How to Invest in Real Estate WHILE in College (It’s Possible!)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: How to Invest in Real Estate WHILE in College (It’s Possible!)

BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast | Host: Dave Meyer
Guest: Daniel Kaplan
Date: October 20, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the challenges and rewarding strategies behind investing in real estate as a college student. Host Dave Meyer dives into the inspiring journey of Daniel Kaplan, a recent University of Wisconsin graduate who kickstarted a profitable real estate portfolio—all while living in a fraternity house. Daniel shares the actionable steps he took, the obstacles he overcame (like lack of experience and capital), and practical advice for young or new investors looking to start early and scale effectively.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Daniel’s Entry into Real Estate: From Flipping Sneakers to Section 8 Rentals

• Early Entrepreneurial Spirit:
  • Daniel started out by flipping sneakers in high school, making $10-30K.
  • “I was stoked. And for me, as I was getting closer to college, I wanted to figure out what was that next jump I was going to make.” — Daniel (02:17)
• Inspired by a Friend:
  • A friend introduced Daniel to a YouTube video about Section 8 real estate investing and its high returns.
• Initial Education:
  • No family background in real estate; Daniel and his partner turned to BiggerPockets for foundational knowledge.
  • Chose Birmingham, Alabama for its affordability, growth, and Section 8 demand despite neither having visited the state.

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2. Overcoming Lack of Experience and Building a Remote Team

• Team Building:
  • Cold-called agents in Alabama, eventually finding Amanda, an agent who became a cornerstone for their team.
  • Amanda helped connect them with local lenders, contractors, and handymen.
  • “We used Amanda as that key piece to then build the team around us and really piggyback off of her experience there.” — Daniel (04:39)
• Key lesson:
  • Sell your story and energy; people may invest in your drive, even if you lack experience.
  • “I don't see it as a disadvantage of you being young and in college. Use that to your advantage.” — Daniel (14:22)

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3. Finding and Analyzing Deals as a Beginner

• Their Buy Box:

  • Targeted 3-bedroom houses, under $10K rehab, more turnkey if possible, and max 1,500 sq. ft.

• Volume Is Key:

  • Analyzed 80-90 deals in ~3 months before purchasing their first property.
  • “Volume negates luck. We knew that we just needed enough times at bat...” — Daniel (07:23)

• Using Tools:

  • Leveraged the BiggerPockets deal calculator to underwrite deals quickly.

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4. Buying Sight Unseen & Remote Investing Confidence

• Never Visited the Property:
  • Even after acquiring almost 10 Birmingham properties, Daniel has never visited Alabama.
  • Confidence built through trust in their local team, virtual walkthroughs, and a cushion in the deal’s economics.
  • “We just knew we had to take action and we were confident in our team, in the systems and people we put in place...” — Daniel (13:34)

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5. First Deal Details & Scaling Up

• Acquisition & Returns:

  • $20,000 went towards a property that, after minor rehab and Section 8 leasing, grossed $1,300/month with $600/month cash flow (28% cash on cash).
  • Built-in $20-$30K equity at purchase.

• Accounting for Reality:

  • Recognized the importance of factoring in vacancy, repairs, and CAPEX (40-45% operating expense on rent for underwriting).
  • “We underwrite pretty conservatively now with every asset...” — Daniel (17:52)

• Section 8 Headaches:

  • Lease-up periods stretched from 3 to 6 months due to slow housing authorities.
  • Rent estimates from authorities are typically best-case — better to underwrite with 10% reduction and expect extended vacancies.

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6. Active Income: The Path to Portfolio Growth

• Wholesaling:
  • After first deal, cash was tight; Daniel pursued wholesaling for active income and skill-building.
  • Took 6 months to land the first wholesale deal.
  • “Six months, eight hours every single day to make like a 12 grand check... maybe like three bucks an hour if you waited out.” — Daniel (26:53)

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7. Expanding to New Markets: Milwaukee and Beyond

• Scaling Portfolio:
  • Grew to 99 units (as of the episode) across Wisconsin, Texas, and Alabama.
  • Diversified out of Birmingham as Section 8 lease-up times increased.
• Copy/Paste Team Building:
  • Used prior experience and credibility to build teams faster in new markets.
  • Visited Milwaukee properties in person, benefitting from local proximity and lessons learned.
• First Direct-to-Seller Deal:
  • Closed on a Milwaukee duplex via cold calling, showing evolution from first sight-unseen purchase to more direct negotiation skills.

