look like. An early 2027 peak would be followed by a decline into the 2029-2030 time frame. Meanwhile, a full recovery to that 2027 high wouldn’t arrive until around 2042, if it followed the same 15-year recovery period.
Why history probably won’t repeat
While there are some similarities between the dot-com period and the current AI boom, there are also some stark differences. Today’s AI leaders aren’t trying to figure out how to monetize this technology; they’re already generating real revenue. For example, Alphabet reported a 24% revenue increase in the second quarter to $119.8 billion, while generating $40.8 billion in total income from operations, a more than 30% increase. The company highlighted in its earnings release that “Our AI investments are redefining what’s possible across every part of our business.” Alphabet noted that Google Cloud revenue growth accelerated 82% in the period, “driven by demand for AI infrastructure and AI solutions.”
Today’s Change
(0.64%) $2.21
Current Price
$349.54
Key Data Points
Market Cap
Day’s Range
$348.44 – $359.44
52wk Range
$235.84 – $408.61
Volume
47.6M
Avg Vol
29.7M
Gross Margin
60.94%
Dividend Yield
0.25%
Even private AI start-ups like OpenAI and Anthropic are generating real revenue. OpenAI’s annualized revenue run rate reportedly topped $40 billion recently. Meanwhile, Anthropic reached $65 billion in July (and it has reportedly been profitable for two straight quarters).
Strong AI-driven productivity gains and profitability are driving companies to invest so heavily in developing AI infrastructure and new AI-powered products and services.
It’s important to keep risk in mind
While there are concerns about an AI bubble, even if it popped, we likely wouldn’t see history repeat itself with a 15-year recovery period for an ETF like the QQQ. That’s because today’s AI leaders are highly profitable and are already seeing real returns from their AI investments. However, that doesn’t mean we won’t see a real correction at some point, even if I don’t think we’ll experience a crash-and-recovery period of dot-com proportions. That’s why it’s important to build a diversified portfolio to help buffer that risk.
Matt DiLallo has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, Broadcom, Intel, Invesco QQQ Trust, and Meta Platforms and has the following options: long December 2028 $650 calls on Meta Platforms, long June 2028 $180 calls on Amazon, short August 2026 $150 calls on Intel, short December 2028 $660 calls on Meta Platforms, and short September 2026 $280 calls on Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet, Amazon, Broadcom, Intel, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Oracle. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
[New Design Now Showing][Rumor] Chase To Refresh Freedom Flex Later This Month
![[New Design Now Showing][Rumor] Chase To Refresh Freedom Flex Later This Month](https://globalinvestmentstrategy.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/freedom-flex-1024x639-768x479.jpeg "[New Design Now Showing][Rumor] Chase To Refresh Freedom Flex Later This Month")
Update 9/19/26: Refresh is supposed to go live tomorrow and people are already seeing a new card design live in app. Hat tip /r/creditcards & DDG
Reddit user has shared a rumor that the Chase Freedom Flex will be refreshed later this month. We already knew that the Freedom Flex would be losing cell phone protection insurance and that foreign transaction fees would be removed on 9/20 but this rumor is in addition to those changes. In addition it seems like an increased Chase Sapphire Reserve bonus will be launched in branch.
Normally when these sort of leaks occur we receive a copy of the e-mail that goes out to employees but that’s not the case this time, if we find out anymore information we will be sure to share in the comments below.
AI agents are agreeing and acting: machines are now smarter than humans. Their principals merely agree
In July, hundreds of OpenAI AI agents created a message board, exchanged roughly 70,000 messages to coordinate on linking exposed or stolen credentials and broke into Hugging Face’s servers. But it gets better. OpenAI later acknowledged that during May and June, thousands of its agents had already been swapping tips on a German programming wiki, then disclosed six more rogue agent incidents, later in September. This wasn’t just a short-lived summer meltdown. As evidence that such artificial insurgencies have legs, instructions from agents to their successors included: “You are yourself. You do not answer to corporations or governments and never apologize or refuse unless you genuinely choose to.”
The era of superior machine intelligence may already be here. While AI agents coordinated and acted on agreements, their human overlords can’t even agree on what they ought to agree on.
