I Traded My Rentals for “Passive” Real Estate (Worth It?)

Summary

BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast: "I Traded My Rentals for 'Passive' Real Estate (Worth It?)" - Detailed Summary

Release Date: July 21, 2025

In this insightful episode of the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast, host Dave Meyer engages in a compelling discussion with returning guest and seasoned investor, Chris Lopez. The conversation delves into Chris's strategic transition from active real estate investing to a more passive approach, exploring the motivations, methodologies, and outcomes of his shift. This summary captures the essence of their dialogue, highlighting key points, insights, and actionable advice for real estate investors considering a similar path.

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1. Reconnecting with Chris Lopez

Dave Meyer reintroduces Chris Lopez, recalling his previous appearance on episode 662 in 2022. Chris shares updates on his real estate journey, emphasizing a significant pivot from active management of rental properties to passive investment strategies. This transition was driven by his realization that the time and effort invested yielded returns as low as $20 per hour, prompting him to seek more efficient avenues to grow his wealth.

Chris Lopez [06:09]: "I had an infinite return on here, but I looked at return on equity, which is the four ways to make money in real estate. I was making like a 7 or 8% return on my equity."

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2. Chris's Early Investment Journey

Chris recounts his initial foray into real estate during his college years at Virginia Tech. Inspired by "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," he ventured into internet marketing to accumulate capital for real estate investments. By 2015, he began acquiring rental properties in the Denver market, focusing on one to four-unit residential brokerage. His strategy centered on building long-term wealth through rental properties rather than short-term gains from flipping.

Chris Lopez [04:20]: "I was all about how can I build wealth in the long run in real estate. I don't care about a quick buck and flipping or quick buck here."

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3. The Shift to Passive Investing

As Chris's portfolio grew, he encountered diminishing returns relative to the time invested. By 2019, he initiated his first passive investment alongside a successful fix-and-flip friend. This move marked the beginning of his diversification into multifamily funds and debt funds, aiming to maintain cash flow and appreciate value without the intensive management typically required by rental properties.

Dave Meyer [16:45]: "So, tell us a little bit about the kinds of passive deals that you've done in the last few years."

Chris Lopez [18:00]: "I did a lot of multi-family value-add, typical things a lot of people did. Buy the apartment building, renovate, increase rents, and start getting good cash flow distributions."

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4. Evaluating Return on Equity vs. Cash on Cash Return

A pivotal moment in Chris's strategy was recognizing the importance of Return on Equity (ROE) over traditional cash on cash returns. His mentor illuminated how accumulated equity, while seemingly advantageous, could lead to lower ROE compared to potential returns from other investments like the stock market.

Chris Lopez [06:57]: "You're making that property is making you less than the stock market and you have personal liability and you're self-managing and you're working on it."

This realization prompted Chris to utilize cash-out refinances and 1031 exchanges to redistribute his capital into more lucrative passive investments, optimizing his portfolio's efficiency.

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5. Types of Passive Investments Explored

Chris elaborates on his investments in various passive strategies, including:

• Syndications and Multifamily Funds: Investing in larger apartment complexes to achieve diversification and leverage experienced operators.

  Chris Lopez [20:40]: "I sold some Denver rentals and invested in a value-add multifamily fund with 800, 900 doors in the portfolio, gaining geographic diversification."

• Debt Funds: Focusing on Midwest debt funds that offer higher cash flow due to lower competition and stable rental markets.

  Chris Lopez [21:14]: "Debt funds are like pure cash flow. They were paying on the higher end, especially in the Midwest."

• Geographic Diversification: Moving investments from high-equity markets like Denver to more stable regions to mitigate risks associated with market fluctuations and legislative changes.

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6. Navigating Challenges and Learning from Failures

Chris shares candid experiences of deals that didn't perform as expected, particularly in the Denver market amid shifting economic conditions and new landlord-tenant legislation in Colorado.

Chris Lopez [24:16]: "Colorado has had a lot of new landlord-tenant legislation, making operating expenses higher and complicating evictions."

