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Henry Washington
Real estate is arguably one of the best ways to build wealth and financial freedom. And one of the best investment vehicles for new investors is rental properties. And you don't have to be some huge investor buying large multifamily or big apartment complexes. Rental property investing is the average person's way to build wealth. Whether you want to make $50,000 a year or $500,000 a year, you can do this. How do I know this? Because I did it just seven years ago. I owned no assets and now I own a portfolio of over 100 rental properties. But here's the problem. Most people have no idea where to start. So that's why we've come up with seven steps that you can use to help you find your first property in 2026. Let's do this. This is exactly how you go step by step from owning no rentals to your first one. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to the BiggerPockets podcast. I am Henry Washington and I used to to have a corporate W2, but now I own over 100 cash flowing rental properties and that allows me to invest in real estate full time.
Dave Meyer
And I'm Dave Meyer and I still work full time, but I have a good job. I am the head of real estate investing at Bigger Pockets and I've been investing in rental properties for more than 15 years. We obviously have different approaches to real estate investing, but maybe we should just take a minute and talk about why we are doing this and why our audience is probably sitting at home thinking, yeah, maybe I should do this, maybe real estate. But like, why? What are the two or three reasons you think? Honestly, I think most Americans should be considering investing in real estate. What are the reason, top reasons for you?
Henry Washington
I think what most Americans are facing now is that the typical American dream doesn't necessarily work anymore. It's very, very hard to have one job that pays you enough to be able to afford a comfortable life. I think you can afford a life of some kind, but most people typically want more. They want to be able to take more vacations. They want to be able to spend more time with their family and with how much life costs, groceries cost, gas costs, mortgages cost. I think Americans find themselves in a position where they need a way to generate some more income on top of their day job. And that's the position I found myself in. And that was seven years ago.
Dave Meyer
A lot of it's gotten harder. I mean, I call me a skeptic, but I just don't trust anyone else to take my retirement or My financial future. Seriously, I don't think the government's coming to help me. I don't necessarily think any employer is going to be around for me for the entirety of my career. I have a great job, but I'm not going to work for one company for 45 years. You know, like, you have to. In my opinion, since I graduated college, I've always thought, like, how do I do something entrepreneurial?
Henry Washington
Yeah.
Dave Meyer
So that I can take some control over my own financial future. And to me, real estate's the best thing to do. Like, there are plenty of other ways you can use entrepreneurship, but like, I'm not that creative. I'm not going to go, like, start some business that's going to change the world. I don't know how to make an AI company, but I could run a real estate business. Like, I could do it. So can pretty much anyone.
Henry Washington
Absolutely. And it's, there's there for me, there's just safety in real estate. And so being able to own something that's a physical asset that literally everyone needs, there's comfort in that.
Dave Meyer
Yeah, absolutely. And this is possible. I, you know, I always cite the stat. It's a stat I made up, but it is one. That's why, that's why I cite it so often. Because the creator is just so smart. No, I did the math because I think that a lot of people love the idea of financial freedom, but it feels so far away. And I did the math and basically, no matter where you're starting from, if you just buy regular on market deals, you have to buy good deals. But if you buy regular on market deals, you can get what we're talking about, financial independence, in eight to 12 years. And if you hustle like Henry hustles, you could probably do it in five to seven. And so that's what's so cool and inspiring about real estate investing is even though things have gotten more expensive, even though mortgage rates are higher than they were eight years ago, buying on market average deals, if you just dedicate yourself to learning this craft, you can do it in under a decade.
Henry Washington
Right.
Dave Meyer
Compare that to 45 years. The average career that someone works in, a corporate job, they're not even comparable. So that's why I'm in real estate. Sounds like we're the same reason. So let's move on. Let's talk about how to actually do it. We're going to walk you through our seven steps to going from where you are today. Maybe not knowing that much about real estate, never having bought something before to how do you actually go out and buy that first deal? What's step number one?
Henry Washington
Step number one is to have some goals. Yeah, look, people say it all the time. You got to know where you're going to understand what you want to do. But I think in real estate you get this excitement when you learn about it because you feel and see how powerful it is and you start to see other people doing it. And a lot of us who are action takers just kind of go right, and then we figure it out later. But in this business, understanding exactly how much money are you trying to make and at what timeframe are you trying to make it in will really help set some guardrails for you so that you don't spend a lot of time wasting time doing things that aren't valuable to you.
Dave Meyer
There are so many different tools you can use. Right. Like there's, there's long term rentals, there's flippings, all these different things. If you don't take a moment to figure out where you want to go, you can very easily choose the wrong tool. And that's not necessarily a mistake that you can't come back from, but it does waste a lot of time. There's an analogy I used in my book where if someone walked up to you and said, what's the best car? What would you answer?
Henry Washington
I don't know. What do you want to do with it exactly?
Dave Meyer
Are you trying to race? Because maybe you go buy a supercar? Are you trying to build something? Maybe you want a truck? Do you have a family? Maybe it's a minivan. But unless you know what you're trying to accomplish, what you're trying to do, you might pick the wrong tool. And I know it is fun to go out there and just start daydreaming all the time. I do it too. But I really recommend everyone take a minute and set a goal that can mean a lot of different things. So for you, what does a good goal look like? What are the kind of things you should be thinking through?
Henry Washington
Yeah, I think there needs to be some level of tangibility. Right. And that's why I said it the way I said it earlier. How much money are you trying to make and in what timeframe? Because your goals are going to dictate the strategy that you use. Because you could have an aggressive goal of making $200,000 in the next 90 days.
Dave Meyer
Yep.
Henry Washington
Well, that's not going to be with rental properties. Like, your goals will help to dictate your strategy. So put some tangible goals behind it. We're all doing this for money of some kind. Some of us need money now, some of us need money later, some of us need money now and. Right, right, right. But everybody's in a different financial place. Right. And everybody has a different financial problem to solve. And so be tangible with it. What's the amount of money that you're looking to make and what timeframe are you needing to make it in? That's the easiest way to start planning your goals.
