Henry:
Real estate investors love to talk about things like cashflow or appreciation, but they rarely talk about the total impact that a single property has on your net worth. You may generate a little bit of cash flow from real estate investments in year one, but the real power comes from buying a great asset, holding it, and letting it run its course. And when you actually do the math on a property you’ve owned for five, 10, or 20 years, the results are eye-opening. Every one ordinary rental property can create hundreds of thousands of dollars in wealth. Today, Dave and I are breaking down a couple of properties from our own portfolios to prove that point. These are actual deals that we own and manage, and we’re going to share all the real numbers. Are there bumps in the road? Of course. As you’re about to hear, you can overpay for a property.
Renovations can go over budget, but real estate is far more forgiving than you think. If you buy a good asset, play the long game, and stay patient.

Dave:
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the BiggerPockets Podcast. I’m Dave Meyer, joined by my friend and co-host, Henry Washington. Henry, what’s up, man?

Henry:
What’s going on, buddy? Good to be here.

Dave:
Yeah, it’s going to be a good show. We’re doing something a little bit different today, and I’m excited to talk about it because we often discuss acquisitions, buying new properties. We debate the benefits of cashflow versus appreciation, but we don’t always talk about what might be the most important thing in real estate, which is sort of the cumulative benefit of real estate and how a single property contributes to your portfolio, to your net worth, to your financial freedom mission over time. So that’s actually what we’re going to be doing today. Henry and I have each wrote down some information about a single deal that each of us has done in the past. And we’re going to talk about the ways that a single deal evolves and changes and grows over time. And I think this is going to help everyone, not just help manage their individual properties and the things they already own, but going back to the acquisition phase, help people pick which deals they should be buying today to maximize that benefit and advantage over time.

Henry:
Yeah, this is super fun because when you study real estate like online, social media, books, podcasts, all of it, it’s all talking about what it’s like to purchase property, what it’s like to disposition property. And there’s tips and tricks for operations, but you never really hear the details of how an individual property is

Dave:
Performing

Henry:
Over time in someone’s portfolio. It’s like this missing link of real estate study.

Dave:
Yeah. People are like, “Oh, I bought it for X and then I sold it for Y,” but they never tell you what happened in between. And although sometimes those equity numbers are real and they are impressive, it’s not the only benefit. Or in between buying it for a hundred and selling it for 300, you put 400 into it and you didn’t actually make any money. So we’re going to go into it. And I picked what I think has been sort of an average deal for me over time. It did well. It’s not the best deal I’ve ever done. It’s not the worst deal I’ve ever done, but sort of just representative of a deal that I think works for people. But let’s do yours first. Tell us about what deal you’re bringing.

Henry:
So I bring this property up because it had a lot of hiccups, but I’ve held on through them and I’m glad I have. It’s an amazing property. So this is an eight unit property that I bought. I closed on it, I believe, January 2nd or 3rd of 2020. So this was literally as the pandemic was becoming a thing.

Dave:
Right before toilet paper weekend.

Henry:
Yes.

Dave:
When everyone was freaking out. When

Henry:
People were wearing grocery bags over their heads, tucked into their clothes, going to the grocery store. When no one knew what was happening, when it was really, really scary still. Oh God. What a
Crazy time to close on a property. And my biggest project to date. So I paid $500,000 for this eight unit property. It’s across the street from the University of Arkansas. So it is a fantastic location, but it needed quite a bit of work. And I made the classic newish investor mistake of underestimating what the rehab was going to take. So given normal times, I underestimated that rehab. But if you remember what happened during that time was it started to get really hard to find anybody that wanted to go outside and do any work. And the cost of materials and labor went through the roof. So I think I budgeted somewhere around $100,000 for the renovation of this property, and we probably ended up spending closer to $250,000 when it was all

Dave:
Set

Henry:
Down. Whoa.

Dave:
And you bought it for five?

Henry:
500,000, yes.

Dave:
Well, that’s a good buy. Eight units.

Henry:
Great

Dave:
Buy. 500,000. Yeah. I mean, 60 something thousand dollars a unit. I imagine even in your area, that’s pretty darn cheap.

Henry:
Phenomenal buy, especially for the location. And so performance-wise upfront, I mean, this property ate my lunch because we blew through that $100,000 pretty quick.