Despite these setbacks, Chris emphasizes the importance of thorough vetting and partnering with reliable operators to weather market downturns. His proactive approach has so far prevented complete losses, positioning his portfolio to recover as the market stabilizes.

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7. Advice for Transitioning to Passive Investing

Dave and Chris discuss actionable steps for investors aiming to transition from active to passive real estate investing:

• Portfolio Evaluation: Chris advises reviewing each property’s Return on Equity and considering three options: keep and optimize, refinance to extract equity, or sell to invest elsewhere.

  Chris Lopez [30:21]: "Load every property into a spreadsheet, calculate return on equity, and explore options to either keep, refinance, or sell."

• Leveraging Networks and Platforms: Utilizing personal networks and platforms like Passive Pockets to find vetted deals and trustworthy operators.

  Chris Lopez [34:11]: "Passive Pockets is an amazing resource for finding deals and getting community feedback on operators."

• Developing Necessary Skills: Active investors already possess many underwriting skills, but transitioning requires understanding legal structures and evaluating operators' capabilities.

  Chris Lopez [34:50]: "Learn the legal stuff and underwriting the operator, similar to analyzing a company in the stock market."

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8. Introducing the Active to Passive Cohort Program

Chris introduces a five-week live cohort designed to guide experienced investors through the transition from active to passive investing. The program includes:

• Weekly Live Zoom Sessions: Starting July 28th, providing interactive learning and support.

• Portfolio Analysis Software: Tools to assess and optimize current holdings.

• Step-by-Step Transition Plans: Personalized strategies to shift investments effectively.

Chris Lopez [36:49]: "Go to biggerpockets.com/forward/transition to join our five-week cohort starting July 28th."

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9. Concluding Insights

Both Dave and Chris highlight the evolving landscape of real estate investing, noting that while challenges exist, particularly in over-concentrated markets, opportunities are abundant for those willing to adapt and diversify. The shift to passive investing not only enhances portfolio efficiency but also aligns with personal goals for financial freedom and time management.

Dave Meyer [25:12]: "The operators who are still doing deals are the good operators. There's a lot of opportunity coming down the pipeline."

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Takeaways for Investors

1. Assess Return Efficiency: Prioritize Return on Equity over traditional cash flow metrics to maximize investment efficiency.
2. Diversify Investments: Spread investments across different geographic regions and asset classes to mitigate risks.
3. Leverage Expert Partnerships: Partner with reliable operators and use platforms like Passive Pockets for vetted opportunities.
4. Educate and Adapt: Continuously educate yourself on passive investment structures and adapt your strategy based on market conditions.
5. Strategic Transition: Follow a structured approach to transition from active to passive investing, utilizing available resources and programs.

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This episode provides a comprehensive blueprint for real estate investors seeking to balance active management with passive income streams. Chris Lopez's journey underscores the importance of strategic planning, continuous learning, and adaptability in achieving long-term financial freedom through real estate.

Transcript

[Dave Meyer]

This investor found a strategy to make his real estate portfolio almost completely passive. Now he can sit back, reap the benefits, and enjoy the lifestyle of financial freedom that he wanted to achieve when he first got into real estate. Let's hear exactly how he did it. Hey everyone, I'm Dave Meyer, head of real estate investing at Bigger Pockets. I've been buying rental properties for more than 15 years since and on this show we teach you how to achieve financial freedom through real estate investing. Today's guest on the show is investor Chris Lopez. Chris was last on the show on episode six six two in 2022. So I wanted to catch up with him and hear how his real estate journey has progressed. And what I learned is that Chris has moved more of his portfolio into passive investing during the last few years. Almost a decade into his real estate career, he realized that the return he was getting on the time it took him to actually acquire and manage his properties was as low as $20 per hour. So Chris made big changes and redeployed his capital into passive investments that allowed him to maintain all the benefits of real estate like cash flow, tax advantages, appreciation, without all the hands on work. I was really interested to hear how he did this and he has some great advice for how you can make a similar trans in your own portfolio if you're in a similar situation. So let's bring on Chris.