Dave Meyer
So what's yours?
Henry Washington
Yeah. So my goals for money each year is I want to generate somewhere between 600,000 and a million dollars in net profits from flips that I want to use to help pay off current assets.
Dave Meyer
That's a lot. Yeah, that's pretty good. And that's just you or with a partner that's just straight up?
Henry Washington
Yeah.
Dave Meyer
Wow, that's incredible. And. But do you have a goal with your, your rental properties? Like you use that money to put back into your rental properties? Do you have like a number of unit goal or cash flow goal?
Henry Washington
Long term, the number of unit goal is more measuring stick. The cash flow goal also is. So right now I think we generate somewhere around 30 or $40,000 a month in cash flow. But I don't live off of it and I don't plan to live off of it. What the goal is is to pay off one third of my portfolio over the next 10 years. And if I can pay off one third of my portfolio over the next 10 years, I'm going to take a look at how much net cash flow that gets me and then I'll decide if I need to pay off more or if I'm comfortable, like, can I live off of this amount of money for the rest of my life? Because one of the things people don't talk about with real estate is it's all an active business. Some strategies more active than others. If you want it to be more passive, you got to get some unleveraged properties. Because unleveraged properties are going to pay you better than leveraged properties. And if I have more unlevered properties, then I don't have to flip as many houses. And because flipping houses is all of the active.
Dave Meyer
Yeah, exactly. And this is a perfect goal. Like your real goal is to own unlevered properties.
Henry Washington
100.
Dave Meyer
You're using flipping as a strategy to get there quickly. And this isn't exactly why you need to set your goals first. Because if you just said, hey, I want to flip that, you might make.
Podcast Host/Producer
A ton of money.
Dave Meyer
It sounds like you do make a ton of money, but like it's not, you know, you're doing that within a different goal in mind. And so you have to cater and adjust your flipping strategy to pursue that bigger goal. And I think that's a really important thing. That's sort of like keeping you on.
Henry Washington
Track and also lets you know how much of it you have to do.
Dave Meyer
Right, exactly. Like you could scale it down.
Henry Washington
Yeah. Like, do I need to do five flips or do I need to do 25 flips? That's going to depend on the amount of money you want to make and what market you're in. Because as we saw recently, somebody in a market is flipping one house and making what I make dang near in a year, doing 10 to 15.
Dave Meyer
It's crazy. Yeah, absolutely.
Henry Washington
So, yes, those are my goals. Everybody's goals are going to be a little different. But after goals, in my opinion, comes strategy. So I know you literally wrote a book about strategy, so how do you feel about that?
Dave Meyer
Well, I, I think that's right. And I, I think that honestly this strategy, I think goals are important part of your strategy. But I think when we in real estate, when we call, talk about quote, unquote strategy, we're talking about like the types of deals that you want to do. And I do think that's the appropriate next step. My goal's pretty similar. Like I want unlevered rental properties to pay for my entire lifestyle and then some within 15 years. And I, you know, I can pay for my lifestyle with real estate now, but I don't. And I have, I'm sort of more in a growth mode. So over the next 15 years, I want to transition to more passive. I've been doing that for, already for five years now. And how do I do that? With less and less debt, which to me means less and less risk. So then I work backwards from there. Like, what kind of deals do I need to do? Do I need to flip houses? No. You know, like for me that's not. Like, it's something I might do opportunistically because it's fun and I'm in this industry. But like, I don't need to do that. Do I need to do midterm rentals?
Henry Washington
No.
Dave Meyer
Do I need to do short term rentals?
Sponsor/Advertiser
No.
Podcast Host/Producer
I could.
Dave Meyer
But to me, given my goal, my strategy first and foremost is how do I buy a great ass in a great location that I'm going to be proud to own for the next 30 years? That's like the number one thing I look At. And then from there I'm like, all right, is that a short term rental? Is that a midterm rental? Is that a brrrr? Is that a long. You know, like that to me is more of like a management choice. That's like a business plan choice to me. It's like I want something that I can own for a really long time, which is a very different strategy than buying stuff, renovating it and flipping it. And so like, that's why we probably have different short term strategies. But for me it all starts with that goal. And I sort of like work backwards. And that's why my strategies right now are buying long term properties. Maybe I switch up how I manage those rentals over the next 30 years. But I want the great asset and the great location that I'm going to hold on to for a long time.
Henry Washington
Yeah. And I think that that's a brilliant way to look at it because if you're looking at it from assets you want to hold forever, you may actually do more than one strategy with a particular asset.
Dave Meyer
For sure.
Henry Washington
Like for example, I have a rental property that was a long term rental, but in this particular city, in this particular area, midterm rentals do really well. So I converted it and it's doing excellent right now. Will it do excellent forever as a midterm rental? Probably not totally. We may have to put it back.
Podcast Host/Producer
That's right.
Dave Meyer
People sometimes say, oh, are you a short term rental investor? Are you a midterm rental investor? I'm like, I'm a buyer hold.
Henry Washington
I'm a buyer holding.
Dave Meyer
Yeah, that's what I do. I want to buy stuff for the long term and hold on onto it. And whatever helps me hold on to it, I will do, you know, whatever is a good business decision at that time. I will do that. That's to me, the number one thing. And once you have that, once you say like, okay, I'm a buy and hold investor, then you can go out and start picking your markets. Because like, I'm in an interesting position. Right. I live in Seattle, very expensive market. It's not a good buy and hold market. It's not. That's why I invest out of state. I didn't pick the market first. I said, here's my goal, here's my strategy. Now I gotta go find a market that I can successfully do that in because Seattle ain't it. Preach.
Podcast Host/Producer
Reach.
Henry Washington
I don't know how many times people ask me what's the best market to buy property in. I'm like, I have no idea for you.
Dave Meyer
Exactly.