Dave:
How’d you finance that? I mean, if you were budgeting for 100K, how’d you get the other 150?

Henry:
We did a commercial loan from a local bank. It was a commercial construction loan. So they gave me 90% of purchase and $100,000 for renovation. So they gave me 100% of the renovation costs. I had to put down 10%, so I had to put down $50,000. And then we actually got the seller to carry that back on a note for a couple of years. So we paid him 10% interest on that seller carry back of the down payment for

Dave:
Two

Henry:
Years while I was renovating. So I didn’t have to come out of pocket any money to buy this property.

Dave:
But wait, when it went from 100 to 250, where’d you get the extra 150?

Henry:
Yeah, great question. So about 50 grand of that came out of my pocket, maybe a little more. And then the remaining, we were able to tap into the equity because the equity bump that we got during the pandemic years was good enough for us to tap into some of that equity and pull out the rest that we needed. And so the bank essentially gave us a little more on our line of credit to finish up the renovation.

Dave:
Still not looking good for you right now. No. If you’re following along, if you’re betting on this one. No, it’s not great. It’s

Henry:
Not great at this time.

Dave:
Your polymarket odds are very bad.

Henry:
We’re carrying the note during all this time. We’re renovating. There’s nobody living there because we had to essentially put everyone out. Everybody either left and the one or two people that stayed were problem tenants who weren’t really paying anyway. And so we had a completely vacant property that we were renovating. I was carrying the note on it. Those were dark days. Those were dark, dark days. And so when I bought the property, rents were at about between three and $500 a unit. That’s how not great these units were. These people were just slum lording it on this property. And we were able to start getting renovated units leased at between 1,000 and $1,200 per

Dave:
Unit. How big were they? Two bedroom?

Henry:
800 square feet, two bedroom, one bath.

Dave:
I mean, I imagine you get that from a college student all day.

Henry:
All day long we were able to get these rented. We also added laundry to each unit, which helped boost the rent and helped boost desirability. And so once we got that first unit online and saw how quickly we got it rented, we knew we were going to be okay, but it was a long ride to get there. And I want to point that out for people because real estate is truly a long game. When you hear me talk about this property, it sounds great. Yeah, I bought it. I paid $500,000 owner finance on the down payment. I didn’t have to put any money out of pocket. And then we renovated it and we’re renting the units for a thousand to $1,200 a unit. That sounds amazing.

Dave:
I mean, you went into the red for a while, it sounds like. For

Henry:
Several months during the renovation.

Dave:
And even then, your cashflow is still good, but you probably couldn’t have sold it for a profit even though the equity was probably pretty good just with transaction costs and paying off your debt. It just takes time. You have to let the thing run its course.

Henry:
It takes time. And I think the thing that people don’t talk about with real estate is that, yes, I was able to carry that property, but what carried that property? Money from flips and cashflow from my other cash flowing rental properties. Cashflow is great, but you can’t always rely on it. If I was relying to live off of my cashflow, I might not have been able to sustain holding this property through the downtime we had of having to take everybody out. And the renovation, not only was my budget more than doubled,

Dave:
But

Henry:
My timeline went longer because of the state of the country at the time. And there’s literally nothing I can do about that. There was very few people that were working at that time. And so that’s why we say you have to have some other sort of income stream. Just because you bought a great deal doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to hold onto it. My other assets in my portfolio are what kept me afloat with this property. And I’m glad that it did because we talk about real estate being the long game. So now we’ve got eight renovated units. They’re renting very well. And we did an appraisal recently as I was refinancing this property. This property appraised for $1.4 million.

Dave:
Wow.

Henry:
So not only is it cash flowing great now, but it’s got a crap ton of equity in it because of the location that we bought it in, because of the appreciation in this market in general. And that’s the paper appraisal. My agent said that I should be able to sell this for 1.5 to 1.7 all day.

Dave:
And how much debt is on it?

Henry:
$720,000.

Dave:
Okay. So you’re walking with eight after sales expenses? Yeah, it’s amazing.