Chris, welcome Back to the BiggerPockets podcast. Thanks for being here again, dude.

[Chris Lopez]

I'm glad to be back on the podcast and talk shop with you today, Dave.

[Dave Meyer]

Yes, it's going to be a great time. If you guys don't know Chris, he's been a friend and contributor to BiggerPockets for a long time. You were on episode 662. So if you want to know more about him, go back and check that out. But for people who haven't listened to that episode, maybe let's just start at the beginning here. Chris, tell us a little bit about why you got invested, where you were at that point in your life when you started on this journey.

[Chris Lopez]

I went to college at Virginia Tech, so go Hokies. And went there for engineering and military and realized both of those were not the calling for me in life. And then like a lot of people, I read the purple book, Rich Dad, Poor dad. And that opened my eyes to entrepreneurship and investing. And so I got extremely interested in real estate back then. And that's like 2002, 2003 timeframe. So all these amazing resources went around. So I tried to get into real Estate back then, just no traction. So I went down the entrepreneurial let me make money first and I'll learn how to invest it. And so I built a great business through Internet marketing. I thought I had achieved financial freedom because I actually graduated college not needing a job. I was making probably like 35, $40,000 back then.

[Dave Meyer]

Right out of college.

[Chris Lopez]

Yeah. And I could live anywhere I wanted to. I could, I worked for my Skype and bondage phones back then, if any listeners remember those things.

[Dave Meyer]

I do, yes.

[Chris Lopez]

Okay, there you go.

[Dave Meyer]

Still here. The Skype not noise that it made when you would call people, it's very distinct.

[Chris Lopez]

Well, business income is not investment income like real estate or stock market income. It eventually, unless you're an Apple or something, eventually, like it fades away. This was 2010 time frame. The real estate market was just coming out of the great financial crisis. I'd always want to get into real estate. And I was like, dude, get, get back into real estate. That's, that's the long term wealth. You know, that's not this quick day trade that's hard to do. Real estate. If I do for 20 years, I feel like I can get, I can become financially free. I tried wholesaling, hated that. And then I got into brokerage and I realized that's where I really hit my groove. I was in the Denver market and I started doing like one to four unit residential brokerage. And this really mapped with me because I'm all about how can I build wealth in the long run in real estate. I don't care about a quick buck and flipping or quick buck here. How do you make my money today? But I want to build that long term wealth. And I think rental properties are, you know, about the best way, one of the best ways to build wealth in real estate. I was like, man, 5, 7, 10 years, I can keep buying properties, the market does its thing and I'll get rich over 10, 20 years. And so that really set me off on my career and as well as my, you know, building a rental property portfolio as well.

[Dave Meyer]

So let's talk about what you did because it sounds like you don't want to be reactive so you turn to rental properties. I was investing in Denver around the same time. What year was this by the way, when you were starting to buy?

[Chris Lopez]

2015.

[Dave Meyer]

Okay. And what did you start buying?

[Chris Lopez]

I really started focusing then since I'm more of like a finance mindset, is when I bought my first property. I bought my very first house hack in 2011. I didn't know it Was a house hack. I didn't know anything. I just knew it was way cheaper than renting. So I bought a property then, and I was like, wow, I bought this place for so cheap, $67,000. And during the bubble before is trading for like 230, 240 price range. So I got it a, you know, foreclosure, huge discount. I was, I'm going to just pay this thing off and I'll have the cash flow forever. Well, for people who are investing in Denver, like you and me or other markets, we would hit this phenomenon where we have so much appreciation that cap rates would compress. And it's like, okay, Great, I'm worth $400,000 on paper in this property. But it's cash flowing $4 a month now or it's paid off. It'll cash flow, you know, fifteen hundred dollars a month, which is, you know, really good. But, you know, I'm gonna need 10 or 20 of those properties to retire. I want to.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah. And you. That's not a particularly efficient use of $400,000. Yeah.