Henry Washington
No idea what you want to do, what your goals are like. That's truly the way you should be looking at picking markets. And I feel like people pick markets because they think a, either it'll be easier to find a deal or more affordable to pay for a deal, but you should really pick your market based on your goals and your strategy, in that, in that order.
Dave Meyer
I really, hands down, some people live like you live in a good market where you kind of do a little bit of everything, which is nice, but that's not true everywhere, especially in expensive markets. So it's very difficult to do it. So if you want to be a buy and hold investor, you could, you can be creative. More creative than I care to be because it takes a lot of work and I have a full time job. So I'm not going to go out and do student housing, for example, or like rent by the room. I'm just not going to do that. Yeah, it's more work to go find a market. I travel there, I go look at deals. Like I would rather do that because it's just more aligned with my goal. It's more aligned with my strategy of buying great assets and holding on to them. And that's how I pick that market.
Henry Washington
Perfect.
Dave Meyer
So those are our first two steps. Number one, pick your goal. Number two is strategy and market, which we're kind of combining because I do think it makes sense to do those. Next we have step three, which I think we might disagree about this one. I think we're going to disagree about which one should go third. You can weigh in on which one you think is right right after this break.
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Dave Meyer
Henry and I are sharing our seven steps for investing in real estate. Going from wherever you are are today to getting that first deal. And we were planning the show. We agree on the seven steps, but I think we disagree on the order of them. Right?
Henry Washington
I agree. Okay. I agree to disagree.
Dave Meyer
We both agree that goals come first, then comes strategy, slash market. What do you do as third?
Henry Washington
Find a deal.
Dave Meyer
Find a deal. So you would just go out? I don't necessarily disagree about that, but I'll offer a counter opinion. But you go first and just share. Finding a deal.
Henry Washington
Yeah, I think finding a deal is the key to being able to make money. I also think finding a deal makes all the other subsequent steps easier to you. Like if you're gonna find a contractor, it's hard to talk to contractors about hypothetical deals. Right. They don't wanna talk to you about it.
Dave Meyer
That's so pointless.
Henry Washington
Right, right. And then also it's easier to find money for deals, the better your deal is. And so being able to go out and find a deal.
Dave Meyer
So I guess within making a deal as your third step, do you like you. You create a buy box?
Henry Washington
Yes.
Dave Meyer
Okay. So yeah, you take that market, you take the strategy and you get house specific on your buy box.
Henry Washington
For me, it's square footage wise. If it's a single family home, I don't want anything over like 2800 square feet, so I want less than 2800 square feet. I want it built after. I think we just changed the buy box filter. Anything built before 1960 we don't want now. You could live in a place that's a big city and you only want to buy in little pockets of the area. And so you have to know what zip code you want to buy in. You could live in a place where there's tons of old properties and so you don't have a choice. You have to buy something old. So you have to. You've got to get real specific depending on your market. I just happen to live in a market where I can have a broad buy box.
Dave Meyer
Yeah. I recommend for new people to be as specific as you can. Yeah, it can be overwhelming, all the options that are out there. And so if you're new, figure out a price point that you can afford that is reasonable. Figure out what kind of asset for me personally, single family, small, multi. I'm like whatever, whatever the numbers work on.
Henry Washington
Yeah.
Dave Meyer
Trying to figure out what type of condition that you want. Class A, class B, class C, kind of neighborhood. The more specific you can be, the better the decision making. Process is going to be because if you're new, you can do it. But if you're analyzing 100 deals, 200 deals, looking at every deal because your buy box is so wide, it can be really overwhelming. And so trying to just be like, this is what I'm going to do first. I want to, you know, something that's manageable, a three one that's under this price point. It's got an attached garage. That's my buy box. That's great because you can really hone in and practice your skill set. So I don't disagree that going out and finding a deal makes things better. I do think just for new people, one step you can consider putting before the deal in the buy box is talking to a lender. Because I see so many new people get stuck at this. They're being like, I can't afford it. I'm like, do you know that? Do you actually know that? Because there are 5% down loans, there are VA loans, there are owner occupied loans, there are FHA loans, there are all sorts of things. There are, there are government programs, state and city sponsored programs that help you with your down payment or your closing costs. And if you're feeling stuck, please just go talk to a lender. Like if you feel good about your buy box, go do what Henry said. But if you're feeling stuck, just talk to a lender. Yeah, they're good. It's their job to help you understand what you can afford. And they will give you a number that you could go put into your buy box that, that you could say, I can actually afford this. So it's just one thing. We don't really disagree, but that's something I think you can consider doing first.
Henry Washington
It's interest. Because I think we're trying to solve the same problem for people a different way. Like both of us want you to go take the action. Yeah, right. And you're saying going and talking to a lender will like truly let you know what you can go by and stop guessing at it or making assumptions for people. And what I'm saying is finding a deal will motivate you to go find the money. And so what I'd say to your plan is talk to multiple lenders for sure. Because sometimes a lender will tell you no or tell you they can't do something. And it's based on their limited information about, about the products that they offer. Or their bank. Or their bank.
Dave Meyer
Yeah.
Henry Washington
And there's a million other banks out there that have a million other products to Offer you. And so talk to multiple banks and get a consensus from them and that will truly help you understand what you can and can't go do.
Dave Meyer
I am so guilty of this. I've been interested for the last like six months or so of buying like a multifamily. Not huge, but like 12, 15, 20, something like that. But if you listen to my like other buy box shows where I get into detail about what I'm looking to buy, like, I really like fixed rate debt. I don't like commercial loans. So for a little while I was like, oh, I'm not gonna buy multifamily because I need a commercial. Like, I don't want to. I want an adjustable rate mortgage. And like a couple weeks ago I was like, I haven't even talked to a lender. There are fixed rate commercials. I know there are, but I just like in my own head was just like, oh, I don't want to get a commercial loan. And I was just being lazy and I was it. Now just go call them. I'm like, of course they're fist rate commercial debt. Not that hard to find. I was just being lazy about it. Now by doing that, I'm like, okay, now I can make a buy box because I know what's possible. I know what the rates are going to be. I like, I know what the rate premium is going to be because a fixed, a fixed rate commercial loan is going to be higher than an adjustable rate. So I can bake that into my underwriting. And now I feel better about my buy box.
