How to Find Profitable Rentals in 2025 (Lazy + Expert Methods)

Summary

BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast Summary

Episode: How to Find Profitable Rentals in 2025 (Lazy + Expert Methods)
Release Date: August 13, 2025
Hosts: Dave Meyer & Henry Washington

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Introduction

In this episode of the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast, host Dave Meyer teams up with Henry Washington to delve into effective strategies for locating profitable rental properties in 2025. The duo addresses real-world questions from their community, offering both expert and more relaxed ("lazy") methods to help investors navigate the evolving real estate landscape.

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Finding Off-Market Deals: Direct Mail Strategy

Timestamp: 01:02 – 08:19

Question from Bobby (Philadelphia):
Bobby, a budding investor, is struggling to find a small multifamily property for house hacking through traditional platforms like Zillow, Crexi, and Realtor.com. He seeks alternative sources for off-market properties.

Henry Washington's Expert Approach:
Henry advocates for a direct mail strategy as a highly effective method to uncover off-market deals. Here's a breakdown of his approach:

1. Build a Targeted List:

   • Utilize list-building services such as PropStream, ListSource, or DealMachine.
   • Filter properties to focus on small multifamily units, particularly those owned by senior owners or retiring baby boomers.
   • Look for properties with significant equity (80% or more) to facilitate negotiation, especially seller financing.

2. Craft Personalized Letters:

   • Avoid generic offers. Instead, personalize communication by expressing a genuine interest in the property and the owner's experience.
   • Example Quote:

     “Send a more personalized letter. I send a letter that says, 'Hey, I'm Henry. I invest in real estate here in Northwest Arkansas as well. I see you on the house on 123 Main Street. I would love to sit down and have coffee with you and learn from your experience as a landlord over the years.'”
     (05:00)

3. Engage and Build Relationships:

   • Meet tenants in person to establish trust and rapport.
   • If sellers aren’t immediately interested, they might refer other potential sellers within their network.

4. Persistence and Scale:

   • Send out between 1,000 to 3,000 personalized mails.
   • Maintain consistent follow-ups every two to three weeks over a span of three to four months to increase response rates.

Cost Consideration:

• Direct Mail Expenses: Approximately 50 to 75 cents per piece of mail, varying based on the type (postcard vs. letter).

Key Takeaway:
Henry underscores that while this method requires time and investment, it offers a higher success rate compared to traditional listing sites by directly tapping into motivated sellers with substantial equity.

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Raising Rents for Existing Tenants: Creating Win-Win Scenarios

Timestamp: 08:43 – 20:05

Question from Joshua (Los Angeles):
Joshua owns a duplex where one unit is vacant, and the occupied unit's tenants are paying half the market rent under a month-to-month lease. He seeks advice on how to adjust rents to market rates while maintaining a positive relationship with his long-term tenants.

Henry Washington's Compassionate Approach:

1. Evaluate Tenant Quality:

   • Ensure that current tenants are reliable and have a history of timely payments and property care.

2. Transparent Communication:

   • Meet tenants in person to introduce yourself as the new owner.
   • Clearly explain the financial necessities driving the rent increase, such as mortgage payments, taxes, and insurance.

3. Provide Comparative Data:

   • Present market rent comparisons within a one-mile radius to justify the increase.
   • Example Quote:

     “I pull rent comps and I show them, I'm like within a one mile radius, properties of the same level are renting for.”
     (16:30)

4. Collaborative Negotiation:

   • Ask tenants what rent they believe is fair and affordable, fostering a sense of involvement.
   • Propose a phased rent increase over several months to ease the transition.

5. Flexible Solutions:

   • If tenants cannot meet the new rent, discuss alternative arrangements or assist in finding more affordable housing.

Dave Meyer’s Perspective:

Dave highlights the importance of a respectful and relationship-focused approach, emphasizing that treating tenants as valued customers can lead to mutually beneficial outcomes.

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Portfolio Assessment: Knowing When to Hold or Sell

Timestamp: 20:15 – 27:58

Question from Renee:
Renee observes that some local investors are reassessing their portfolios amidst current market conditions. She inquires about the criteria used to decide which properties to retain or sell, considering factors like cash flow, tenant turnover, maintenance issues, or intuition.

Henry Washington’s Strategic Evaluation Process:

1. Regular Portfolio Reviews:

   • Conduct quarterly assessments of each property's Performance and Loss (P&L) statements.
   • Determine if properties are meeting their underwritten performance expectations.

2. Decision-Making Framework:

   • For Underperforming Properties:
     • Assess potential improvements (e.g., kitchen upgrades, adding bedrooms) and associated costs.
     • Evaluate whether investing capital to enhance performance is more beneficial than reallocating funds elsewhere.
     • Example Scenario:

       Henry discusses converting a duplex unit to a midterm rental, increasing monthly rent from $1,200 to $2,200 by furnishing it, thus optimizing returns without additional capital expenditure for property improvements.