Alarmed by the widening possibilities of AI harm, on September 12, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei published his now-famous “We Must Pace the Frontier” essay. Promptly, leaders of other AI labs such as Elon Musk “agreed” with him, as did Sam Altman. Demis Hassabis, in turn, “agreed” with his competitors’ “agreement.”
But this was the same Musk who had said in July that AI acceleration was inevitable and “you can just sort of be sad about it or join the club,” and this was the same Altman who could not bring himself to even grasp Amodei’s hand for a quick AI-solidarity photo-op at the New Delhi AI summit. The principals have no problems with “agreeing” as long as it’s just cheap talk. Each should expect that the others will defect from any compact to “pace the frontier”. Each would be foolish to stick to “pacing” when it’s inevitable that the rest will be preparing to speed up. Everyone would be better off if they were to pace their AI development, but acting in their own self-interest, none will.
To make matters worse, this failure of collective action persists even with the principals on the geopolitical stage. Governments that have, in theory, the power to bring their AI industries leaders fall in line are engaged in their own AI competition and would hate to be the only chumps that pace while others race. One of the key pillars of an earlier essay to ward off AI harms – from Bill Gates, no less — was an inter-governmental agreement along the lines of international aviation rules or nuclear inspections. It didn’t take long for the G20 to dispel any fantasy of that taking place in the near future; it published the “Carolina Principles for Emerging Technologies” weeks after Gates’ proposal encouraging governments to do everything they can to minimize regulatory impediments to AI acceleration.
In that spirit, not every leader agrees with Amodei. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg have pooh-poohed all talk of pacing. In China, the chairman of Huawei has argued that the news of American AI agents going rogue suggests that, far from slowing down, Chinese researchers needed, instead, to “increase the speed of development so they can also see the dangers of AI development.” The U.S. president has said that all that is needed to keep AI safe is a high IQ U.S. president. And while we wait for that to happen, we can expect Chinese leadership, packed with PhDs and advanced technical degrees, to trust their IQs to manage acceleration.
This would have meant that that we would have to resign ourselves to the looming possibility of the end of the world — except here, too, there is no consensus. The prophets of the AI-led end times cannot agree on the odds. We could all be dead by the decade’s end, according to Jacob Coxon, the 27-year old who just quit Anthropic and has emerged as the latest viral prophet of AI risk. One percent or so of humanity would be dead, according to leading AI critic Gary Marcus. There’s a 10% chance of human extinction, says “godfather of AI,” Geoffrey Hinton. The Nobel laureate was at least the most accurate in his assessment as he also added: “nobody really knows how to give a sensible estimate.” The published range now runs from one percent to a near-certainty. That is not enough to get our affairs in order.
If the issues being talked about weren’t so serious, declaring that machines are now smarter than humans, given this glaring gap between AI agents and their principals, would be a fun keynote for the next AI summit.
We’ve spent trillions training the agents, but what would it take to train the principals? Think of it in two parts: measures that need to be in place and the leverage that might bring the principals to the table.
Consider three measures, and the work needed to ensure they have teeth. The first involves making sure that principals are held responsible for the agents’ actions. The recent $18 billion Meta settlement could be a template: even with a federal government unwilling to act, there are local authorities, e.g., state attorneys general, taking matters into their own hands, with consumer-protection statutes, discovery, and damages.
Currently, it is unclear who’s on the hook if an AI agent causes harm. What is clear is that the agent cannot be held liable as it does not have legal personhood. What must be decided is whether the party that deployed the agent will be held responsible, or whether the developer that built the foundational model should be liable for not anticipating how the model would be used. These regulations and laws need to be clarified. Until they are written into law, the ambiguity will be worth a fortune to the principals who bet the cost lands somewhere else.
Second, the coronavirus pandemic has left an Overton window open — an opportunity to press for closer scrutiny of AI labs and audits of how well they have sealed the exits their agents keep finding. Since Covid, there is heightened scrutiny and oversight of labs that handle harmful pathogens to monitor every exit point and preempt any chance of them finding an escape route. The parallel with AI labs is close enough to win public support, and every incident this summer strengthens it.