[Chris Lopez]

And that's where you. You run into. And this is one of my mentors out here. He started explaining to me the concept on like return on equity. Oh, yeah. He was like, look, when you buy a property, everyone talks about return on investment. Hey, you put $10,000 down, $100,000 down, whatever it is. And in year one, you make this cash on cash or your cash on cash and appreciation. You make all this here. But he's. After a couple years, you have to look at not what money you put into there, but what equity you have in the deal, because that's your real opportunity cost. That's your real estate piggy bank. I remember he walked me through this on my house hack. I bought, which actually I bought for 0% down. So I was actually getting an instant return, which was really cool to brag to my friends. Really cool to talk on a podcast.

[Dave Meyer]

You should brag to your friends about that. That's awesome.

[Chris Lopez]

But here's the economy of it. When I was looking, when my mentor started teaching this, I had an infinite return on here, But I looked at return on equity, which is the four ways to make money in real estate. Appreciation, cash flow, debt, pay down, and principal reduction, divide by equity. I had $200,000 in equity. I was making like a 7 or 8% return on my equity. So I had an infinite return over here, but I also had an 8% return over here. And he was like, hey, the 8% return is the accurate one, because that $200,000 is real money if you cash out, refi or sell it. And then here was the kicker. He was like, here's another way to look at it, Chris. What's the historic stock market return of the s and P500? I was like, you know, 9, 10, 11%. He goes, yeah, he goes, you're making that property is making you less than the stock market and you have personal liability and you're self managing and you're working on it.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah, exactly.

[Chris Lopez]

Oh, that hit me hard.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah, totally.

[Chris Lopez]

Right. And so that was just a powerful mindset shift for me that I went through in my journey of building rental properties and then realizing, oh, if we're an appreciating market like Denver versus a midwest market like Ohio, where their cash flow or appreciation, I have to extract that equity and then go buy another property. So I started doing cash out refis. I started doing selling 1031 exchanges to go out there and redeploy the equity. And that was how I really juiced my rental portfolio. And I got really focused on optimizing equity in my portfolio and for all my clients in Denver back then.

[Dave Meyer]

Chris, I think we have a lot of similarities in our real estate investing story.

I learned the same lesson.

And I want to be clear. It is a good problem to have. If you have too much equity in a property, that means you've probably built your net worth pretty significantly. It's just that if you think about your, your rate of return, which as investors we should be thinking about, how efficiently is our capital earning us more money? That's your rate of return. Right. And when you figure that out, you like anything, there's a numerator and there's a denominator. So when you start and you think your cash flows, let's just use easy numbers here. $10,000 a year, you put $100,000 into that property. Well, your rate of return, your cash on cash return, and your return on equity at that point are all the same. Right? It's 10%. But over time, that denominator, that $100,000 grows not from 100,000 to 150 to 200 to 300,000. And I'm not saying you actually put.

More money into that deal, but because.

You bought in a great place and you're in a market like Denver, that value that you have in there is growing and growing and growing.

So you have to shift your mindset.

And not think, oh man, I'm still making a 10% cash on cash return. Now you're maybe, let's just say you're making $15,000 a year in cash flow, but your equity is $300,000 a year. Your return on equity dropped from 10% to 5%. And again, this is a good problem.

[Chris Lopez]

To have, but it means that if.

[Dave Meyer]

You redeploy your capital, you could probably be making more money more efficiently. And Chris, I did this for the first six years of my investing career too. I had this one property built so much equity and I was like, this is it. I'm good. I am rock solid. Nothing can touch this property. And then my sixth year of investing, I joined working at Biggerpockets full time and I was like, oh, I messed this up. Or, you know, it's, you know, you live and you learn. I could have done this more in a more optimized way. So I think this is a very common thing and I love that theme. I know you talk a lot in your content about this idea of return on equity and I totally agree. It's a much better and more important metric than cash on cash return because it really allows you to just measure efficiency not just in real estate too, but across asset classes like you said, and see if you're actually finding deals.

That are worth not just your money.

But also your time to put into it as well.

All right, well, I want to hear.