Henry Washington
And if you follow these steps in the order we're giving them to you, you will learn so much by talking to lenders because you'll be able to sit down and say, these are my goals. This is the strategy I'm looking to employ. And here's the buy box that I'm looking for for deals. And they may have options for you for loan products that are new or we don't even know exist yet, or like you had no clue exist yet. But these especially, like community banks, like, like their job is to help investors in their market figure out how to get deals done with them. And so they may be able to piece together a strategy for you that you didn't know was an option.
Podcast Host/Producer
For sure.
Henry Washington
Absolutely. If you've got all these things lined out for them. All right, so we agree to disagree, but it sounds like we agree essentially on the same thing.
Dave Meyer
Do this in the same week.
Henry Washington
You can do it all. You can get to this. Yeah, you need to talk to lenders, you need to find a deal. All of this will be of benefit to you, especially if you've done the first two steps like we outlined. And so moving on to the fourth step, which is to analyze some deals. And I don't know if you know this about this guy, but he loves analyzing deals.
Dave Meyer
I do it for fun.
Henry Washington
I do too. I'm deal junkie, deal.
Dave Meyer
It's funny though because like, you offer on way more than I do, but like, I'll know I'm not going to offer on them and I'll just run the numbers anyway. But yeah, I think this is, this is where you go from research to action, right? Like this is where you're filtering, you're doing your buy box. You come up with these great ideas. But ultimately, real estate is really, it's just math and execution. And this is the math part where you just say, is this a good deal or not? And I know that sounds intimidating, but it really isn't that hard. It's really doing a little bit of research. The hard part is your assumptions, right? Like that, like, like the math. The formulas are super easy, right? It's, you know, you figure out your cash flow and you divide it by how much money you invested. That's a cash on cash return. Like, that's easy. But your assumptions, like how much rent you can collect, the ARV of a property, what your expenses are going to be, that is hard. I think that's a skill that takes a little bit of time to get good at. I think I've gotten good at it. But how do you, how do you get good at that?
Henry Washington
Well, I'd say for people starting out, you, you've kind of hit the nail on the head. The two things you need to have a handle on are after repair value.
Dave Meyer
Which is just what you can sell.
Henry Washington
Which means you've renovated it, which means once it's fixed up, what will that property trade for? You have to understand what that number is for your assets. But for a new person, that can be very intimidating because the access to the data that you need to accurately get this information is behind the door that only real estate agents have the key for.
Dave Meyer
And comping is kind of an art.
Henry Washington
And comp. Yeah. And comping without access to that information can be extremely challenging and overwhelming. So it is a skill that you have to learn. We don't have time to you exactly how to go do all that here, but so typically when you're new, the best way to get that information is to partner up with a real estate agent who can help you run that analysis. So understanding ARVs, that's the most important data point you need to get a grasp on when you're going to be investing. The second data point that's important and hard for new investors is renovation budgets.
Dave Meyer
Yeah.
Henry Washington
Not everybody who is investing in real estate has a construction background. I know I did. I still struggle and this was extremely overwhelming for me. When learning to run the numbers there. There are several things that you can do to get familiar with it, but it's just something that's gonna take time and experience.
Dave Meyer
I. I think that I'm not good at construction. I've done plenty of it, but some people have a feel for it. They're like, oh, you know, like, I know how much this is gonna cost. Like, yeah, exactly. It's like, oh, this, you know, like James Standard, our friend, you probably.
Henry Washington
I do it all the time.
Dave Meyer
You have a good feel for it.
Podcast Host/Producer
I do not.
Dave Meyer
Yeah. But I think the best thing I've learned is just to ask other investors. That is the number one easiest thing because, yeah, you can go ask a contractor, but there are. They're building in profit and they're going to try. And not all of them, but many of them are just trying to maximize their own profit. I think talking to another investor, like, if I go to another market, I'm like, what does a bathroom cost you? You know, like, what does a kitchen cost you? That is the most valuable thing that you can do to get those assumptions right. Because like Henry said, ARV expenses, those are tough. Rent, you can usually figure. I don't think rent estimates are that hard, but if you can nail those two things, yeah, it's really going to help you a lot in your deal analysis. And that's just like why you have a community, right? Like, that's why you have bigger pockets. That's why you go on and talk to people and be peak on whatever it is. Like, these are the relationships that really help you get around these assumptions because they'll know they've done it.
Henry Washington
And I think one pro tip to doing just that is talking to other investors and learning about renovation budgets is ask other seasoned investors if they'll send you bids from contractors that they didn't hire. Because you'll learn a ton by reading a bid for a project renovation. You'll learn about what it costs to paint a house of a certain square footage. You'll learn about what it costs to lay flooring in certain rooms of certain types. You'll learn about scope of work like, what people are doing, reading your scope of works, like, just having access to those is data. And you can start to build your own spreadsheet based on a cost per square foot model just by looking at other people's bids.
Dave Meyer
Yeah. I mean, yesterday, Henry and I were. Were tooling around Seattle. We went and someone. We were talking to this guy, he was like, you want me to send you my spec sheet? We were like, yeah.
Henry Washington
Yes. Great.
Dave Meyer
So now we can see what he's paying for cabinets, for tile, and for all these different things. And that just helps you orient yourself. And I think that's really the hard part of deal analysis is people hear this word analysis, and they think it's like math, and you're like, you know, goodwill hunting up on the board. It's like, you just go to bigger pockets. Just put in the calculator. That part is easy. Like, just go use the calculator.
Henry Washington
You have to know what to plug in.