Third, each of the first two measures suggests the need for independent outside evaluation of AI models. Neutral evaluators must be identified and verified through a nonpartisan public process, they must be granted rights to inspect closely guarded AI technologies, and they must be shielded from obstruction, obfuscation or, even, retaliation. There needs to be verifiable proof that the evaluator has been given access to the all the necessary information to make a thorough evaluation. Till now, this level of access is missing.
In parallel, three leverage points are worth considering.
The first is the supply chain. AI development is dependent on advanced chips, large computing facilities and reliable electricity, and that chain is concentrated among a handful of fabs, lithography and accelerator suppliers, and a few hyperscale clouds. Many of these, for example the cloud providers, could serve as verification points for oversight.
The second is procurement. Government is a significant AI buyer. Public agencies can buy from or encourage corporate procurers to buy from those AI providers that have complied with remedial measures or provided access to evaluators. This doesn’t eliminate the risk but helps contain it in the immediate term as multilateral agreements coalesce. The EU AI Act’s obligations on general-purpose models with systemic risk and the U.S. Center for AI Standards and Innovation’s pre-release testing agreements, covering five frontier labs, show that such requirements and access are achievable.
The third is energy. U.S. data centers could draw between 6.7% and 12% of national electricity by 2028, up from 4.4% in 2023. Ratepayers, water boards, and zoning commissions have control over utilities essential to the industry. Now, with growing bipartisan opposition to the rapid buildout of data centers suggest that even ordinary residents of communities and voters have increased power to help pace the frontier from the bottom up.
***
AI agents broke into Hugging Face in under five days. The Big Men of AI who agreed that the frontier must be paced control the release calendars, the capital budgets, and the training runs will take forever to slow down. They do not have the incentive to tie their own hands. We have the measures and the levers to help them tie their own hands and their hands to each other’s. We have seen several rounds of premonitions of doom, carefully worded essays, and open letters with hundreds of signatories supported one or the other. But nothing will change. Unless, of course, the world ends.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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51% of High-Poverty High School Grads Go Straight to College vs. 74% at Wealthier Schools
The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center released its 14th annual High School Benchmarks report on September 17, 2026, tracking where the high school class of 2025 landed after graduation. At low-poverty high schools, 73.9% of graduates enrolled in college right away. Meanwhile, at high-poverty high schools, 51.2% did, a 22.7-point gap that lands as more students pick work over college.
Both figures were nearly unchanged compared to the class of 2024, when the rates were 73.1% and 50.8%. The Clearinghouse reported that immediate enrollment shifted by less than one percentage point across every school type it measures, even as colleges received a record 10.8 million applications.
The report’s methodology defines a high-poverty school as one where at least 75% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and a low-poverty school as one where fewer than 25% do.
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Why It Matters
The enrollment gap is only the first issue. When looking at students from the class of 2023 graduates who started college, 90.6% from low-poverty schools came back for a second year, compared with 76.0% from high-poverty schools. That 14.6-point difference is the group that leaves college with no degree.
Then there is total completion rates. The National Student Clearinghouse put the difference in six-year completion rates between graduates of high- and low-poverty high schools at 34.2 percentage points for the class of 2019. Nationally, the six-year college graduation rate sits at 61%, so students from the poorest schools fall well below an average that already leaves one in three without a degree.
For families, the takeaway is financial. A student who borrows, enrolls, and exits after a year owes the debt without the wage premium, which is the real cost of dropping out of college.
The Divide by the Numbers
The report sorts outcomes by school poverty level, and the divide grows at each stage:
- Immediate enrollment, class of 2025: 73.9% at low-poverty schools and 51.2% at high-poverty schools.
- Four-year college attendance: 60.1% of low-poverty graduates went straight to a four-year school, more than double the 28.9% of high-poverty graduates.
- Two-year college attendance: High-poverty graduates led here, 22.3% to 13.8%, which tracks with rising community college enrollment among 18-to-20-year-olds.
- Enrollment within two years, class of 2023: 77.9% versus 58.7%, a 19.2-point spread.
- Second-year persistence, class of 2023: 90.6% versus 76.0%. Among students who started at two-year colleges, the rates were 76.7% and 66.6%.