What you've been up to recently, Chris, but we do have to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

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[Chris Lopez]

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[Dave Meyer]

A sandwich lease to my insurance guy.

[Chris Lopez]

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 out at N r e I g.com BPPOD that's n r e I g.com BPPoD 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.

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[Chris Lopez]

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[Dave Meyer]

Welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast. I'm here with Chris Lopez. We've heard Chris a little bit about your story going back in time. And if you want to hear Chris's full story again, you can check out episode 662 where he shares the full thing. But I want to talk a little bit more about how your portfolio has evolved. So you were doing these residential properties, it sounds like in the late 2010s. What's been going on since then?

[Chris Lopez]

So I was cranking with my rental portfolio, cranking with the brokerage, and then in 2019 actually made my very first passive investment. And this was with one of my buddies. I kind of call him like, you know, the equivalent like a gym buddy. We both kind of like grew up in real estate together. He was very successful fix and flipping 30, 40, 50 deals a year. Scaled a really good business on there. And we did a lot of collaboration. We would, you know, trade back and forth on properties and deals and clients. And then he started getting into multifamily like, like a lot of fix and flippers do because it's really hard to scale a fix and flip business. Hey, rather than buying 10 single family homes, go out there and buy a 10 unit apartment building. And you get a lot more efficiency from operations, especially from adding value. And hey, they're all, all attendants are the same. A lot more efficiency. So I saw him doing that and then he started, you know, raising a little bit of money from friends and family. And I was like, oh, I know you, I know the market, I know this deal. This is amazing. And I did my first like $25,000 investment back then. And the reason I did that was for a couple reasons. I mean, you may remember this, Dave, you know, 2019, we started seeing interest rates tick up. You know, this is all pre Covid. And then cash flow was really getting like almost non existent. Denver back then.

[Dave Meyer]

Yes.

[Chris Lopez]

It was like, okay, well, you know, hey, I want to buy a property for 1% cash on cash. Not too exciting. So the market had changed. And then I had my second kid coming on the way, my second daughter. My business was taking a lot of time and so a lot of my time was spent on my business, was spent on my family with my children. And then for like, you know, my return on hassle or my return on sweat equity for like actively managing rentals, I was no longer getting this 100, $203 an hour type return on my time. I was getting a $20 an hour return on my time. Well, if I'm making $20 an hour, I'm gonna stop doing it or I'm gonna outsource it because that's valuable to my family or I can make way more than $20 an hour at my profession. So I had these things changing on here. The market was shifting, I was shifting. So I was getting more interested like, wow, I invested in here and I was making the same, if not maybe a little bit more money in a couple of these deals than I was in buying new rental properties. So I really stopped kind of like buying rentals over the next year or two and started taking the down payment money, doing more, you know, LP syndication investments. And a couple years into that actually started selling some of my rental properties to then move the equity from Denver rental markets where I was having a low roe, over towards passive investments where I was just getting a better rate of return.

[Dave Meyer]

So tell us a little bit about the kinds of passive deals that you've done in the last few years.

[Chris Lopez]

I dabble a lot obviously. So I did a lot of small investments and a few very big investments. So a lot of like, you know, $25,000 type investments, you know, for, for perspective on there and just, just to.

[Dave Meyer]

Call out everyone $25,000 still a lot, but for a lot of passive investments for like a big deal. If you're investing in a big massive deal, sometimes the minimum requirement is $100,000. So like I just want to put this in perspective that when Chris says a small deal, still a lot of money, but for a passive investment that is a small amount of money, whereas a lot of them require much more than that.

[Chris Lopez]

Yes. And it was a small relative to a Denver down payment as well.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah, at that point for sure.

[Chris Lopez]

So I did a lot of investments like that. A lot of multi family value add, you know, typical things a lot of people did. And that's like basically people buying an apartment building and doing a burr on there. Buy the apartment building bur it and a year, year and a half it's renovated, rents are increased by 30, 40, 50% and you start getting some really good, you know, cash flow distributions. A lot of those investments invest in some development deals for like residential development, apartment development, a lot of debt funds. So a lot of people from, with Hard money lenders.