3. Alternative Investment Opportunities:

   • Consider diverting funds from underperforming assets to higher-yield investments, such as midterm rentals, private money lending, or real estate syndications.

4. Return on Equity (ROE):

   • Use ROE as a key metric to measure how effectively each property generates cash flow.
   • Compare ROE against other investment vehicles to determine the best utilization of capital.

5. Framework for Selling or Holding:

   • Decide to sell if another investment offers superior time and risk-adjusted returns.
   • Hold onto properties that continue to perform well or have strong potential after strategic adjustments.

Example Quote from Henry:

“Every investor should be analyzing their portfolio, preferably on a quarterly basis...you have to make sure that your accounting is set up properly so that you can look at each property's performance, look at each property's P and L, and then you can make a determination.”
(21:16)

Dave Meyer’s Insights:

Dave echoes the importance of portfolio monitoring and introduces the concept of return on equity, encouraging investors to continuously assess and optimize their asset allocation based on performance data and alternative opportunities.

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Optimizing Passive Income: Effective Use of Capital

Timestamp: 32:46 – 38:35

Question from Damon:
Damon is in his 50s with $400,000 in cash and seeks advice on generating passive income to secure his financial future.

Henry Washington’s Recommendations:

1. Private Money Lending:

   • Allocate funds to lend directly to experienced real estate operators.
   • Understand the risk by thoroughly underwriting deals and selecting reputable borrowers.
   • Potential Returns: 10-16% annual returns through interest and points on loans.
   • Caution: Emphasize the importance of lending to trustworthy operators to mitigate risks, such as borrower defaults.

2. Real Estate Debt Funds:

   • Invest in debt funds where money is pooled and managed by professionals, offering diversification and reduced individual deal risk.
   • Advantages include truly passive income without the need for personal deal underwriting.

Dave Meyer’s Additional Strategies:

Dave suggests diversifying further by considering:

• Investing in multifamily properties (e.g., a 4-plex) with a portion of the $400,000 to generate consistent cash flow.
• Balancing between active investment (property ownership) and passive investment (lending or funds) based on personal preferences and risk tolerance.

Henry’s Final Advice:

“Put that thing on a 15-year note and then you're free and clear by the time you're ready to chill out.”
(38:27)

Dave and Henry’s Light-Hearted Closing:

They conclude with a humorous exchange, reinforcing their approachable and supportive stance toward helping listeners achieve financial freedom through informed real estate investments.

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Conclusion

This episode provides valuable insights into alternative methods for finding profitable rental properties, effectively managing existing assets, and optimizing capital for passive income. Henry Washington and Dave Meyer emphasize strategic planning, personalized approaches, and continuous portfolio evaluation as key factors for success in real estate investing in 2025.

For more detailed strategies and expert advice, listeners are encouraged to engage with the BiggerPockets community forums and explore upcoming resources such as the BPCON conference.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• “Send a more personalized letter...you will get a much higher response rate.”
  (05:00) – Henry Washington

• “I pull rent comps and I show them...properties of the same level are renting for.”
  (16:30) – Henry Washington

• “Every investor should be analyzing their portfolio, preferably on a quarterly basis.”
  (21:16) – Henry Washington

• “This is your home...this conversation is about us trying to figure out how we can help you stay here in your home.”
  (18:55) – Henry Washington

• “Put that thing on a 15-year note and then you're free and clear by the time you're ready to chill out.”
  (38:27) – Henry Washington

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Resources Mentioned:

• List Building Tools: PropStream, ListSource, DealMachine
• BPCON Conference: biggerpockets.com conference
• BiggerPockets Community Forums: biggerpockets.com forums

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This summary aims to encapsulate the core discussions and insights from the episode, providing actionable strategies for both novice and seasoned real estate investors.

Transcript

[Dave Meyer]

This is how you find an investment property in 2025.

[Henry Washington]

Even if Zillow and Redfin aren't working.

[Dave Meyer]

The usual listing sites are not your only options. And some of the alternatives that experienced.

[Henry Washington]

Investors use might actually be easier and.

[Dave Meyer]

Cheaper than you think.

[Henry Washington]

So today we're sharing where else you can find deals right now.

[Dave Meyer]

Hey, everyone. I'm Dave Meyer, head of real estate investing at BiggerPockets.

[Henry Washington]

And and today on the show, I'm.

[Dave Meyer]

Joined by my friend Henry Washington. What's up, man? How you doing?

[Henry Washington]

What's up, Dave? How are you, buddy? Good to be here.

[Dave Meyer]

Today we're doing one of my favorite formats. We're going to be answering a few questions from real investors on the BiggerPockets forums.