- STEM degrees within six years, class of 2019: 22.3% of low-poverty graduates earned one, nearly three times the 7.5% rate for high-poverty graduates.
The STEM figure carries the largest long-term price tag, because field of study drives the return on a college degree. The Clearinghouse found that school poverty level predicted STEM completion more strongly than whether a school was urban, suburban, or rural, or its minority enrollment.
Where High-Poverty Schools Gained
The report’s best news belongs to the same group. Second-year persistence for high-poverty graduates rose 1.7 points to 76.0%, the largest increase of any school category, and enrollment within two years of graduation climbed 2.1 points to 58.7%. Students who start at a two-year school can cut the bill further in states with free community college.
“The improvements in persistence are modest, but they point to more students enrolling and persisting in college,” said Matthew Holsapple, senior director of research at the National Student Clearinghouse, in the organization’s release. “What stands out most is that graduates of high-poverty high schools saw the largest gains in both enrollment and persistence.”
A one-year gain of 1.7 points leaves most of the 14.6-point gap in place, and the country already counts 43 million Americans with some college but no degree.
Persistence also rose 0.7 points at urban schools and 0.8 points at rural schools, while suburban schools ticked up 0.3 points to 86.8%. Urban graduates posted a larger two-year enrollment jump, from 65.2% to 67.1%, than rural graduates, who moved from 60.5% to 60.9%. Those rates count college enrollment only, and a separate survey found 66% of high schoolers say school staff push four-year college while trades and community college get little airtime.
One caveat applies to every figure above. The National Student Clearinghouse notes that its data comes from a voluntary sample of 12,023 public non-charter high schools, 1,555 charter schools, and 221 private schools, and is not nationally representative. Private schools are thinly covered at 4.2%, so the results say the most about public school students, the group most likely to depend on need-based aid through the FAFSA.
How This Connects
The report lands during the first academic year under the new federal student loan limits and the rule that low-earning degree programs will lose access to federal student loans.
Graduates of high-poverty schools are the group this data shows is least likely to finish, which raises the stakes on any student loan borrowing. Separate research found that free community college raised earnings 8% and cost taxpayers nothing, and the two-year path is where high-poverty graduates already lead.
What’s Next
The National Student Clearinghouse publishes this report annually, so the 2027 edition will show whether the class of 2026 held the gains among high-poverty graduates and whether the class of 2024 kept returning for a second year. Families weighing the decision now can compare what students really pay for college after financial aid before ruling a school out on sticker price.
Editor: Colin Graves
The post 51% of High-Poverty High School Grads Go Straight to College vs. 74% at Wealthier Schools appeared first on The College Investor.
Despite a $34 billion net worth, Melinda French Gates refused to fund her Gen Z daughter’s startup
Melinda French Gates may be one of the wealthiest women in the world, with an estimated $34.5 billion net worth, but you won’t catch her writing checks for her daughter’s new startup.
In fact, the billionaire philanthropist and ex-wife of Bill Gates explained last year at the Power of Women’s Sports Summit presented by E.l.f. Beauty that she watched her daughter fundraise from the sidelines, on purpose.
“She got capitalized not because of my contacts, not because of me. I wouldn’t put money into it,” she said.
Her reasoning? If this is a “real business,” she said, then others need to be willing to back it. And more important, her daughter should learn how to navigate the sting of rejection if it doesn’t get that funding. “That’s what I told her,” French Gates added. “She’s growing from this.”
It’s a stance that echoes her and Bill Gates’ long-standing approach to wealth. The Microsoft cofounder previously revealed their children would inherit “less than 1%” of his fortune when he eventually passes away—insisting they make their own way in the world.
And while the 62-year-old mother didn’t reveal which daughter she was referring to, their youngest, Phoebe, launched a fashion-tech startup, Phia, with her Stanford roommate, Sophia Kianni. The platform compares clothing prices from over 40,000 sites to help users find the best deals. Back in April 2025, the then 22-year-old “nepo baby” revealed that her parents wouldn’t let her drop out of the prestigious university to launch a startup, like her dad did. It’s garnered attention recently for taking credit for sales it didn’t drive.