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8. Advice for College & Early Investors

• Don’t Be Afraid to Reach Out:
  • “Try and have as many conversations as possible. You want to obsess over all things real estate and try to talk to as many people as you can...” — Daniel (29:37)
• Find Mentors/Partners:
  • Leverage the experience of others; let them talk you out of bad deals or help you spot opportunities.
• Active Income is Essential:
  • Real estate requires active income initially, regardless of what “passive income” hype claims.
  • “That’s what I always tell people... You're going to have to find some active income to be able to pursue a portfolio, even if you're buying relatively inexpensive properties.” — Dave (31:36)
• Use Advantages of Youth:
  • Flexible schedules, few obligations, more time and energy—these unique advantages in college are a “now or never” opportunity.
  • “There’s no better time than now when you don’t have obligations, when you have that free time and you’re young and you’ve got energy...” — Daniel (33:50)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Volume negates luck. We knew that we just needed enough times at bat until we found that deal.” — Daniel (07:23)
• “We have still to this date never even seen the property. And I think now I bought almost like 10 properties in Birmingham and still have never even been to the state of Alabama.” — Daniel (13:20)
• “Try and have as many conversations as possible. You want to obsess over all things real estate... those individuals are the ones that are going to help you.” — Daniel (29:37)
• “I don't see it as a disadvantage of you being young and in college. Use that to your advantage.” — Daniel (14:22)
• “I’m not big on door count, but, man, you got to get to 100. If you’re at 99, you just got to get that next one.” — Dave (35:14)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:00 — Episode Introduction & Daniel’s Background
• 03:03 — Choosing an Out-of-State Market, Team Building
• 05:36 — Defining Their Buy Box & Property Analysis
• 06:49 — Underwriting Process and Lessons Learned
• 13:20 — Buying Sight Unseen; Building Remote Trust
• 16:35 — Deal Returns and Adjustments for Real-World Expenses
• 18:39 — Section 8 Headaches and Honest Underwriting
• 25:01 — Portfolio Growth: New Markets and Scaling
• 25:58 — The Wholesaling Grind for Active Income
• 29:37 — Advice for Younger/New Investors
• 33:23 — Advantages of Starting in College
• 34:44 — Daniel's Current Portfolio & Future Goals

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Start Young: Utilize your flexible schedule and high energy to tackle learning and networking.
• Team is Everything: Find one key partner in your market and leverage their network.
• Be Persistent: Success came after analyzing 90 deals, not nine.
• Expect Challenges: Build in plenty of margin for delays and surprise expenses, especially in programs like Section 8.
• Active Income Fuels the Fire: Don’t expect rental cash flow to solve everything in the beginning—find ways to generate income.
• Leverage Help: Ask for honest feedback from experienced mentors.
• Investing Is Possible—Even in College: Daniel’s journey proves that with hustle, resourcefulness, and the right team, you can build wealth while still in school.

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For more real estate advice, visit BiggerPockets.com or check out new episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on your favorite podcast platform.

Transcript

[A]

Can you invest in real estate while in college? It is possible, and it can give you a head start on the compounding returns that make investing in rental properties so powerful in the long run. But you need to start your investing journey on the right foot and overcome some very common challenges. Because if you're anything like me during college, you don't have a lot of cash sitting around, and most people aren't really eager to lend you their money. So today we're talking about the right way to invest during your college years so you graduate with a head start on achieving financial freedom instead of an anchor weighing you down. Hey, everyone. I'm Dave Meyer, head of real estate investing at BiggerPockets. And on this show, we teach you how to achieve financial freedom through real estate. Today, we're talking about investing in real estate during college, and my guest on the show is investor Daniel Kaplan from Chicago. Daniel graduated from the University of Wisconsin just a couple of months ago, but he has already built a sizable and very profitable portfolio of properties while he was living in a frat house. Daniel is going to share with us his own journey from real estate education to buying his first deal, to scaling up within just a couple of years. And he's going to explain how he overcame those common hurdles. Any college student who wants to invest is going to face those, of course, including accumulating starting capital, but also things like finding financing and building a team. Who's going to take a college kid with big ambitions seriously? Daniel has a really cool, impressive story and is going to share great advice for those of you in a similar situation during school or really for anyone early in their investing journey. Let's bring him on. Daniel, welcome to the BiggerPockets podcast. Thanks for being here.

[B]

Oh, yeah, very excited to be here. I appreciate it, Dave.