[Henry Washington]

And first up, we have a question.

[Dave Meyer]

That is just tailor made for you. We have a new investor who wants to find off market deals. Then we'll also cover how to raise rents for inherited tenants when it's time to offload a property.

[Henry Washington]

And. And a couple other great questions you.

[Dave Meyer]

Definitely want to stick around for.

[Henry Washington]

Henry, you ready?

Let's do it.

All right.

[Dave Meyer]

Our first question comes from Bobby from Philadelphia. He asked. I've been attempting to find a small multifamily two house hack as my first investment property. Since the beginning of the year, I've been using public listings like Zillow, Crexi and realtor.com without much luck. So I'm looking for sources for off market properties. I know patience is a big factor.

[Henry Washington]

But any guidance here would be greatly appreciated.

[Dave Meyer]

Henry, this one has your name all over it. I'm just gonna sit back and let you cook, so go for it.

[Henry Washington]

Yes, I love this question because a, we all know we love talking about house hacking here and it's such a phenomenal strategy. But I have got the perfect solution for people who are in this boat. If you would like to find a small multifamily, especially to house hack, I would use direct mail as an approach. You could try cold calling, but I would use direct mail, but I would use a very targeted list. Really what we're building a list of is proper owners to market to. So what you want to do is go to a list building website. There's propstream, there's listsource, there's dealmachine. All of these sites you can build a list of property owners. There should be a filter where you can select the types of properties you're looking for. You want to make sure that you have selected multifamily and all of the small multifamily Selections. Sometimes you have to dive deep into that list because they're buried in there. But you want to make sure you select all of the appropriate property types. And I would specifically look for senior owners. And what you're trying to take advantage of with this list is your retiring baby boomers. A lot of people right now are talking about the silver tsunami as it comes to baby boomers selling their businesses. But you've also got baby boomers that are retiring who are looking to get rid of their real estate portfolios. And a lot of these property owners own small multifamily properties. Right. And I would filter for equity of at least 10, 80% or more because a lot of these are going to be paid off or pretty close to paid off.

[Dave Meyer]

80%, wow.

[Henry Washington]

Yes.

[Dave Meyer]

Why, why that high? I mean, is it just they're going to get a big check so they'll probably be motivated.

[Henry Washington]

Why that high? Because the one thing that people don't like right now are interest rates. And if you filter for a list and you get properties that are majority paid off, you're able to negotiate seller financing. Because a lot of these are retiring landlords and they're getting rid of the property because they don't want to deal with the headache of property. But they obviously like the idea of cash flow because they've been investing in real estate for ages. And so it's a great list of people where you can pitch owner financing to say, hey, I would love to buy this property. And if you want to keep getting rents, you can continue to do that. I'll just make my payments to you and then you'll get money every month regardless.

[Dave Meyer]

So you're doing, you're doing like a double strategy. You're doing an off market deal and you want to negotiate seller financing.

[Henry Washington]

Absolutely. Why not get the best terms you can get? When you're looking at this list for me, I like the ones who are almost paid off because they like to continue to get cash flow. And you want to also make sure that they've owned the property for at least 10 years. So what you're banking on is that these people have owned the property for a long time and they're looking to get out of it, looking to get out of the business. And it can help you snag some of these deals. But don't just send a letter that says, hey, I'm Henry, I'd like to buy your house on 123 Main Street. What's one thing that boomers love to do, Dave?

[Dave Meyer]

Well, if it's My parents tell really boring stories.

[Henry Washington]

Absolutely. Boomers love to talk. They will tell you all the things about life. They genuinely want to tell you stories and help you. And so don't just send a letter that says, I want to buy Your house at 123 Main St. Send a more personalized letter. I send a letter that says, hey, I'm Henry. I invest in real estate here in Northwest Arkansas as well. I see you on the house on 123 Main Street. I would love to sit down and have coffee with you and learn from your experience as a landlord over the years. I'm trying to become a better landlord and I think that you might be able to help me. And you will get a much higher response rate from that letter than you would saying, hey, I want to buy your house. Here's a cash offer.

[Dave Meyer]

This is a house hack too. So like you are living there like as an investment. I don't know what this person's long term strategy is, but yeah, you know, some people do want to sell to an owner occupant.

[Henry Washington]

Yeah, absolutely. And you can say, hey, I want to live there, but I will also want to invest there. You can include that in your letter. The more personal you can make it, the better and you'll get a much higher response rate. And then you can go sit down and talk to these people and build a relationship. And let's say that person isn't really interested in selling their property. That's fine. Mom and pop owners know all the other mom and pop owners in town. And so if they're not ready to sell, I bet you they know who is. And you can really start to build relationships with people and potentially get yourself a really good deal. So I love the senior owners who have lots of equity in their property and then I reach out to them and try to build a relationship and sometimes that means I'm going to offer on a property and sometimes it doesn't. But I usually improve my network and worst case scenarios, you get somebody that wants to help you out and share some experience with you.