Henry:
And the cashflow is decent. My note on this property, principal and interest run me somewhere around $6,200 a month. And we’re bringing in over 10 in net cash flow. And obviously it’ll depend. So there’s four units that we did a lighter renovation on and four units that we did a complete gut overhaul on. So the complete gut ones, they get 12, 13, 14 depending on what we can get for it at that time. And the ones with the lighter renovation get anywhere between nine to 11. So we’re above 10 grand in gross rents, paying about 6,200. You take some expenses. It’s not a crap ton of cashflow, but

Dave:
It’s still

Henry:
Positive cashflow and crazy appreciation.

Dave:
Yeah. So what are you going to do with it now?

Henry:
I’m going to keep this one forever.
I love the location. I’d love to be able to give it to my kids. There’s going to have to be some other maintenance items I’ll have to do big ticket. That parking lot in the back will have to be redone at some point. It’s an asphalt parking lot and it’s wearing down. So I’d like to come back with something a little more durable, maybe do some concrete back there. It’s going to be quite a big capital expense on that property. Some of the HVACs are getting older that we’ll have to replace soon. But in terms of location and appreciation and rent growth, you couldn’t be in a better location.

Dave:
So rents are still growing. You think the cash flow will get better over time? The

Henry:
Cashflow will get better over time, especially as I start to pay this unit off. But this is one I plan on keeping in the fold for a long time.

Dave:
So I mean, yeah, the strategy, which I like is you have a great assets that it’s appreciated. Maybe it’s not a great cash cow, but if it’s in a great location, it rents well, that’s like a prime property to pay off over time. Whether you do it quickly or just wait 15 years, that’s just one to hold onto.

Henry:
Yeah, absolutely. The longer I hold it, the more valuable the land and the asset is going to get just because what’s around it. The University of Arkansas has grown since I bought this property. So it’s like they’re inching the campus closer to me. So I’ll take it.

Dave:
Even better.

Henry:
Right.

Dave:
This isn’t some crazy thing. You just bought a good asset at a really good price, renovated it, made it more desirable for your tenants, increased the occupancy and the rents, and that’s it. Yeah. That’s just the formula, but it just takes time. It doesn’t work in the first year or the second year. It sounds like you weren’t trying to pull off a perfect burr and refinance 100% of your money in nine months. It was just like a patient approach. You found a great asset, you figured out what was going to work with this particular property and didn’t try and force anything out of it that wasn’t going to be realistic.

Henry:
Yeah. And I think part of the key here is I didn’t use short-term financing in the terms of hard money. So my interest rate was very reasonable.
And the construction period, so I had a 12-month construction period where I’m paying interest only. That allowed me to keep my holding costs lower than if having to pay principal and interest during a time when it was very hard for me to get this thing up and running due to underestimating the rehab and then the situation that was happening in the country with the pandemic at the time. So yes, this is a very run-of-the-mill real estate deal. Buy a dilapidated asset, add value to it and rent it out. But I don’t think people often understand that sometimes that doesn’t go smoothly. If you don’t want to lose the money you have in the asset, you’ve got to be able to hold. And had I not had other cash flowing assets and had a stream of income through flipping, plus I had my day job for part of this, all of those things allowed me to sustain and carry that property through it bringing in absolutely no income.

Dave:
All right. Well, this is a great example that everyone can repeat. You don’t have to go out and buy commercial property, but what Henry did, buying an undervalued asset, fixing it up, renting it out, getting appreciation, using it to finance other deals. This is the benefits of holding onto real estate for a long time. And we got to take a quick break, but after the break, I’ll share with you an example I have. Very different approach, very different property, but that still showcases how the long game usually wins in real estate. Stick with us. We’ll be right back.

Henry:
All right, we are back on the BiggerPockets Podcast, and Dave and I are talking about properties that we currently own and giving you essentially some behind the scenes on what it’s been like for us to own and operate these properties and what it has done for our portfolios having owned and operating these properties. So I’m very interested to hear what kind of property you brought for us, Dave. I

Dave:
Have the total opposite end of the spectrum. Just a single family home that I lived in for a couple of years. So it’s not a traditional house hack or what most people think of as a house hack where I was renting out one unit and living in the other. My girlfriend at the time, wife now, and I lived in this home for three years.

Henry:
Did you call it a house hack because you charged her rent?

Dave:
I did a little bit. I covered the vast majority. The majority of it, but a little bit. Yeah.

Henry:
Well played, sir.