[A]

So tell us a little bit about where were you and when in your life did you first get into real estate investing?

[B]

Yeah, so kind of a little bit in high school, I always had that entrepreneur spirit. I started off, like in the sneaker and streetwear flipping business just so I could kind of make a quick buck here and there during high school. Made maybe 10, 20 grand, even maybe a little bit upwards of 30, actually.

[A]

I don't think I had seen that amount of money till I was like, 24. So that sounds like a lot as.

[B]

A high schooler, I mean, I was stoked. And for me, kind of as I was getting closer to college, I wanted to figure out what was that next jump I was going to make. And somehow one of my Buddies. His name is Tanner. He said, daniel, check out this video. He knew I had that entrepreneurial bug and so did he. And he sent me a video of this individual Talking about Section 8 real estate on, hey, it's this amazing program. You can buy such cheap properties. It's backed by the government, guaranteed rent. And he was like, yeah, people are getting 30, 40% year over year returns. And I was like, what's the catch? I got to dive into this. And that was what initially sparked that bug of, wow, I need to dive into this rabbit hole of real estate and try and figure this thing out.

[A]

Wow, very cool. And so were you a freshman in college then?

[B]

Yeah, so at this point I was a freshman in college. I think we were kind of towards second semester, got a little bit more comfortable, got into my groove there. And this is when we decided, hey, let's, let's dive deep into this stuff. So we partnered up. We were like, hey, this is, this is the exact route we want to go. But we were like, what's next? We don't know anything about real estate. None of our parents were in real estate. We didn't have the experience. We were a little bit lost. And that was kind of where we came across bigger pockets and trying to consume as much content as humanly possible because we needed that baseline understanding before we went ahead. And somehow, miraculously, we ended up on Birmingham, Alabama. Okay, I'm from Chicago, he's from Boston, we're at school in Madison. But yet we decided on Birmingham, Alabama as our choice to really dive in to find our property.

[A]

Why?

[B]

Because we only had 20 grand. We're like, hey, we can't go and buy $1 million property here. So our first kind of sniff test was we need to find some cheap properties. Not, I know you are a big numbers oriented individual. And by the data for this, it was honestly just, you know what, let's go and decide on Birmingham. And it worked out. One of the cheapest property tax states in the US we were seeing some decent growth over there, massive Section 8 demand. So, I mean, we got lucky there with choosing that market. But okay, what was next? We've never been there. I've never even been to the state of Alabama, nor is he. So we knew we had to build a team because I've never been in the market, I know nothing about Alabama. So we luckily kind of just started cold calling a bunch of real estate agents. We were like, that's probably the best first step to make smart. And after maybe 10 of those conversations, we found One individual who was willing to dive deep into this with us. And this individual, her name was Amanda and she was the one that really helped us out throughout this whole journey. Because like I said, we didn't have any lenders lined up, we didn't have any GCs, any handyman, we didn't know anything about the market that we were looking into. So we used Amanda as that key piece to then build the team around us and really piggyback off of her experience there.

[A]

Wow, that's great. I mean, I love that story. Just sort of like hustling your way into it. Congratulations. Seem that's kind of like your personality and spirit, but still it takes a lot of work. Especially when you start getting rejected like that. It can feel a little bit discouraging. But you stuck with it.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Okay. So 20 grand was enough to buy something that she recommended. What did the buy box ultimately look like?

[B]

So the buy box was we wanted a three bedroom property, we wanted our rehab to be under ten grand. We wanted to aim for a more turnkey property. But in that market it was hard to really find true turnkey properties. Okay. And we also didn't want to have too big of a property because we knew we, we wanted to take that section 8 route. So we didn't want a property that was over 1500 square feet just because the more square footage, the more maintenance we were going to have, which would have diminished our returns. Kind of a long term time horizon.

[A]

In 2022, market was still pretty hot. How hard was it to find something like that?

[B]

How it would work is Amanda. At the end of every week, she would send us an Excel file in column A, it had the address, column B, the bedrooms, column C, the bathrooms. And then a link to the deal as well as the estimate of what we thought it was worth. Slash, like the list. And then she would give us like a little back of napkin rehab budget just off first glance.

[A]

That's awesome.

[B]

And from there we would kind of underwrite it ourselves. And this was where a big skill that we gained throughout this process was the ability to underwrite these deals. We were getting maybe 20, 30 properties a week. And we would go line by line analyzing these. And you guys had this calculator on the Biggerpockets website.