Dave Meyer
Yeah, you need to know to plug in. That's the hard part part. The other hard part, I think, is knowing what's a good deal, because once it spits out a number, is that good or not? Like, I think that's another sticking point for a lot of people. It's like, you see, like, let me just throw out a number for you. You see 5% cash on cash return. What do you think? For a rental property?
Henry Washington
Not a good deal.
Dave Meyer
Not a good deal.
Henry Washington
Yeah.
Dave Meyer
I'd probably take 5%. Yeah, right. In the right market, in the right.
Henry Washington
Market, in the right situation, I would do it.
Dave Meyer
Yeah, exactly. So I think that's what people struggle with when they're new is like, is this a good deal? So. So what do you have, like, some benchmark returns that you use either for flips or rental properties?
Henry Washington
Yeah, so for flips, I try to keep it super simple. I've talked about this before. I want to net make what I spend on a renovation. That lets me know that my risk and reward is in line. Right. So I don't want to do a $200,000 renovation and make a $30,000 profit. That's way too much risk and not enough reward. That's a quick and dirty way for me to know if what I'm paying for the property is worth the effort that I'm putting into it. From a flip perspective, on the rental perspective, I still use to this day, the bigger pockets calculator. And what I'm trying to get to on my rental properties is I want them to cash flow positive or break even, depending on the neighborhood that they're in. So I'm okay buying a break even property if it's in an up and coming area. I'm going to get the appreciation, debt, pay down tax benefits, but I'm in a different place. I think. But for most people, like if you can get somewhere between 7 and 10% cash on cash return for a rental property, you're probably doing very well.
Dave Meyer
Yeah, that's, that's good. In this, in today's market, I agree with you. I will take anything down to even like a 3% cash on cash return if it's in a great neighborhood that I know it's going to be growing again. My strategy, long term, I'm not thinking like this is why your goals are so important.
Henry Washington
Because if your money later.
Dave Meyer
Yeah, exactly. If my goal was I want to retire in five years, I would be only doing 10, 12% cash on cash return deals. No problem. Yeah, I'm like, hey, if I'm buying a property that's in great shape in a great location, the cash flow is probably not going to be amazing this year. But it's still going to be great.
Podcast Host/Producer
Shape from 10 years.
Dave Meyer
Like it's going to be in a good property location, still good. The condition of the home is still good and rents have gone up and my debt is fixed, then I'm getting my cash flow. So I'm willing to do that. My the way the number I use is, I want my total return. So I add up my cash on cash return, my appreciation, my amortization, my tax benefits and any value add I do. And I want that to be a 15% annualized return. That's a little less than double what the stock market averages. And to me that's worth my time because I don't put as much time into real estate investing as you do. But I still spend 20 hours a month on my real estate portfolio. That's more than stock investing. I want to get paid for that. That's an incredible return at 15%. Just so everyone knows, there's a little rule of thumb here. Your money will double every five years.
Henry Washington
For those of you who are still around in this episode, that was your reward for it. That's a phenomenal calculation to be able to run that most anybody can use and do immediately. So congratulations for sticking around. Thanks. That's why he is the co host of the Bigger Pockets podcast.
Dave Meyer
Yes, it's true. But if you think about this for a minute, Michael's 15 years, 15%, your money doubles in five years. Then it doubles again, so you're at 4x, and then it doubles again, so you're @8x. So by doing 15%, which is very achievable. This is not crazy numbers. These are deals that I can do without worrying. I can do this.
Henry Washington
Things you can find on the market.
Dave Meyer
Things on the market. I can 8x my money in the next 15 years. Think about that. And it's an unbelievable value proposition. And so that's how I think about it. And the 3% cash on cash return, Honestly, it's not because the cash, it's like that just gives me the cushion. I'm very conservative my expenses, but it gives me even a little more cushion to make sure that I have a bad year. I can pay for these kinds of things without coming out of pocket.
Henry Washington
I think that's the thing people need to understand when we're talking about net returns is both you and I underwrite extremely conservatively. Extremely. The scenario in which that my properties perform like I underwrite them is probably pretty low. They probably all perform better than I underwrite them.
Dave Meyer
Oh, all of mine do.
Henry Washington
But that's my, my goal, why I do that.
Dave Meyer
That's 100%.
Henry Washington
Yeah.
Dave Meyer
I, I, someone sent me a deal. I was showing you this the other day in Detroit. They did this. The, the agent sent me really good rent comps, all these things. I was like, it's going to be 2400. I'm underwriting. I'm like 2100. You know, like I just immediately discount all of it.
Henry Washington
Yes.
Dave Meyer
Not because they're wrong, but because I want to see the worst case scenario.
Henry Washington
Worst case?
Dave Meyer
Yeah, I want to see the worst case scenario. And then it works. I'm like, great.
Henry Washington
Yes. All upside, 100%.
Dave Meyer
Yeah. All right, so now we've given you some benchmarks and some rules of thumb about how to identify what's a good deal. But then you gotta go, you gotta go get it. This is your, this is your territory. So I'm gonna turn this over to you, but we gotta take a quick break. We'll be right back.
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Dave Meyer
Welcome Back to the BiggerPockets podcast. Henry and I are sharing our seven steps to getting from where you are today to buying a rental property. We've gone through our first four which first was setting your goals. Second was strategy slash market. That was a little kind of a hybrid.
Podcast Host/Producer
Third was lenders and deals.
Dave Meyer
Another hybrid, but go out and figure out what you can actually accomplish. Fourth was analyze. Fifth, making offers. I feel like this is an underrated part of real estate investing and in the market Today it is more important than ever. So absolutely, take us to school.