Dave:
So I bought this house, single family home back in 2016 when I was living in Denver. It was actually right after I started working at BiggerPockets. I got this under contract, I think maybe within a month of working at BiggerPockets, because I remember sneaking out of the office to go cold call someone because I wanted to get houses. Oh, this is your one cold call that you’ve ever made. This is my one direct to seller deal I have ever done. But let me just tell you about why I went out of my comfort zone and did this. I got really into the idea of path of progress and figuring out what neighborhoods were going to be popular in Denver because it was growing a lot, but it was very neighborhood by neighborhood. And the city announced that they were going to be building a brand new light rail that went from downtown Denver at this train station that they were pouring millions of dollars into out to the airport.
That was always this big pain point and it was going to go through this neighborhood that was kind of up and coming. And they were deciding between two different projects. The one route might go north, one route could go south. And so my agent and I went, or he first went to the city planning meeting and figured out that regardless of which one they chose, there was this one sweet spot that they were going to get this park and a train station and the city was going to be investing in it. And I was like, “I got to buy right there.” And so I actually had been in this house six months earlier and though it was too expensive at 425. And knowing what I knew now, I was like, “All right, I’m going to call that guy back.” And so I called him back and was like, “I was in your house.
He didn’t sell it because it was too expensive at 475.” And we finally negotiated for it. And I remember to this day the exact price that was $462,000 is what we agreed on. So more than I thought it was worth. But I was like, “This is crazy because that is the exact price. 462 was the exact same price I had paid six years earlier for a four unit in Denver. And now I was paying that for a single family home and I was like, this is crazy, but I really believe in it.” And so I wound up buying this, and I’ll tell you how much it’s worth and what it’s done for that, but was able to finance it just using money I had saved up and refiing a deal I had bought two and a half years earlier, had done some value add to that and had raised the rents a lot.
So I was able to refi that to go out and buy this.

Henry:
462 for a single family even back then. Wow. Wow.

Dave:
It’s a lot.

Henry:
That’s a lot. So I assume you did just a conventional loan on this one?

Dave:
I did. Yeah. Owner occupied loan. I actually wound up putting 20% down on this. I had saved up enough for 5%, but I did a refi and was able to put the full 20% down. So I got good financing because I really didn’t want to pay PMI. And I think my loan then was five and a half. I refinanced it during COVID, but it wasn’t crazy low rates back then. So even that, I think my mortgage payment was something around 18, 1900 bucks to live there, which to be honest, to rent a two bedroom in Denver, which is what we were doing, it was going to cost 15, $1600 easily. So the payment wasn’t that crazy.

Henry:
And how long would you say it took before you started to realize that your research about what was coming to this area was actually there and giving you the boost you had hoped for?

Dave:
Oh dude, it took a while for the value to get there, but within three months of buying this property, I knew I had hit a home run. But the house that I bought was in decent shape. There wasn’t a lot of value add. The value add I did was living in a very uncomfortable situation for three years because then they just did construction for three years. They eminent domained the houses across the street. Sort of tweakers moved in across the street. They were constantly living in there. There was a triple gang shooting two houses away. Jane and I, they built the train, and I didn’t know this at the time. Sometimes ignorance is split, but the train, when they launch a new train, they have to blow their horn every time they cross a street for two years before it can be quoted a quiet zone.
Oh wow. So 24 hours a day for two years, two blocks away from us, trains were just blowing their horn. So we were just living in this. It was a nice house, but that’s kind of value-add to me. It was like I knew once this was over, it would be worth 700,000.

Henry:
Once you moved out, what were you able to rent this for? And do you still own it?

Dave:
Still own it. So when I moved out in 2019 alone, got 3,000 a month in rent. Rents in Denver have went up and now they’ve kind of come down. And so I think I’m getting 3,250 right now a month. And my payment, because I refinanced it, has actually gone down even though taxes and insurance have gone up. So I’m paying about, I think it’s just under 2,000 bucks a month on my payment for that. And that gives me 1,400 bucks cushion. I do pay a property manager, but it produces 10, 15 grand a year in cashflow.

Henry:
That’s pretty cool. Now, I know Denver has a lot of older inventory in some parts of town, and that can cause you problems maintenance-wise over time. How old is this property?