[A]

Oh yeah.

[B]

And we were just plugging every single deal into there, understanding the numbers, and it maybe took us 80, 90 deals until we found the one that worked for us.

[A]

Wow, 80 or 90, okay.

[B]

Yes. I mean it took us maybe three months to go and get this first deal.

[A]

A couple things I want to call out here. First and foremost, I love the fact that you looked at 90 to 100 deals. That is just the way to do this. And I know people get discouraged if you look at 8, 10 deals and you don't find them. This is just the job of an investor. Your job is to go out and find the good assets. And sometimes that takes 90 or 100. And you know, you know, you probably got faster at this too, right? Like, the first one's really hard, second one's hard, but by the 50th one, you're probably pretty quick at it. And I guess like with, with Section 8, like, you know, the rents. So like, that's one of the harder parts of underwriting the deal. That is actually kind of done for you, right?

[B]

Yep, exactly. That was what was nice about the Section eight is we could see on the Housing authority website that, hey, we'll get 1300 bucks for a three bed. We've learned now that that actually deviates a little bit, kind of given the area that you're in.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And like you said, those first 10 deals that we were underwriting, maybe each deal took us an hour to dive into to try and figure out all this information. And once we got to deal 70 and deal 80, boom, in two minutes, we could look at a deal and know exactly what kind of return we would get. It was just a big volume game. We're big believers in volume negates luck. And we knew that we just needed enough times at bat until we found that deal. And that was kind of when we decided to go and pull the trigger there.

[A]

That's totally right. I say this to people all the time because I buy deals mostly on market. People say you can't find deals on the markets. Like, you're just not looking at enough of them. If you just keep looking, there are things that are inefficiently priced all the time. It's your job to spot that and go out and find it. The other thing I love about what doing this many reps is that it also really helps you sort of benchmark your expectations. I often advise people to do this. If you're between deals, you're saving up money. Just keep running deals because you'll know what to expect. You learn that the average cash on cash return is 8% or whatever. And then when you do that 91st analysis and it's 12%, you're like, wow, okay, now I've actually found the good deal. And that really helps staving off analysis paralysis. You don't get overwhelmed because you're like, oh, I know that most deals are in this range and I found one that is significantly better. Those are the ones I'm going to go out and buy.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

So I want to hear about what it was like for you actually closing on this deal site unseen. But we got to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Want to invest in real estate but don't have the time or know the best local markets? Rent to Retirement has got you covered. Here's the deal. They've helped thousands of investors just like you find turnkey homes across the best US Markets. And best of all, they do all the heavy lifting for you. With over 255 star ratings on bigger pockets, Rent to Retirement experts help you build strategies to retire early through real estate. And right now, Rent to Retirement offers some amazing incentives on turnkey new construction properties. Just for example, you can get up to 30% off new build prices or you can get 0% down loan options or interest rates available as low as 3.99%. So don't miss out. These deals will not last. Text REI to 33777 or visit biggerpockets.com retirement to start investing in top cash flow markets today.

[C]

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[D]

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[A]

So I tried explaining a sandwich lease to my insurance guy once and he just blinked at me like I made it up. And that's sort of the thing, right? Most insurance companies don't understand how we invest. You go vacant for a few weeks, you switch strategies, you hold stuff in an llc, and suddenly your coverage doesn't fit. That's why I recommend National Real Estate Insurance Group. They actually get real estate investors. Their coverage adjusts as your property changes. And you get one monthly bill for everything, no matter how weird your portfolio is. You can check them [e-mail] bppod that's nreig.com bppod all right, let's talk about something we've all dealt with. Funding that takes forever. You got the property lined up. The numbers make sense. Everything is ready to go. But the funding, that's often where things start falling apart. Either it's too slow, it's too rigid, or. Or just way more complicated than it needs to be. But here's the thing. It doesn't have to be this way. I want to tell you about Express Capital Financing. They understand how investors operate, and they've built a system that works for us. Quick approvals, flexible terms, and none of the endless paperwork that slows things down. Whether you're working on a flip, buying a rental, or tackling a big commercial project, they give you the speed and flexibility you need to make it happen. Great deals don't wait, and neither should you. Get your funding locked in by going to expresscapitalfinancing.com or click the link in the description. Trust me on this one. It'll save you a ton of headaches. Visit expresscapitalfinancing.com biggerpockets for more information. Welcome back to the Biggerpockets podcast. I'm here with investor Daniel Kaplan Talk, talking about how he and a partner bought their first deal as college sophomores across the country. So you found this deal, Daniel. Did you go visit it in person at all?