[Dave Meyer]

I love it. This your response here is such a perfect example of the just dramatically different approach you and I take to real estate. And I am going to share share with all of you my lazy approach to to the answer this question in just a minute. But I want to ask because you're right, this approach will get you a better deal than what I am going to to recommend. So keep that all in mind. But I want to know like realistically, how long is this going to take Someone, how many letters do you need to send out? Like, what time frame can be expected if you're going to take this more.

[Henry Washington]

Hands on approach, which again, I agree.

[Dave Meyer]

Will get you a better deal.

[Henry Washington]

I would say you probably need to send mail for at least 90 days to this list. So sending it to the same list and somebody getting a piece of mail every month, I would actually accelerate it. I'd probably do every two to three weeks to send a piece of mail just to accelerate the touches. And I would say you probably want to send to somewhere between a thousand and three thousand people. If your list has less than that, your likelihood of getting a response where you're going to get a deal goes down pretty dramatically. But I think if you're sending it to between two and four thousand people and they get between three and five to seven pieces of mail from you, it might take you three to four months before you probably have a decent lead on the hook. And then however long it takes for you to close after that. I think again, what's helpful here is you don't need them to have a ton of equity so you can increase the equity to give you more people to reach out to. So you've got more gunpowder. But I do know that that list will give you a pretty good response rate compared to a typical letter that says, hey, I'm an investor, I want to, I want to buy your house for cash. The response does really well with that demographic.

[Dave Meyer]

Okay, how much will this cost?

[Henry Washington]

Yeah, just try to calculate some between 50 and 75 cents per piece of mail. So you can do the math based on how many pieces of mail you want to send and that that number goes up or down depending on what kind of mail you send. If you just send a postcard, it's less. If you send an actual letter, it's more.

[Dave Meyer]

All right, this is a great advice. Super specific too. I love it. Whether you are Bobby asking this question or thinking about similar things, this is a very specific thing. It will take a little bit of time, it will take a little bit of money. But this is a proven method for actually walking into a lot of equity. When you buy a property, we have.

[Henry Washington]

More questions like how to get rents.

[Dave Meyer]

Up to market rate with existing tenants.

[Henry Washington]

And how to get organized so that.

[Dave Meyer]

You can set yourself up for success while you're scaling.

[Henry Washington]

But first, we got to take a quick break.

[Dave Meyer]

We'll be right back.

[Henry Washington]

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[Dave Meyer]

I'm Dave Meyer here with Henry Washington answering your questions from the BiggerPockets forums. I should mention if you have questions, go to the BiggerPockets forums and ask them.

[Henry Washington]

You might get a great answer from our community there. Or we might pick one of your.

[Dave Meyer]

Questions for our next Q and A session here on the podcast.

[Henry Washington]

For our second question here today, it.

[Dave Meyer]

Comes from LA an investor named Joshua.

[Henry Washington]

Who asked I'm looking to buy my first property.

[Dave Meyer]

I found a duplex where the back.

[Henry Washington]

Unit is vacant but the main house is occupied and the current residents are paying half of market rent.

[Dave Meyer]

They've been there 10 years and are on a month to month lease.

[Henry Washington]

My question is how could I make.

[Dave Meyer]

This a win win scenario for both.

[Henry Washington]

Me and current tenants? This property has potential, but with what the current rents are, it just doesn't make sense. This is a great question.

[Dave Meyer]

First of all Joshua, love that you're.

[Henry Washington]

Trying to create a win win situation.

[Dave Meyer]

For both you and your tenants. I think that is a great way.

[Henry Washington]

To approach this question. So Henry, what are your thoughts?