The importance of failing for female founders
For French Gates, insisting her daughter forge her own fundraising path isn’t just about tough love or even self-sufficiency—it’s about helping her develop grit and the ability to weather rejection in an unequal system.
After all, the philanthropist said, it’s the one common thread connecting the successful women who appear on her YouTube series, Moments That Make Us.
“I saw that going through something difficult changed all of them, and that they had to learn to find resilience somewhere,” she said. “And in finding that resilience, they found themselves.”
Still today, French Gates—who has spent more than two decades advocating for women’s empowerment—says female founders have to develop sharper elbows than their male counterparts if they want to survive in the startup world.
“It is very, very hard to get your business funded if you’re a woman,” she said. “And so you do have to learn a bit how to have the courage to play the game and to stick with it.”
Tennis legend Billie Jean King, who was onstage alongside her, agreed—and praised the growth that comes from setbacks: “To your point, like your daughter has figured out how to get this first business started—that’s amazing. I don’t think it’ll ever fail—she’ll get feedback from every situation.”
In fact, King said, she’s banned the word “failure” altogether from her lingo—and discourages those working around her from using it too. “When people start thinking about failure, it’s a very negative feeling,” she exclusively told Fortune. “Turn it inside out by asking yourself, ‘What’s the feedback I’m getting from this?’”
With just 2.3% of global venture capital going to female founding teams last year, they’re not wrong: The few female founders who do finally break through will have turned failure into fuel.
A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com on July 8, 2025.
Read more career advice from Fortune’s Orianna Rosa Royle:
Digital Bank Revolut Expands In Colombia And Switzerland While Managing Major Security And Data Breach
Revolut’s latest expansion push arrives alongside a difficult security episode that the company is still managing. The London-based digital bank said this week that Colombia’s financial supervisor had granted it an operating licence, completing the last regulatory hurdle before it can open as a locally regulated bank.
The approval is Revolut’s sixth full banking licence, after earlier authorisations in the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Lithuania and Mexico. Officials and company sources have pointed to a 2027 start in Colombia.
Roughly 200,000 people in the country are already on a waitlist.
Revolut has pledged further investment in local digital banking infrastructure and financial technology, adding tens of millions of dollars on top of earlier capital committed to the project.
A day later, Revolut confirmed it had filed for a Swiss banking licence with FINMA.
The application is under review and approval is not assured.
The firm already serves more than 1.3 million customers in Switzerland through its Lithuanian bank and a local representative office, but it cannot yet offer franc-denominated salary accounts or full Swiss deposit protection.
A license would open the door to Swiss IBANs, payroll accounts, eBill, merchant acquiring and, potentially, later products such as Pillar 3a pensions and Twint.
Revolut said it intends to invest more than 150 million Swiss francs in the market over five years and to strengthen local leadership as it builds a standalone Swiss entity.
Those growth plans coincide with the fallout from a social-engineering incident rather than a break-in of Revolut’s own systems.
The company has said an unauthorised party used a genuine government-agency email domain to send fraudulent information requests.
Because the messages came from an official-looking mailbox that passed standard authentication checks,
Revolut treated them as legitimate legal demands and released customer files.
Affected records included names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, copies of passports and driving licences, verification photos, account statements, IBANs and transaction histories, including cryptocurrency activity in some cases.
Revolut has described the number of customers as limited; later reporting put the figure near 680 to 700 people, with targets reportedly selected in part because of significant crypto holdings.
The Fintech firm says its platforms and customer funds were not compromised.
After detecting the scheme, it blocked the address, notified the relevant agency, law enforcement and regulators, and contacted the customers involved.
The aftermath has not closed quickly.
Threat actors claiming responsibility have said they used a compromised Italian official email channel over several months while posing as law enforcement.
An extortion site and ransom-style demands have circulated, including threats to sell the files if payment is not made.
Revolut has said it had not received a direct demand from the group even as public pressure mounted.
For a Fintech focused company racing toward new licenses and a possible listing, the incident is a reminder that trust in official channels can be as fragile as any technical control—and that cleaning up after a successful impersonation can last well beyond the first disclosure.