[B]

We have still to this date never even seen the property. And I think now I bought almost like 10 properties in Birmingham and still have never even been to the state of Alabama.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Okay. We were shooting blinds here.

[A]

And what gave you that confidence?

[B]

We just knew we had to take action and we were confident in our team, in the systems and people we put in place. That we could execute on this deal. And it really came down to finding that key player that we trusted with everything to make that decision that we could blindly trust them. I mean, we facetimed her as they walked the property and as the GCs were on site, we were getting that feedback loop. But it really just came down to the people and the team that we built in that market that allowed us to feel confident buying that deal without ever even being in the state ourselves.

[A]

How did you build that rapport with Amanda? Because, yeah, I'm sure you get a vibe right when you talk to someone, but was there anything particular you did? Because that's a lot of trust you're putting in someone.

[B]

Oh yeah. The biggest thing with us with building rapport is we really wanted someone who believed in our story and believed in our vision. At the end of the day, we're two 19 year old college kids with a 20 grand net worth who are trying to go all in on real estate. And most people are not going to take you seriously. Most people are going to call you guys dumb. Hey, maybe wait another five years, Daniel, maybe wait till you kind of get a job and recoup and get some more capital. But for us, we really wanted to sell our story and sell our dream. And I think Amanda really bought into that and really resonated with it. And I think she saw some potential in us. Kind of saw us as a penny stock that she wanted to invest in. I don't see it as a disadvantage of you being young and in college. Use that to your advantage. I've got no mortgage, I don't have a car payment, I don't have a family, I don't have kids. I'm going all in on this. And we really just wanted to find that person who was willing to go and work with us and buy into our story.

[A]

Very cool. Well, that is bold and brave. I, I don't know if I would advise everyone to do that. I honestly think for the right, the right person, you can do it. I have bought properties sight unseen in new markets. But I've been to the market. I go and just look around. But I respect the, the faith you had in yourself and the team that you put in place.

[B]

That was a big piece of it too is what we realized is if we can buy good enough deals where we have a big margin of error, where we can still be profitable. That was our key, is hey, even if we messed up and let's say, hey, we're vacant for an extra one or two months or we go over in our rehab budget, we knew that because of how good of a deal that we were buying, we had that room for error. We could make mistakes and, and still stay profitable and not go underwater.

[A]

How long did it take?

[B]

The work took us about a month and then it took us another two months to actually go and lease the property, which was longer than we anticipated because we thought that, hey, in the snap of our fingers we can get this thing rented. But the housing authorities, they, they thought differently. They were a little bit slower to get everything in place. So we closed on it in, I think it was November of 22 and, and then come January of 23, we were leased and cash flowing.

[A]

Awesome. I mean, overall pretty good. Three months to stabilize essentially. And how much rent could you get for this when you filled it out?

[B]

So we ended up renting this for thirteen hundred dollars.

[A]

And your mortgage was what it was.

[B]

Like a couple hundred bucks a month. So, yeah, crazy.

[A]

So what does your cash flow look like?

[B]

So it was about 600 bucks a month. For those kind of first six months after fully leasing it, we got like a 28% cash on cash return, which blew all expectations out of the water. And we built in 20, 30 grand in equity from buying it at such a good price and it's such a good basis where, hey, we had that equity gap as well. Where in the future if we want to refi or want to go and capture some of that equity, we can.

[A]

Yeah, that's great.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

One of the reasons, you know, I wanted to call this out because, yeah, the 28% cash and cash return is great. But as you alluded, alluded to, for you to really understand cash and cash return, you got to put in those repairs capex, you know, so over the years have you figured out like on average what those repair and capex that you need to set aside for. Because this is a common error a lot of investors make is they take their, their rent, they subtract their taxes, their insurance, their mortgage payment, and then that's cash flow. But as you now know, there are other expenses. So like, how have you changed your underwriting, I guess to like account for expenses?

[B]

So what we do is we'll look at the asset, we'll see, hey, this property is going to rent for it. And just for easy math, let's say it was renting for $2,000. How we do our underwriting in these class C, a little bit rougher of areas, we assume that of that top line rent that we're collecting 40 to 45% of that is going to go to our operating expenses. So our property management, our repairs, our utilities, our taxes, our insurance. So we underwrite pretty conservatively now with every asset that we look at, it's that back of Napkin rent times 0.6 minus your mortgage payment and boom. That's your bottom line cash flow.