Henry Washington
I feel like this is where people are falling short right now because it's not that people don't have enough leads for deals, it's that people aren't making enough offers on the leads that they have. And I think this all like, I think this all boils down to psychology. I think people are just scared of rejection and so they don't make enough offers 100%. And because we know as investors that our offer, especially if you're making offers on, on market deals, that the offer that we need to make for the deal to pencil, based on the analysis that we just talked about how you need to run, we know that that offer is going to be substantially less than what people are asking for. They're going to be disappointed. And so we make again, we make decisions for other people. We go, ah, I'm not going to offer on this deal. They want 300,000, I can only offer them 125. So we go, there's no way they're going to take that and we don't offer. And what we have to do is get our personal feelings out of the equation and we have to learn how to make uncomfortable offers. Or as I like to put it, we have to learn how to make disrespectful offers. Respectfully, there's a way to make your offer on your property in a way that shouldn't put somebody else off. Now we can't control how somebody else reacts to our offer offer, but we can do it in a way where it makes sense. So like I made 12 offers on on market deals last week. Here's how we did it. We did verbal offers and the verbal was just a text message and we created a text message script that was kind. And my agent sent this to the agents listing the properties and it said, hey, I have an investor client. He would like to make an offer on 123 Main Street. It is going to be lower than what you're expecting, but what we can offer you is we can close it in seven to 14 days. He won't ask your client to fix a single thing. We'll take it in as is condition and we will make this a very seamless and easy process for you. And then we say what the number is going to be. Out of those 12 people, two of them replied with counteroffers and one of them said, hey, my client actually owes XYZ on this property so we couldn't take that offer. Could they come up to This I couldn't. So we said, no, thank you. The other one was listed for 200. We offered 125. They came back and at 150, I said, let me go see it. I ended up offering 135. And they took it. Right. Like all from just sending a text message or a verbal offer. And most people would have said, they're listed at 200. They're not going to take your $125,000 offer. That's not for me to decide. We just figured out a way to do it respectfully. I think we just have to get comfortable being a little uncomfortable. Absolutely. And so if you're new, it's a conversation between you and your agent about what's a way that we can do this. That makes sense. Right? That worked for my agent. My agent, look, I don't want to write up all those offers to them, just get rejected. That's a lot of my time. I said, that's fair. So what's a way that we could do it that would take less time? And that's how we ended up with the text message or we'll offer.
Dave Meyer
Yeah. I think it just goes back to what we always talk about, just having real estate being mutually beneficial. I think some people might say, hey, you're. You're offering them less, like you're trying to screw them over. But I. I don't see it at all that way. When someone lists something on the market, they say, here's what works for me.
Henry Washington
Me. Yeah.
Dave Meyer
And by you reacting to that, you're saying, that doesn't work for me. Here's what would work for me. Does that still work for you? And they have the option to say yes or no. That's the whole point of a market, is for people to have these conversations. And so not on every deal, but on some deals, there's going to be a number that works for both of you. And that's what you're searching for. Right. There are. Sometimes they're going to say, no, that's fine, that's okay. There's. Sometimes they're going to say yes, and that's even better because apparently you have solved. You have met their conditions. I think I told you the other day I was working on one of my first flips. I took an under asking offer, still hit my target, you know, like, still buy for me. So it's just up to you to have that conversation and to initiate it.
Henry Washington
It's the seller's decision whether they're willing to take that offer. Or not. And when you're making offers on the market, the only way to figure out if a seller is willing to take less is to offer less. Like that's because there's intermediaries in between you and the seller. It's not like where you're making offers off market, where you have more information and you can do that. And if you're making offers off market, you still have to be able to do the same thing. You have to be able to make an offer to people at what may be lower than they're expecting. I do this all the time, but I do it very respectfully in off market deals and I have a whole framework for doing that, which we can go into in another episode. But the point I'm trying to make make with this step of making offers is you've got to get comfortable with a little uncomfortability and figure out a way to make the offer that makes sense to you and not be so concerned with how it might be interpreted by the person receiving the offer. Because at the end of the day they don't have to sell you anything. It's a business decision, it's up to them, you're not taking advantage of them. And the same people mad about you making lower offers than what people are asking on the market are the same people that are like low balling people on Facebook marketplace for stuff. So like it doesn't matter. No one's saying the same.
Dave Meyer
Exactly.
Henry Washington
You're willing to do it in other areas, you can do it here.
Dave Meyer
You can.
Henry Washington
All right, so we've got the goals, we've got the strategy, we've got the market, we've got the money, we've looked for the deal, we've analyzed it and now we've made an offer. What the heck do you do next?
Dave Meyer
Sign the piece of paper, Chris. Close. Sign a piece of paper, right? I mean, no, you gotta close, close. I'm not going to get into that here. It's pretty easy. They're going to assign someone, an escrow agent who's going to figure this out for you. You're going to figure out how to close. That's not bad. But then I think your first like 90 days are pretty important as a real estate investor. Like how are you going to maximize and execute your business plan? I think that's really what you need to focus on next. Because when you go out and buy your deal, when you create your buy box, you should have a plan like you don't just buy and then you're like, what Next. Now, right, if you're going to be a short term rental, you got to jump into furnishing that thing right away. You have to figure out your management strategy. You need to put your, your property in place. You're going to do a brrrr. Hopefully during the closing period you were already getting bids, you were figuring out your scope of work. Now it's time for you to go execute. I think this is a time where you don't think about your next deal at all. At least in the beginning, right?
Henry Washington
Yeah.
Dave Meyer
You do not think about your next deal. Don't think about your taxes, don't think about, I mean honestly, really this is bad advice. But like I wouldn't even think about like doing, you know, setting up the perfect systems. I would just say like go and do the most important thing you could possibly do. If you're doing a renovation. Nail the renovation.
Henry Washington
Yes.
Dave Meyer
If you need to. If you have a stabilized property, screen your tenants well and find a great tenant who's going to be happy in your home. Yes, go do that. Figure out the number one most important thing and do it the second you sign that piece of paper.