I love this question because we've had to do this several times and the fact that you're even asking it means that your head and your heart are in the right place because a lot of people think we're just evil landlords. We raise the rents immediately and if you can't pay, you can't pay. But that's that's not the case a lot of the time. So A I commend you for doing this the right way. B First thing you want to make sure for people who aren't Joshua is you want to make sure that those tenants are really good tenants. Because if they're not great tenants then this may not be the way to keep them in there. You know if they're going to end up costing you money because they're late on rent or these other things. So you just want to make sure that these tenants are truly good tenants just because They've been there for 10 years, doesn't mean they've been good tenants. And then be transparent and upfront with the tenant. A lot of the times, tenants, when a place changes hands, are going to be scared and apprehensive because they probably have some negative thoughts towards landlords themselves. And so I always just like to go and meet the tenants myself in person, introduce myself, you know, let them know that we now own the property. So an example is I had a house where the lady was paying about $400 a month rent because her rent hadn't been raised in years. And I bought the property and we needed to get closer to 900 was market rent at the time for this property. So, you know, it's more than double her rent, which is really substantial. And so what we did was I told her, hey, I bought the house, we have a mortgage payment of. And I told her, I showed her what our mortgage payment is. I said, so this is a mortgage payment. I've got to be able to afford to make the mortgage payment. Plus, because I now bought the property, taxes are higher and insurance has gone up over the years. And so this is where we are. And then I pull rent comps and I show them, I'm like within a one mile radius, properties of the same level are renting for. And I'll show them the comps so that they see, because if I raise their rent, they're gonna have to go looking anyway. So totally, I show them the comps in the area. I say, so market rent is about $900. And so I want to find a happy medium with that tenant. And so what I'll say is I do need to try to get you closer to that number, but I'm okay if we don't get you all the way to that willing to stay and continue to take care of the place as you've taken care of the place, I'd love for you to stay. And so I'll ask them, based on that information, what price do you think is fair and that you could afford to get to? Right, because I want to hear their opinion and I want them to feel like they had some say in it so it doesn't feel like I'm just the evil landlord who came in and raised their rent. And typically, once you show them all that information, they'll give you a reasonable number. And if they can't give you a reasonable number or they don't give you a reasonable number, there's probably a reason, maybe they're on a fixed income Maybe they truly can't afford to get to where they need to be. And I'm trying to establish that, that understanding with them. Because if it's the point where she says, look, I can only pay 500, I. I can't afford anything more than 500, then we don't need to be having a conversation about how we get you closer to market rents. We need to be having a conversation about how can I help you transition to something that's more affordable in a way that's not going to kill you financially. And so that's a different conversation. And I knew what I would be willing to take. If she was going to be able to get to somewhere around between 775 and 825, I could live with that. I didn't need to get her all the way up to 900, because also if she moved out, then I have to spend more capital making improvements to the property because she's been there for so long. So that delays me having to spend that capital and gets me more money right now. So I was willing to get her to pay less. So she said what she could pay. We ended up right around 775. And then once we established that, I said, great, now what if we can, over the next six months, get you up to that point on a tiered basis so it's not just like punching you right in the stomach right away. You've got this big rent increase. And so we worked out a plan to where every month we raised her rent a little bit until we got to the point to where we needed to be. That made it a much easier pill to swallow for her and helped her get accustomed to that rent over time versus just having her have to change her entire lifestyle in 30 days.

[Dave Meyer]

Absolutely love that approach. I think that's the sort of the. The human way to do it. You have expenses you need to meet. You as a landlord and a business owner have to earn a profit in order for taking the risk that you have by owning and operating property that's part of the business, but you want to do it in a way that respects your tenants and values them appropriately because they are your customers. I love that approach. Can I ask if you do this in person or over the phone?

[Henry Washington]

I do it in person.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah. I think that's sort of a key thing, is like going and sitting down with someone shows that you actually care. And if you do actually care, which you should if you're getting into this business, like, go spend the time, go do it, or if you're, you know, managing from afar, find a property manager who is willing to go do this and spend the time with the residents as well. Because, you know, if you just call someone on the phone or you send them an email, just like, here are the comps. It's a little passive aggressive.

[Henry Washington]

Absolutely.

[Dave Meyer]

Going and actually sitting with someone, I think shows that like you want to build a relationship with them that's going to, to stand the test of time. This is not like some hard nosed corporate negotiation where you're just like, you know, just like sending them facts and figures, you're gonna work with them. And that's really important thing for me.

[Henry Washington]

I never want to use a tone or words that make it sound like this is mine and you have to do what I wanna do. It's always like, this is your home. I would love for you to stay in your home. This conversation isn't about me figuring out where you need to go. This conversation is about us trying to figure out how we can help you stay here in your home. Right. I want to put myself at their level, not above them. We want, we're just two people trying to work out a solution. You know, I want them to take their walls down because I truly do care about them and want them to be okay and be able to stay if they can and want to.

[Dave Meyer]

Absolutely. And yeah, again, respect and appreciate the question here from Joshua asking about how to make it a win win situation because that's really the main thing. Like if you approach it with that mindset, you will figure it out. You know, I've personally never really even had a problem with these kinds of things because you go into it with that mindset. Now on a tactical level, when I underwrite a deal like this and I know there's someone in there, I usually ramp up rents to market rent over like three years and just assume that it's going to take me take a little time to get there. But as a buy and hold investor, I'm okay with that. Like, for me, what matters is like when I need this money 5, 10, 15 years from now because I'm retire off it, whatever, is it going to make sense then? As long as like I'm able to generate positive cash flow. If, you know, 50 bucks a month and taking three years to get that extra 100, 150 bucks to be true, quote, unquote, market rent, yeah, I'm fine with that. That's okay with me. And I recommend people do that because if you don't, as Henry said, then you're going to have turnover costs. You might have a vacancy while you renovate. Like you're going to pay for it one way or another.