[A]

That's a good way to do it. Makes a lot of sense. So I want to ask you, you know, you said it took a little bit while to get it rented. What was it like working with the housing authorities and going with the Section 8 approach?

[B]

So it's not all sunshine and rainbows, unfortunately, as if anyone in college is looking into buying real estate, they see these section 8 guys who say how easy it is, oh, you're going to get this guaranteed re. There's a lot of headaches that go into it. And at the time, if it was still a three month lease up period today, I would be, I would be stoked for some of our other assets that we bought. It's now pushing six months to get these things leased. It's maybe only a couple people in the office with very lackluster systems. So we could have our property fully renovated on December 1, submit everything to them and even have a tenant lined up. And it still just might take two months to do all the paperwork to get all the inspections in place just to go and start cash flowing. So now what we underwrite with our deals is hey, when we buy these, we're going to be vacant for three, four, five, six months. Yeah, it is a massive headache. And then also a big fallacy I see people kind of follow is they'll look at the housing authority website, they can see the rent that they get. You almost will never get that rent, really, because what they're doing is they're saying, hey, that is the most we'll rent for. But they're also going to be looking at conventional comps with regular cash tenants and they're going to say, hey, I know you submitted for 1300, we're only going to approve you for 1,200. Which that $100 difference could mean a deal or no deal. So I always tell people when you're underwriting a Section 8 deal, assume it's going to take you four months to even get start cash flowing. And also that rent you see in the housing authorities just do a 10% reduction because you likely won't get that figure. And if you do, amazing. But if not, you got to be happy with that figure.

[A]

I like this approach A lot because people look at some of these market conditions like, oh, it's going to take six months. I can't do section eight. Yeah, you can. You just need to underwrite it. It all just comes down to putting these assumptions and accurate assumptions into the way that you're analyzing deals. Because if you're doing what Daniel does and say, hey, I know I'm going to put six months of vacancy in the front of this, if you say I'm going to get 90% of the maximum listed rent and the deal still pencils still do the deal. And if it doesn't, don't, don't blur the lines. Don't get overly optimistic. Rose tinted glasses Especially in this type of market, you can't assume everything is going to go right. When you're underwriting a deal, something always goes wrong. You have to just assume for that. And then when it goes wrong, you're not even mad about it because you were just waiting for it to happen instead of like hoping that everything goes perfectly and getting frustrated wasn't. Doesn't. That's just not how the industry works.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Well, it sounds like you got an awesome first deal, Daniel. I want to hear about how you've grown your portfolio from there. We got to take one more quick break though. We'll be right back. Do you want to invest in cash flowing rentals but don't have the time to manage the properties? Is your local market too competitive or expensive to invest in? Rent to Retirement offers new construction turnkey investment properties that you can buy with as little as 5% down and rates as low as 3.99%. Their team handles everything from financing, management, insurance and more. So you can live where you want and invest in the markets that offer the best returns. Rent to Retirement has the best reputation in the industry with more five star reviews than any other company on the BiggerPockets website. To learn more, visit biggerpockets.com retirement or just text REI 233777 to start investing in the best markets today.

[C]

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[D]

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[A]

Welcome Back to the BiggerPockets podcast. Here with Daniel Kaplan talking about his portfolio in Birmingham, Alabama. Or I guess I should ask you, you bought your first one in Birmingham, Daniel. Did you keep buying there after that?

[B]

Kept buying over there, but then also expanded into other markets. And again, like this has all been throughout my college career those four years. I now scaled up to about 99 units now, and that is across Wisconsin, Texas and Alabama. In Birmingham, I now have, I think it's nine units. But what we realized is that three month lease up period started to shift to six months. When it took six months to lease up these assets, we knew it was, it was tough. We were really struggling with being vacant for that long. And the housing authorities only got worse and worse from 2022 to today.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So we thought that, hey, we might want to diversify and get into some other markets. And I was, we were in school in Madison, Wisconsin, so we decided to, hey, let's, let's maybe stay in state this time. And we started buying in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and then bought about six doors over there as well.

[A]

You bought a really good first deal, but it sounds like that used up pretty much all of your capital after that first one. How did you finance the second one?