Henry Washington
Absolutely. I, I, I couldn't agree more. Execution and timing is everything thing when you are operating a real estate business. Because literal time is money. Because if it's a rental property, the longer it's not rented, the more it's costing you. If it's a flip, the longer you're holding it, the more it's costing you. So you do, you have to figure out what is the immediate next step that I need to do and you've got to go execute against that step. I would say the thing that I would encourage you to do is to document as much as possible about what you are executing when you're getting started. I wish I had done the same.
Dave Meyer
Thing because then I just made it up again the next.
Henry Washington
Because you end up repeating things that are, that are not beneficial to you. We're all going to end up wasting a lot of time doing things that aren't that important in your first deal you're going to do things that you hate doing that you're going to wish you had documented. So you have a process for bringing in somebody else to do it next time. Just. You know how many times I waited until closing day to get insurance on a property and like struck like because.
Dave Meyer
I just, I always forget to ask for the utilities. Yes, that's right, I always forget.
Henry Washington
So if you write these things down the next time you're doing a deal you'll be able to be a little more proactive and save yourself a lot of time and effort. Like, just learn from our mistakes. Just literally every step you do, write it down. And then that way you at least have an order of all the things that you did, and you can start to eliminate some of those steps or pre plan some of those steps.
Dave Meyer
Totally. Yeah. I think execute's the right word. I think the other way, this word gets used in different contexts in real estate, but it's just like, stabilize. Get in there, there and, like, own it. Right. Like, you. You have your bills set up, you have your tenants in place. Like, that's what you need to focus on. I feel like when you arrive in a new place on vacation, you, like, go get your bearings, figure out where you're gonna sleep, you put your bag down, you kind of, like, own the whole. You know, like, you feel comfortable. Then you can start making decisions. I feel like that's kind of what you need to do in those first 90 days. It's just like, get your bearings, check everything out, make sure you feel comfortable. Then you can go into the optimization. Then you can start doing sort of like the asset management piece of it. But you gotta just get in there and take control, essentially.
Henry Washington
And also I would be figuring out who's gonna be on your team for the long term, because you're gonna start executing, and that's not all gonna be you. You're gonna have contractors, you're gonna have subcontractors, you're gonna have property managers. There's all these people you're gonna have to engage with, with, like, keep track of who you like working with and who you don't like working with. Because honing that team in is going to help you be more efficient as you're going forward as well. These are all things that I probably should have did a better job of when I first got started. Because all we're trying to do when you get that first deal done is exactly what we're saying, like, keep your head above water.
Dave Meyer
Yeah.
Henry Washington
So just take some time and document this process and document who you're working with and whether you enjoyed working with them or not. Not because it's going to, like, your team is everything as you continue to execute going forward. And the best operators I know have great contractor and business relationships who now basically do all these steps for them without them having to spend a lot of time operating these deals.
Dave Meyer
All right, let's move on to step number seven, which is after you've executed, stabilized, gotten that Property, you figure out what's next, right?
Henry Washington
Absolutely.
Dave Meyer
I feel like that's kind of like, like you take stock of what you did. Right.
Henry Washington
This is where all those notes we just told you to take come in handy because you're gonna wanna go do more deals. Right. That's probably gonna be in your goals that you've set up in the beginning, but now you've got some experience and now you've learned something. And what you may have learned could be that you need to relook at your goals. You may have hated what you just did.
Dave Meyer
Yes.
Henry Washington
Right. Like my goals for when I first got started were, were far and away different than what they ended up being after I got a few deals under my belt. You're just gonna learn a lot about what you planned on executing and what you actually executed against. And you're either gonna get better and more efficient at the thing you currently executed against or it is okay to go back to your goals and say, nope, it's not this. It's the. I have to try something different. This is not. It didn't turn out like I wanted it to turn out. I didn't enjoy it at all. Right. That is okay. Re evaluate your goals and then decide, do I continue to execute on what I just did and do it better or do I need to start some. Start, start fresh. And that's okay.
Dave Meyer
Yeah. I think whether it's your goals, your strategy, your market that changes, it's okay. But figure that at the end. I don't think you should be tinkering it. Like for me, I did a short term rental. I didn't really like it, to be honest. I'm okay. I would do it again, but it's not like, oh, I'm going to go out and do a lot of those. I do strategies right now I literally never heard of. When I started investing, I didn't even know it was a think. You add that in once you sort of take stock. You know, I blend. I never thought I would do something like that. I never thought I had the capacity to do something like that. So I think it's just really important to say, like, here's what you're good at, here's what you like. For me, I like rental properties. I don't mind property management. I like interacting with people. I'm totally fine with that. But I don't like doing off market deal finding. It's not something I like doing, so I'm not going to do it right. And so I'll build my portfolio. I'll go into my next one. Think about that. You're probably the opposite. You love off market deal finding, but there's probably something I do that you hate. So it's just. That's what you got to do.
Henry Washington
Well, I'm doing this entire process right now, but with new construction, I'm building my first ground up new construction. And so I am literally documenting the entire process because if I decide this is something I want to grow and scale and do I want to get better at it, especially this pre construction phase, which has been a nightmare for me. And so I need to learn how to become more efficient at that if I want to get better. But at the end when I'm done, I'm going to take a look back and say, all right, all right. Do we truly want to do more of these? Was it fun? Was it profitable? Was it worth all the time and the, and the, and the effort? These are questions. These questions I don't have answers to yet. But as part of this exercise, it's exactly what I'm going to do when I'm done.
Dave Meyer
All right, seven steps.
Henry Washington
Seven steps.
Dave Meyer
Let's see if I can remember that. What do we got? We got goals. Then we had strategy, slash market, Then we had deals, sl talking to a lender, analysis, offers, execution, and then evaluation. Evaluation. That's all it is. I mean, it is a lot of work.
Podcast Host/Producer
It's work.
Dave Meyer
You got to go out and do something you're not going to. No one's going to hand this to you. You got to go absolutely and do it. But these are steps that everyone can follow. That's what I follow in every single deal. It's not like it really even changes. You still just do the same thing. Even if you've done one of these or you've done a hundred of these.