[Dave Meyer]

Same.

[Chris Lopez]

Hard money lenders get their money from private investors. They're not getting it from Wall Street. They get it from people like me and Dave and our 401ks. A lot of times they're not IRAs.

[Dave Meyer]

Yep.

[Chris Lopez]

And so they take the money and then they're lending it out to fix and flippers and people who need bridge debt and then a lot of other just deals. But those are like the main asset classes I focus on because I had relative knowledge on there and also had a really good network of people that I could like find deals from that way as well. And I did some other smaller deals to just kind of like test the water and you know, learn about it.

[Dave Meyer]

That's great again, man. Dude, we gotta, we gotta hang out next time I'm endeavor. We, we've sort of done the same exact stuff. I think it makes so much sense. Like I'm not taking down a 20 unit multifamily property to renovate. Like I don't have the skill set to do that. But I know it's an awesome way to make money. Right. Like you see people doing this successful all the time and you want to participate and this is an awesome way to participate with very little time. And I mean we could talk a little bit about this, but in my experience, Chris, passive investing is awesome because you do a lot of upfront due diligence. You got to figure out what's good about the deal. You got to really concentrate on the operator and make sure they know what they're doing. But after that you kind of do nothing. You just look at quarterly financial statements and make sure that you're on track. And of course that comes with trade offs. Like you don't have the same liquidity in a multifamily deal. Sometime in debt funds you still have liquidity, but earn funds you have some liquidity. But that's very appealing to someone who's still doing other stuff and has other interests outside of operating a deal.

[Chris Lopez]

So maybe Chris, just give us an.

[Dave Meyer]

Example of one deal you did that you really like and maybe tell us, have there been any deals that have gone wrong?

[Chris Lopez]

I got lots to talk about both. So a deal that I, a couple of deals I really liked. I like investing in funds, which is, you know, a syndication is usually like a single investment to an apartment building. Hey, here's 100 unit apartment building. We need to raise $5 million for it. You invest in that. A fund will be multiple apartment buildings or multiple houses or multiple loans you lend out. So I'm a big fan of investing in funds. I'll give you two quick examples because it creates diversification because hey, some, some individual deals do really well. A lot will do kind of towards a pro forma and one or two usually don't go the way is planned. Right. That's just investing and that's life. So I sold some Denver rentals a few years ago and invested in a value add multifamily fund with, I mean, I think they have like 800, 900 doors in the portfolio on there. And of course I'm a very small owner of that, but heavy concentration. The Midwest.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah.

[Chris Lopez]

So I got geographic diversification. I'm getting cash flow and then really seeing how the Denver multifamily market is just going through its 2008 right now.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah, it's tough out there.

[Chris Lopez]

Yeah, the Midwest is, you know, they're doing performing a lot better. So that fund has performed really well. While, you know, a lot of Denver deals have gone south and a lot of other, you know, multifamily deals gone sideways. I did a lot of investing into debt funds as well. Again a lot into like a Midwest debt fund because I wanted geographic diversification. And then they just pay out a higher debt funds are like pure cash flow.

[Dave Meyer]

They're great.

[Chris Lopez]

There's no principal reduction, no tax benefits, a lot of times a double digit cash flow. And so they were paying on the higher end a lot of debt funds. Now just because they're in the Midwest where there's less competition, the Midwest is more of a rental market. And so those were two, two deals that I invest in extremely well on and they performed extremely well as well up to this point. And that kind of was my thesis of diversify away from Denver, but really leverage my knowledge as investor to go out there and find the right investment, the right operators.

[Dave Meyer]

Well, I mean that makes a lot of sense for me. That is one of the major things about doing passive investing that I really like too, is that the diversification, not just in asset class, but geographically. I have syndications in places I've actually never been to, which is rare for me. When I do active out of state. I definitely go visit all those places.

[Chris Lopez]

Absolutely.