[B]

Yeah, so after that first deal, I was like, this is amazing. I love real estate, but what's next? I got no cash. What can I do here? I don't want to sit here twiddling my thumbs all day. So that was where we decided, okay, how can we stay in the real estate industry but get some active income so we can use that capital to fund deals? And, and that's kind of where we dove into the wholesaling rabbit hole because we knew the way you find success in real estate is you need to find really good deals. So we wanted to keep mastering that process with finding those deals. And hey, we can make a quick buck in doing so. So that's kind of how we came across with wholesaling. And over the course of six months, I mean, it was super tough. It took me maybe six months in wholesaling to get my first check. So. Six months, eight hours every single day to make like a 12 grand check. And so, I mean, it was maybe like three bucks an hour if you waited out.

[A]

Yeah, it's not good when you think about it.

[B]

It was not great, but we learned some skills, which was amazing. So it took six months to, to make that 12 grand and then another two months to go and find that next deal.

[A]

What did the second deal you land look like?

[B]

We actually got this next deal from cold calling a homeowner. So it was a duplex that she lived in herself, and she had to go and move states now due to a job relocation. So she was living in one unit, the other unit was rented, and this was in Milwaukee. She had to go move to Georgia. So we cold called her and she said, hey, you know what? I'm in this situation. I need to relocate. And yeah, we ended up buying that next property directly from the seller without an agent this time. So that one was a. Was a super interesting one as well. And we went from that first single family property to now leveling up to actually getting a duplex. So it was exciting to slowly improve the kind of assets that we were buying.

[A]

And since it's only like an hour drive from Madison. Did you go check this one out? At least before he bought it, we.

[B]

Drove around the area just to kind of get a feel for it, because Milwaukee was one of those places where it's a super block by block area.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You could have one block be super nice. The other block could be a war zone. So we wanted to get an idea of that market, and we drove around with some connections that we met who were like, oh, you don't want to be down this street, or, oh, this corner over here is not a place you want to be at night.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So we kind of understood the market a little bit as it was in our backyard this time.

[C]

Cool.

[A]

And so did you. What was it like building another team? Because it sounds like, you know, obviously put a lot of effort into finding Amanda in Alabama who connected you to the right contractors and property managers. Was it a similar experience in Milwaukee?

[B]

Exactly. The beauty of this time, though, is I actually had a track record that I could utilize. So now I could go the same approach of calling all these agents and finding those key players and all that fun stuff. But now we had a track record, which was helpful. So when we were talking to people, they would take us more seriously that, hey, we actually own some real estate. But the beauty of this is it was just copy and paste, but in a different market. Of course, there's some other nuances that go along with that, but we did the same exact process that we had. We found that key player, that key player, then introduced us to everybody else that we needed on our team.

[A]

Well, it sounds like those first two deals while you were in college were awesome. I think this is a really unique, cool story that A lot of our audience will be interested in whether you're in college or just really getting started relatively early into your professional career. It's very appealing because the longer you're in the business, you know, the more time you have to compound. It can be very beneficial to start early, but it can be really challenging. So, Daniel, curious if you just have any advice for our audience, if you're, you know, in college or on the younger side, how to get into the game, things that you recommend to those people.

[B]

Initially, when we got started, I had that fear of cold calling people cold calling my friends, my family, people in this market. Because I wasn't experienced, I thought they wouldn't take me seriously. I didn't know what I was doing. But when you find the right individuals, they're going to want to see you win. So a big thing that I recommend to all individuals is find somebody that can help you along this journey. Like, for us, we found Amanda and we found some people on our network that were able to coach us along this journey. So though you don't have experience, use that to your advantage. People want to buy into people who are young, hungry and ambitious and want to figure out this industry. Try and have as many conversations as possible. You want to obsess over all things real estate and try to talk to as many people as you can, because those individuals are the ones that are going to help you find these deals and operate these deals. Because we had people who we'd be underwriting a deal, we would think it was good. We'd send it to Amanda or someone else in our network and they would say, daniel, you're an idiot. This deal is never going to work out because of X, Y and Z. So piggyback off of other people's experience if you don't have any.

[A]

I love that. That's really a really good way to put it. And to have, like, realistic expectations about what you can contribute and what people can contribute back to you, given that. And it's. There's. There's nothing like right or wrong about it. I just think that you need to bring something to the table for people to take you seriously. That's super important. The other thing you said earlier that I think is really, really important is that you needed to find active income to fuel your business. And I know there's tons of people on social media say, oh, you just get into real estate and just passive income. Bing, bang, boom, you're rich. It's like, that's not really how it works. So you need to Find a way to make money. And I know not everyone wants to go out and find a job, but that's kind of what you have to do, whether it's working for yourself like Daniel did and you know, went into a wholesaling business, which you would probably call it a job, I would assume.