[Henry Washington]

Going to pay.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah. So you might as well just like do the thing where you have a great tenant, keep them in there and everyone's happy.

[Henry Washington]

Yep.

[Dave Meyer]

Well, you're solving every question for us here, Henry, so I'm going to keep going and see what you got for question number three, which comes from our Biggerpockets community member named Renee.

[Henry Washington]

She said, I've been noticing that some.

[Dave Meyer]

Local investors are starting to reassess their portfolios, especially with the current market conditions. For those of you who have been holding multiple properties, how do you decide which ones to keep for sell? Is it cash flow, tenant turnover, maintenance issues, or just gut feeling? I got a lot to say about this one, but Henry, how do you approach this?

[Henry Washington]

I love this question. A because I don't think enough people do it or they at least don't talk about the fact that they're doing it.

[Dave Meyer]

I know the whole like, buy real estate, never sell crowd is very loud and I disagree with all of them so much.

[Henry Washington]

Absolutely. And this is the topic I'm hosting a breakout session for at bpcon. So I'll give you a. I'll give you a little bit of the answer here, but if you want to come see and hear the indepth talk about this exact topic, then head over to biggerpockets.com conference and grab your ticket to bpcon where I will be there speaking talking about exactly this.

[Dave Meyer]

Oh, nice. Getting a little sneak preview here. Let's hear it.

[Henry Washington]

Absolutely. Absolutely. So I think every investor should be analyzing their portfolio, preferably on a quarterly basis. If not at least twice a year. But quarterly allows you to be more tactical and pivot faster if you need to. So just set a reminder on your phone for once every four months to sit down and just look at Your P&Ls for your properties and see if they the properties that you purchased are actually performing to how you underwrote them to. And then as you're looking at that, you can make a determination. And typically you're going to do one of three things. Either it's going to be performing well and that's great, or it's going to be underperforming. And then you have to decide, okay, well if it's underperforming, what can I do to make it perform? Typically, it's going to be that you have to need to spend some sort of capital. Do you need to update the kitchen, do you need to add a bedroom? Do you need to put laundry in it? Right. There's tons of things that you. You can evaluate to get there. But what you're trying to figure out is, how do I get this thing to perform to how I underwrote it to perform? And as you're doing that, you take note of how much cash that is so that you have an understanding of, okay, I have property A. Property A is not performing how we underwrote it. And my estimate, it's going to cost me $15,000 to do a, B, and C to get that property to perform at that level. And then you have another choice. And that other choice is, does it make the most sense for me to spend that 15 grand to get the property to the performance level you want? Or based on what your investment style is, is it make more sense for you to take that 15 grand and go purchase another asset or to pour that 15 into another asset where you're getting a better return? You can't make any of these decisions unless you understand what each one of your assets is doing. So you have to be evaluating your portfolio to know. And so I can't just tell you should you keep an asset or sell an asset? What I can tell you is you have to make sure that your accounting is set up properly so that you can look at each property's performance, look at each property's P and L, and then you can make a determination. One example is of what I did in this very similar situation was we had a duplex, and I thought we weren't getting the rent I expected in one of the units. I underwrote it for us to be able to get about 13 to 15 hundred dollars a month rent per side. And we were only getting 12. Every time we would rent it, we'd get somewhere between 11 and 12. And so I said, all right, what can we do? And I was looking at how much it was going to cost me. It was going to cost me about ten grand to make the improvements that hopefully would allow me to get that rent, which isn't a ton. Like, that's a decent amount. But instead, what we decided, because again, we were looking at our entire portfolio. I had another three properties within a mile radius of this one, which we had converted to midterm rentals, and they were killing it. And I said, all right, I could spend the 10 grand and I could go from 1200 bucks a month to 1500 bucks a month, which is an okay return for that ten grand. Or I can spend maybe just a little more than ten grand. Somewhere between ten and fifteen grand. I can furnish this thing. And based on my data, I could get between 2000 and 2500 bucks a month out of this unit as a short term rental. I'm going to have to spend the money anyway. And so based on that data and information, we went ahead and furnished the unit and now, I mean, we just, just last week signed somebody for a six month stay at I think $2,200 a month in that property. So that money was much better spent by putting it to use as a midterm rental. But I wouldn't have known that had I not been evaluating my portfolio and seeing which properties were doing what they were supposed to do, which properties were doing better than we expected and which properties weren't performing at all.