Dave:
Oh my God. I think it was 1892. I think it was, but it had been renovated. There had been some work done on it. So it’s actually been pretty low maintenance costs for. Man, I moved out of it six years ago. I’ve been renting it out and knock on wood, no major capital expenses. Is it like a cash cow that I’ll hold onto forever? Probably not. I will probably sell it. I’m moving towards selling it maybe even in the next couple of months, which I can get into. But I think it’s worked for me in so many ways from tax benefits to appreciation for cashflow and holding it over the next couple months. It really has kind of checked every box.

Henry:
Absolutely. I think you should get into it because my next question for you was going to be, what’s the plan? Are we keeping this or are you going to sell it? And if you’re going to sell it, what are you going to do with the proceeds?

Dave:
Yeah, so this is the way I’ve been thinking about it is that I still owe 230 on the loan. I’ve just been paying it off. So if I went to sell it, which I think I could sell it on the low end for 720, that’s pretty conservative because after I bought here, I wound up buying another house down the road because I really just liked the neighborhood and saw it was happening. But I sold that other one. It was almost an identical comp. I sold it for 810, but that was in 2022. And Denver market has definitely come down. So I’m just conservatively saying 720, it’s probably somewhere maybe closer to 750, hopefully. So I mean, that’s a lot of equity. That’s like 300 grand in equity. And yeah, it’s making cash flow like 10, 15K, but that’s not a good cash on cash return.
And I would consider holding onto it or paying it down if I thought there was any juice left, but there just isn’t. The neighborhood has done what it’s going to do, which has been fantastic. There’s not really room for value add. The layout is kind of weird. I can’t add another unit. There’s just no way to really get more out of it. And so I think I’m going to sell it because the cashflow’s not amazing. It’s run its course. I’ve done the long game on it. But I think a lot of times with these kinds of plays, seven to 10 years, you kind of peak out and the performance peaks. And so I will likely 1031 into something else. That is sort of what I’m thinking right now, but I’m still getting some quotes on what it’s going to cost me to get it sales ready and kind of make the final decisions, but that’s where I’m leaning right now.

Henry:
Yeah, I mean that makes sense. And that’s absolutely true. If you feel like you’re just going to get your normal modest appreciation bumps from this point forward, then it’s just either you hold it because that fits your investment strategy or you find something else where you feel like you can get a better cash on cash return with that money. I don’t think there’s a wrong decision with a property like this. And I don’t want people to listen to this to think that you have to sell your properties after the seven-year period. Dave’s doing what he feels like best fits his investment strategy going forward, and that strategy fits the lifestyle that he wants. You need to do the same thing for you. So for me and my property, I can’t add a ton of value to it either. It’s just going to appreciate because of the location, but that asset paid off would be a great one to leave to my kids, and that fits my investment strategy better.

Dave:
Exactly.

Henry:
The goal is to get in, force value, ride the appreciation, and then make the determination on is it better to sell or keep based on what you want to do with your portfolio? It’s what’s the right call for your investment strategy.

Dave:
All right. So you’ve heard each of our deals, but we have more analysis and to discuss on today’s episode right after this quick break. Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Podcast. Henry and I are sharing stories about the long-term performance of two deals that we picked out. Let’s jump back in.

Henry:
I think as investors, we have to be very educated on the types of loans that are out there for us to finance these deals and pick the ones that make the most sense for the asset you’re buying. Because like I said, if I would’ve bought my property with a higher interest loan, hard money, something that was a whole lot more holding costs, I probably wouldn’t own that asset today. I don’t know that I

Dave:
Would’ve

Henry:
Been able to sustain through the delays in the underestimating of the renovations. And if you used a different type of loan product, it may be a different story that we’re telling now. So if you can buy a property that’s a good asset in the path of progress, and it takes a little longer to get to your profitability that you’re looking for, you don’t want to put yourself in a position where you’re limited on your ability to hold onto that property.