[B]

Yeah, pretty much.

[A]

You know, you're working, right. Like you're putting a lot of effort into it.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

And that's what I always tell people is like, you can choose to go into real estate full time like Daniel's done and wholesale. If you can make money that way, awesome, go do it. But it's active income. If you find a job that pays you well and you want to use that to fuel your investing, I don't care, whatever makes you money. But like, you're going to have to find some active income to be able to pursue a portfolio, even if you're buying relatively inexpensive properties.

[B]

Exactly. And yeah, like the vehicle that I chose to try and make some active income was wholesaling. But for other individuals it could be getting a job or hey, maybe working at someone's property management company or working under a real estate agent. If you want to stay in the industry, you can. But in order to really grow in this business is you do need some form of active income to keep the lights on here. Because for us, if we tried to live off that cash flow from that first rental property that we had, it would have not gone well. Because with that one, unfortunately down the line, we came across some bigger issues that required that capital. So whether it's getting a side hustle or getting a part time job, especially at college where, hey, you only have classes for two or three hours a day. Yes, you can still go out every weekend and have fun, but find a way to get that active income. I mean, I was at school in Madison, of course I was still having fun going to the bars out there. Yeah. But find a way to make some capital too, as you are in this business and just live below your means. Save that money and just keep trying to compound. Because the earlier you start, the bigger the benefits down the line.

[A]

Do you think there are other advantages that college students have? Because I know there are disadvantages. You know, like it's hard to start early, but like you said, having more time can be an advantage over, you know, people who have kids or full time jobs. Like, are there other advantages you think they have in starting early in college?

[B]

I mean, of course it's dependent based on the major and the school that you're At. But your classes may be only two or three, maybe four hours a day. This is the one point in your life where you have no other obligations. You don't have a family, you don't have a kids, you don't have a mortgage. There's no better time than right now because you do have that freedom as a college kid. And it's okay if you make mistakes because you also have that safety net of having a degree if for some reason it doesn't work.

[A]

That's true.

[B]

Just try and find time, build a schedule. Big. Hey, I'm going to allocate these three hours every single day to consume as much content as possible or to go and work that side hustle so I can go and stack some capital. But there's no better time than now when you don't have obligations, when you have that free time and you're young and you've got energy and utilize that to something productive.

[A]

That's what I was just going to say. Don't wait, man. Like, if you could go out, have fun, wake up, put three hours into real estate, do your courses, do that while you can. Because at 38, I definitely don't have that level of energy anymore. But, you know, at 23, that's what I was doing. So, yeah, it's. It's definitely a way of just like taking the advantages that you got at any given point. There are advantages of being 38 too, but like, you know, look at the things that you have around you and how to leverage those to. To build your business.

[B]

Yep, exactly.

[A]

Daniel, this has been a lot of fun, learning about your journey. Where does your portfolio stand today?

[B]

Like I said, I currently have 99 units, and that is across Wisconsin, Texas, Alabama. And then with that, luckily, given that kind of moat I've built, I also really am full time into the wholesaling side of things. So kind of post grad now that I graduated in May and I'm kind of full time into this now, it's focusing on scaling that rental portfolio, whether that's buying more properties, buying bigger assets, and then just kind of keep staying in the, in the real estate industry and scaling up all those endeavors.

[A]

I'm not big on door count, but, man, you got to get to 100. If you're at 99, you just got to get that next one exam.

[B]

I'm right there. We're one away.

[A]

Well, thanks so much, Daniel. I really appreciate you being here. Super cool story. Thank you for sharing it with us. Think it's a really inspirational, cool lesson for anyone who's getting started while they're in college or relatively young just starting out in their career, showing that this blueprint is absolutely possible. And we'd love to stay in touch with you to hear how your story and your portfolio progresses over the next few years.

[B]

Yeah, hopefully in a year when I when I come back over here, we'll be closer to that 2 2, 300 unit level and maybe getting into some better areas as well with nicer properties. So super excited. I don't know what the future is going to look like, but just continue scaling within real estate.

[A]

Awesome. Well, congratulations Daniel, and thanks again and thank you all so much for listening to this episode of the Biggerpockets Podcast. We'll see you next time. 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. 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. 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.