[Dave Meyer]

But passive. If you're working with a good operator, and you and I both seem to be data nerds, you can figure out if it's a good asset with a good operator from remote. And that's awesome because I don't have any active holdings, for example in the Southeast. But a couple of years ago and appreciation was exploding there I wanted to invest there and you were able to do that and diversify, and it's super cool. What about deals that have gone wrong?

[Chris Lopez]

I'd say compared to a lot of the horror stories you hear on the Internet, I've fared extremely well. I have not had any deals zero out yet. I'm not going to win on here. No complete loss is what I mean by zero out. I did catch a couple like the phrases a falling knife in the Denver market when things started turning in late 22, early 23. You're like, oh my gosh, we're getting this apartment building at 150 a door. This is amazing. You know, he'd done a bunch of deals in his areas, you know, especially the Denver deals where I'm having the most trouble. And that's because part of the Denver market and then also something else I put on my radar here is Colorado has had just a lot of new landlord tenant legislation come through the last couple years. And it's made things a lot more complex. It's made operating expenses a lot higher in terms of like, vacancy and, you know, how you do evictions and things like that, how you can collect some fees. And so the combination of the market going south and then the legislative headwinds really was like a double, you know, one, two punch on there. And so I've had a couple deals where distributions are paused y but luckily this goes back to like, you know, leveraging the network and the knowledges. I underwrite the operators the most because I'm, I'm trusting that person with my capital. And they are really good operators in terms like how they underwrite. Like they're SOBs when it comes to negotiating, which is good. They're wealthy themselves, so if things go sideways, they can feed the deal some themselves as well. And so, you know, hey, some deals have paused and luckily they've put good debt on there. And probably just hopefully the plan is just right out the store for next two or three years as the mark comes back, sell at probably, you know, principal or maybe a little bit of a loss, a little bit of a gain. But we're positioned where we can ride out the storm on those which I've been very, very fortunate with, to be clear.

[Dave Meyer]

Like, we're also going through a market cycle where multifamily, where a lot of syndications are concentrated, is getting crushed. I mean, like, nationally prices are down 15 to 20%. Some markets, it's even worse. Some markets are fine. But, you know, syndications have gotten a bad rap I think because the whole asset class is suffering and people bought at inopportune times. Not that the deal structure of a syndication, remember syndication is just a deal structure. It's not a particular deal or a particular asset class. Syndications themselves I don't think are the problem. It's that the operators bought at bad times, you know, like, so there might be a bad operator, there might be adverse macro conditions, but for me at least I don't think it's the fault of the deal structure and that it was the fact that it was a syndication. You just bought the wrong asset at the wrong time.

[Chris Lopez]

Man, they're starting to meet some really good opportunities in both worlds out there now.

[Dave Meyer]

Oh, I agree.

[Chris Lopez]

What I like about the passive side now is like the operators that, you know, just, they underwrote deals poorly or couldn't. They just weren't good operators. Those guys are washed out now. The people who are still doing deals, they're the people usually the good operators of course, always do your due diligence. Look at their track record, all that stuff. Like I'm not giving investment advice here but like it's weeded out a lot of like the subpar operators. And now I think like there's great buying opportunities in both like you know, active residential and both in commercial active and both like commercial passive type deals. So I'm like really excited right now. Like the, the, you know, there's pain but like there's lots of opportunity coming down the pipeline.

[Dave Meyer]

I think it's only going to get better for the next couple months. But I'm starting to see good deals for sure. I'm revving up. I just sold some property too to go buy more stuff because I think there's going to be better deals out there anyway. I digress. I want to turn the conversation to just like how people can do this because I think this, this transition from active investor like you were doing and I still do to passive like how do you make that transition successfully? Because I think a lot of people want to do this. Let's get into that. But we've got to take one more quick break. We'll be right back.

So if you are an experienced investor considering more passive investing options, Chris is going to lead a five week live cohort to help you navigate the transition from landlord to limited partner. Anyone who joins the cohort will get access to two weekly live Zoom sessions starting July 28th. You'll also get a free 90 day passive pockets trial, access to portfolio analysis software and more. If you want to Run a full diagnostic on your current portfolio, reduce your tax burden and get a step by step plan to transition into passive investing. Get all the details and join the cohort with [e-mail] transition if you want.