Dave:
Because

Henry:
That’s how you lose in real estate. You don’t just lose by buying a bad deal. You can buy a great deal with the wrong financing, and then you’re stuck in a position where you either can’t refinance, can’t carry the note, and so you have to sell the property. And if you’re forced out too early, I mean, that’s when you take losses and that’s when you don’t build the wealth. The wealth comes through equity and appreciation. The wealth doesn’t come through cashflow. Cashflow is a measure and it’s a good measure and you want to shoot for it, but that’s not what builds the wealth. And you don’t get to the wealth building if you’re forced to sell because you used the wrong type of loan or because you didn’t have cash reserves. Real estate is about your ability to hold onto your assets for the long haul.
The more you can do that, the more wealth you’ll build.

Dave:
That’s absolutely right. I think what you said before is spot on where you said it’s sort of an educated guess. Because I think a lot of people might listen to my story in particular and say, “That’s speculation.” Or yours even because you were buying it at what, three, $500 rents and you had to tell yourself a story that I can get a thousand plus in rent for this. That’s not speculation, it’s a business plan. I think that’s sort of the key here is I do hear people say like, “Oh, I’m thinking about buying in this neighborhood because it’s just an up and coming area and I just think the prices are going to go up.” Maybe, but I think you need a business plan to really back that up. And I acknowledge that what I did on that deal might come close to speculation, but I had a plan and I knew that at the very least, I was basically net neutral on my own living expenses.
I limited the risk. I had, to Henry’s point, owner occupant financing, very advantage financing. That made that possible. Would I have bought that as a flip or a burr? Probably not. The whole plan, the business plan was to live in it through the inconvenience and through the transitionary period. And that’s why it worked. Just going out and saying, “I’m going to buy on the street because everything goes up,” that is speculation. Holding on for a long time is the goal, but you have to still have a business and an idea of how you’re going to take it from where it is today to where you want it to be in six, 10, 15 years. Otherwise, you’re just guessing and waiting. And it’s not like you have to do that much, but implement a plan and wait is really what we’re saying, not just go buy anything and wait.
So I like these stories because it’s so funny. In retrospect, everything looks like it was easy and genius. But the whole point I think of both of these stories is like mine didn’t look great for the first three years. I overpaid. Or people would’ve said I overpaid. Henry’s didn’t look good in the right way, but we were both following a plan. We both had a business plan and the plan was never, how do I get out of this in nine months? For rentals that you are trying to acquire, the plan can take shape over two years, over three years, over five years, over seven years. It not only doesn’t have to be quick, but often as these stories show, it works better for it not to be quick. Being slow can be a deliberate strategy. It is not necessarily some consolation prize that you’re taking.

Henry:
Very, very Very true. And don’t forget, it could and very well may for other investors who are getting started now, it may take even longer than the time horizon that Dave and I are talking about because we did get a 2021, 2022 bump in equity that none of us were expecting. So buy the best asset you can, try to add as much value as you can, and then make sure you’re in a position to be able to sustain that property if and when it doesn’t perform like you want it to.

Dave:
You’re right that it might take longer, but I want to caveat that with two things. First and foremost, no one knows when these bumps are coming, but they come. And they’ve come throughout history and they’ll come again. No one knows. So that’s kind of the whole point of holding on. No one knew it was going to be 2020 to 2022. That’s when it happened. And the people who held onto things were rewarded for that. The second thing though is that better assets are on sale. It is easier now to buy something that you want to hold onto than it was in 2021 or 2022, at least in my experience. And so I think that’s why we always talk about, you take what the market’s giving you, and that means the bump might not be next year. It probably won’t, right? It’s probably not coming for the next couple of years.
But that’s why you buy good assets now. I bought mine in 2016, it took four years. I bought other assets in 2010, took 12 years, whatever. But you find things that work in the short term that are good, and then the upside comes and that’s what turns them great. That’s what we talk about all the time on this show, and it absolutely can happen and can work right now. All right. Well, this was fun. I liked going through the show. Let us know if you like these shows. We could do more of these, just Henry and I, or we can bring on other investors to share examples of great or bad stories that if going into these kinds of things and showing sort of the life cycle of a deal is useful for us, let us know. Drop it in the comments. Let us know on Instagram.
We would really appreciate it because I learned from you about your deal. I think it’s just a super helpful format.

Henry:
Yeah. If you enjoy talks like this, we’d love to be able to do more. So let us know if it’s helpful to you.

Dave:
All right, that’s our show for today. Thank you all so much for watching this episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast. He’s Henry. I’m Dave. We’ll see you next time.