Henry Washington
Yeah. And it starts to just work on autopilot. As you build more systems and a team and have more processes, it gets easier. I know that sounds overwhelming when you first get started, but a lot of this stuff we do in our sleep. I mean, I, I analyze deals for fun. Like I said, I made 12 offers last week.
Dave Meyer
That's awesome.
Henry Washington
Yeah, it's. All of this gets better the more experience that you have. But I think this framework is absolutely a framework that you can follow and land a deal. Well, thank you so much for joining us on the BiggerPockets podcast. I hope that these steps and this framework is valuable to you. This is truly the things that Dave and I are doing every day in our portfolio. As always, leave us your questions down below or let us know you what what framework you follow when you are doing deals in your market. We would love to learn more about that. Thank you so much for watching. We'll see you on the next episode.
Dave Meyer
Go set your goals.
Podcast Host/Producer
Thank you all for listening to the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K. Copywriting is by Calico, Content and editing is by Exodus Media Media.
Dave Meyer
If you'd like to learn more about.
Podcast Host/Producer
Real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.biggerpockets.com. the content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk, so use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing. You should only risk capital you can afford to lose. And remember, past performance is not indicative of future results. BiggerPockets LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.
BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast
Episode: How to Buy Your First Rental Property in 2026 (Step-by-Step)
Hosts: Henry Washington & Dave Meyer
Release Date: January 14, 2026
In this episode, hosts Henry Washington and Dave Meyer break down a practical, step-by-step framework to help aspiring investors buy their first rental property in 2026. Drawing directly from their own diverse investment experiences, Henry and Dave guide listeners through the seven concrete steps—goal setting, strategy, market selection, financing, deal analysis, making offers, executing the business plan, and evaluating to improve for next time. Their advice balances actionable tactics with the bigger-picture mindset shifts required to build long-term wealth in real estate.
Building Wealth and Security:
Henry emphasizes rental property investing as an accessible wealth-building tool for everyday people—not just seasoned pros or those with large portfolios.
"Rental property investing is the average person's way to build wealth. Whether you want to make $50,000 a year or $500,000 a year, you can do this." – Henry Washington (00:39)
Control & Independence:
Dave points out that relying solely on jobs, employers, or government for financial security is a thing of the past, and using real estate entrepreneurship puts your future in your own hands.
"A lot of it's gotten harder...how do I do something entrepreneurial? So that I can take some control over my own financial future." – Dave Meyer (02:18)
Achievability:
Even as the market evolves, real estate can still provide financial independence in under a decade if approached methodically.
"If you just dedicate yourself to learning this craft, you can do it in under a decade." – Dave Meyer (03:50)
Notable Quote:
"How much money are you trying to make and in what timeframe? Because your goals are going to dictate the strategy that you use." – Henry Washington (06:15)
Memorable Moment:
When asked the best market, Henry replies: "I have no idea for you...I don't know what you want to do, what your goals are. That's truly the way you should be looking at picking markets." – Henry Washington (12:49)
"I recommend for new people to be as specific as you can...trying to just be like, this is what I'm going to do first." – Dave Meyer (19:02)
"Please just go talk to a lender...they will give you a number that you could go put into your buy box." – Dave Meyer (19:23) "Talk to multiple banks and get a consensus from them and that will truly help you understand what you can and can't go do." – Henry Washington (21:29)
Memorable Quotes:
"Rent, you can usually figure. I don't think rent estimates are that hard, but if you can nail those two things [ARV and renovation], it's really going to help you a lot in your deal analysis." – Dave Meyer (26:26)
"If you can get somewhere between 7 and 10% cash on cash return for a rental property, you're probably doing very well." – Henry Washington (29:53)
"At 15%, your money will double every five years...I can 8x my money in the next 15 years." – Dave Meyer (31:16)
"I think people are just scared of rejection and so they don't make enough offers...We have to learn how to make uncomfortable offers. Or as I like to put it, we have to learn how to make disrespectful offers. Respectfully." – Henry Washington (36:21) "It's the seller's decision whether they're willing to take that offer or not…at the end of the day they don't have to sell you anything. It's a business decision." – Henry Washington (41:20)
"When you are operating a real estate business…literal time is money. Because if it's a rental property, the longer it's not rented, the more it's costing you." – Henry Washington (43:00) "Execution and timing is everything...I would encourage you to document as much as possible about what you are executing when you're getting started." – Henry Washington (43:35)
"You're either gonna get better and more efficient at the thing you currently executed against or it is okay to go back to your goals and say, nope, it's not this...I have to try something different. And that's okay." – Henry Washington (46:44)
On Achievability:
"Buying on market average deals, if you just dedicate yourself to learning this craft, you can do it in under a decade." – Dave Meyer (03:50)
On Goals:
"How much money are you trying to make and in what timeframe? Because your goals are going to dictate the strategy that you use." – Henry Washington (06:15)
On Market Selection:
"I have no idea [what's the best market] for you...I don't know what you want to do, what your goals are." – Henry Washington (12:49)
On Offers:
"We have to learn how to make uncomfortable offers. Or as I like to put it, we have to learn how to make disrespectful offers. Respectfully." – Henry Washington (36:21)
On Execution:
"Execution and timing is everything when you are operating a real estate business. Because literal time is money." – Henry Washington (43:00)
Henry and Dave's seven-step framework is both approachable and flexible—grounded in real investor experience, candor about hard lessons learned, and the empowering belief that anyone can achieve financial freedom through real estate with the right roadmap. Consistent action, clear goals, and a willingness to learn from mistakes are their ingredients for success.
"This is truly the things Dave and I are doing every day in our portfolio...these are steps that everyone can follow." – Henry Washington (49:34)
For a deeper dive into each step and more insightful stories, listen to the complete episode on BiggerPockets or any major podcast platform.
[End of Summary]