[Dave Meyer]

Yep, absolutely. I love it. That's probably the least common thing people do who are experienced investors. And it really, I think, hurts your long performance. We have tools on biggerpockets. You can check out how to keep track of these things. But if you really want to understand what you should be looking at, to me, the long term thing is something called return on equity. You can Google it, you can check it out. In my book, it's a pretty simple thing. But this is just a measure of how efficiently your portfolio is making cash flow for you. And if you do what Henry is talking about, if you are able to go and just track this across your portfolio, you are going to be able to see which ones work and which ones are not and reallocate money. And I know this might sound difficult to try and track all these things, but what I encourage people to do is just ask yourself this one question over and over again. What else would I do with my money and what else would I do with my time? Because people are constantly saying, should I sell this property? I'm like, well, what would you do with the money? And they're like, I don't know. I'm like, well then I can't answer that question for you because if you're going to sell a property that's making a 6% cash on cash return and you're going to go put it in a savings account. No, you shouldn't do that. If you're going to sell that property and then go private, lend it and make 12% a year, maybe you should go sell that property. So it's not just a matter of evaluating the property at hand, the one that you're talking about. It's about constantly having A pulse on what other options are out there for you. Like Henry's example was he knew that there were midterm rentals that would do better than the current configuration of his property. So he could pivot to that. If you want to do that, you.

[Henry Washington]

Should do that too.

[Dave Meyer]

Or maybe you want to consider lending. Maybe you want to put your money in a syndication.

[Henry Washington]

Heck, you could put in the stock.

[Dave Meyer]

Market or in crypto, whatever it is. Like you just need to really be thinking about I have this resource, right? Let's just say it's 100 grand in equity in a property.

[Henry Washington]

I have this 100 grand.

[Dave Meyer]

The question you need to ask is, is it the best in this property or are there better time adjusted, risk adjusted returns that I can get somewhere else?

[Henry Washington]

And if the answer is yes, then sell the property, go do something else.

[Dave Meyer]

With your time and money. But if the answer is no, just be patient and hold onto your property and wait until something else better emerges.

[Henry Washington]

I couldn't agree more with you. And for those of you who are interested in dialing in this decision making process at bpcon, I will be literally giving away a framework or decision tree on the things you need to think about and when you need to evaluate them in order to make the best decision for your portfolio.

[Dave Meyer]

Well, that's just a great resource if you want to learn directly from Henry, who's literally doing this pretty much every day. You should come to Vegas. You should come to Vegas anyway. But that's just a bonus that you could do at BPCON. If you want to take it, go to biggerpockets.com conference. All right, we got one more super fun question, Henry. It's going to be how you would spend $400,000 in cash if you had it.

[Henry Washington]

I'm super eager to hear your response.

[Dave Meyer]

But we got to take one more quick break. We'll be right back.

[Henry Washington]

Back.

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[Dave Meyer]

All those things.

[Henry Washington]

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[Dave Meyer]

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[Henry Washington]

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[Dave Meyer]

Setting it up is a breeze and.

[Henry Washington]

I'm honestly not very handy.

[Dave Meyer]

And it could be done in just under an hour.

[Henry Washington]

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[Dave Meyer]

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[Henry Washington]

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[Dave Meyer]

Welcome back to the BiggerPockets podcast here with Henry Washington. Now I'm going to ask you the most fun question. Question I think an investor named Damon.

[Henry Washington]

Wrote on the forums.

[Dave Meyer]

What would you do with $400,000 cash? My goal is to create passive income.

[Henry Washington]

Because my wife and I are in.

[Dave Meyer]

Our 50s with no 401k savings. What would you recommend for passive income? Henry, if you just had 400 grand burning a hole in your pocket, you're in your 50s, you got no passive income. What are you doing with it?

[Henry Washington]

This is my favorite thing to do, was just spend somebody else's money.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah, right. No, no, there's no consequences to this. You got 400 grand. Let's just dream. What do you got?

[Henry Washington]

You know, my answer is probably going to be one that people aren't expecting. But I would not tell you to go flip a house. I wouldn't even tell you to go buy a rental property. I definitely wouldn't tell you to go buy an apartment complex because I believe the key word in the sentence was that he wants to create. Create passive income. And unless you're investing in a syndication, ain't nothing passive about being a landlord. Don't believe what anybody else tells you. There is definite activity that you need to do. But with that amount of cash, it gives you some flexibility to be able to be a private money lender.

[Dave Meyer]

You nailed it.

[Henry Washington]

Now you can't lend on 10 deals at once with $400,000, but you can definitely lend on one or two deals with within certain markets. Trust me, as a person who pays private money lenders, I look at the amounts of cash that I've sent to private money lenders and I think I can't wait till that's the business that I am in because they are making phenomenal returns on their money and they didn't have to deal with any of the headaches that I had to deal with. And it was truly passive.

[Dave Meyer]

I got one even better for you.

[Henry Washington]

What's that?

[Dave Meyer]

I do private money lending. I probably of maybe 10% of my net worth in private money lending and I've bought individual notes. But you want really passive be in a debt fund instead of underwriting individual deals. If you underwrite individual hard money loans, you could probably get 15, 16% of your money. It's fantastic because you're probably getting an interest rate of 12%, but you charge points. Maybe you could do it twice a year. So you're getting the points twice a year, which is amazing. And so you're making 50, $60,000 off that four or $100,000 a year. That's incredible. I mean that could, that's retirement for a lot of people. You know that and Social Security. You're probably getting over 100 grand in income a year. Now private money lending is taxable, so you do. That's taxed at ordinary income. So that's something you need to do. But if you want to earn 10 or 11%, you can put it in a fund where it's kind of like a syndication. But people pool their money together to lend money out to other real estate investors. You can get 10, 11% and then you're really doing nothing. Because to earn that 15, 16%, you need to be able to underwrite deals. If you're going to underwrite and lend to a flipper like Henry individually, you got to understand his business. You have to be able to assess not only his risk as an operator, but you have to be able to assess every deal that he's doing, which is a skill that people can learn. It's not like super complicated. But if you want to be on the beach, just go find a debt fund with an experienced operator and Then you can do truly nothing. Nothing.

[Henry Washington]

And both of these options are good. But you're right to. If you're going to lend directly, I would definitely recommend that you only lend to an experienced operator. And with only $400,000, you need to lend to an operator that invests in a market where that money's actually going to cover doing a deal or two. You know, you couldn't lend to somebody in Seattle with that amount of money, but you could definitely lend to somebody in, oh, I don't know, northwest Arkansas, who might be an experienced investor. I'm just asking for a friend. But you're absolutely right. You need to be able to understand what kind of deals they're doing and underwrite them so that you're comfortable with the deal that you're lending on. Because there is always a chance that the operator fails. And then you end up with a property on your hands that you have to be able to do something with. And you want to make sure that if that happens, that you end up with a property that has a ton of equity in it so that you're not losing money.

[Dave Meyer]

Absolutely. And that actually raises another reason I like, like the funds is because it mitigates your risk. Because if you have 400 grand, that's a lot of cash, don't get me wrong. But a flipper is going to need money for acquisition and they're going to need money for rehab. So as Henry said, that's probably one deal at a time, max. Right? You're not going to be able to lend that out. Sometimes even good flippers miss. You know, if it's a good flipper and a good operator, you're backing the right person, they'll still be able to make you whole even if, even if a deal goes sideways. But, but you know, that could take a while. You could be without income for a while. And so by investing in a fund or buying partial notes across a couple of different properties and a couple of different operators, it just spreads out the risk in case something goes wrong in any of those deals. Because flipping is risky. And lending to flippers, while there are repercussions to help you recover your capital, things go badly, there's still risk in it. So you need to be able to do that. So I totally agree with you on the private money. The other thing I was going to say is, like, if you're willing to be a little bit active and operate a couple of rental properties, the other thing I do is probably take 200 grand and buy a 4 plex, put 50% down twice, you know, so buy 8 units, 50% LTV. You're going to be able to cash right now. Not as much as lending would get you. You're not going to get a 10, 11, 12% cash on cash return. But if you're in your 50s and you're trying to set yourself up for a 65 retirement, by that point it will probably be generating the same kind of cash on cash return, plus you'll get the equity, plus the tax benefits are there. So that's kind of. If you're willing to do some work or if you want to be truly passive, then go to the lending side.

[Henry Washington]

Yeah, put that thing on a 15 year note and then you're free and clear by the time you're ready to chill out. That's a great idea.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah. Or we could just go to Vegas, spin the dice, go play some golf.

[Henry Washington]

Come on, Damon.

[Dave Meyer]

That's what Henry and I would honestly do.

[Henry Washington]

Give us a call, Damon.

[Dave Meyer]

We got you. Yeah, we're going to have a good time before lose all of your retirement money. You'll be able to count on one good weekend. All right, well, thanks, man. I appreciate it. Great insights from you. Thanks for taking the time and answer the questions of the BiggerPockets community.

[Henry Washington]

Hey, thank you for having me. I love doing this and helping people out, so hopefully they found value.

[Dave Meyer]

And thank you all so much for being part of the BiggerPockets community, which of course includes listening to this podcast, but also means participating in our forums. If you have questions, go ask them. We have literally millions of members there answering questions just like these for people like you. Or if you're an experienced landlord, go help someone out. Maybe your knowledge is what someone else is looking for and that's what the Biggerpockets community is all about, helping one another pursue financial freedom through real estate. So go check it out if you haven't in a while. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you for another episode of the Biggerpockets Podcast in just a couple of days.

[Henry Washington]

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 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. If you'd like to learn more about 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. 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.