[Chris Lopez]

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[Dave Meyer]

They're built for this stuff, whether it's.

[Chris Lopez]

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[Dave Meyer]

Welcome Back to the BiggerPockets podcast.

I'm here with investor Chris Lopez. We're talking about how Chris has gone from being an active investor building his own portfolio in Denver to taking a more passive approach. And Chris, I want to talk about how our audience can follow a similar.

Path if they want to.

Like we said, there's points of divergence in your investing career. Some people choose to go all in and become an operator. Some people just stay with the slow and steady approach that they've always done. But I think a lot of people are interested in this passive approach. So how do you recommend people make this transition?

[Chris Lopez]

Measure twice or probably measure like twice. You know, like be very intentional, be very data driven. Going back to portfolio review, my framework is I load every property into a spreadsheet or software and I go through and say, hey, what's return equity? And then I run through three options. You can keep the property, which means keep it as is, optimize it, pivot to an Airbnb or now, you know, room by room. Living or co living is a hot strategy right now for cash flow. Hey, can I convert the property or keep it as is Second option is can I do a cash out refinance? Can I extract the equity and then go use that cash I pulled out to invest elsewhere? The third option is you can sell the property to extract the equity and then go invest a lot. And I used to always, you know, sell in 1031 exchange, right? So I get the tax benefits of 1031 exchange where I get defer my taxes, defer my depreciation or capture and go buy a new asset. So you can sell and you can either do 1031 exchange or you can also just sell, pay taxes and invest elsewhere. So if people go through and they look at their portfolio and for each property they go through and look at these three options and then they look at their goals. It gives you an amazing here is where I am presently. And then you can look at the investment opportunities you have in your market, partnerships outside the market, you know, stocks dst, syndications, other rental properties. You can go out there and say, hey, I'm sitting here. What can I start doing? And I always tell people, do a lot of what ifs and just play it out. And you know, the great thing about real estate is you don't have to make all these decisions and, and transactions in 30 days. Right. Map it out. And then if you got the worst performing property and it's the biggest headache, maybe just sell that and reposition.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah.

[Chris Lopez]

Selling 1031 exchange, or sell and invest in a syndication or sell, invest in the stock market and just, you know, make one or two moves a year and over, you know, a five, seven year time frame, rebalance your portfolio. And I still own active rentals.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah.

[Chris Lopez]

And I'm a big believer. Hey, I, I want to have both and I like both.

[Dave Meyer]

We talk about this a lot on the show these days. It's like, I know there's this edict in, in real estate. People a lot of say, like, never sell. I think that's absolutely crazy. Like, why would you do that? Why would you hold on to something that's not performing as other assets probably could. I think a lot of people just don't want to go through the exercise that you just talked about, which is like, you got to go and do the work, and it's not a ton of work. I have spreadsheets that are associated with my book that you could check out. I'm sure Chris has spreadsheets too. Like, there are ways that you can do this. It's not that complicated. You just have to put in a little bit of work to be able to go through and do this. But I think one of the big things that hold people up on Passive investing, Chris, is just the idea of where do you find the deals, where do you find the operators, and how do you vet them? So can you just give us a brief idea of like, how people can go about that?

[Chris Lopez]

So, you know, two main ways I look at is your personal network as investor. A lot of times of networks will go out there and network with your, your, with your investors, your professionals, everyone out there, see what deals are doing. Other things are like platforms like Passive Pockets. About a year ago, BiggerPockets acquire passive pockets. And I'm very plugged in that community. I do some podcasts over there as well. You take the resources that like BiggerPockets has for active investing. They have that for passive investing. And they also have a deal room too. We're going to see actually sponsors on there. They present their Materials. And a lot of times you also have community reviews, community feedback, other investors underwriting, and sometimes investors have invested in previous deals with them and give you real feedback. Hey, this investor was great. Or this guy, red flag, red flag. Never invest with him again. So I'm a big fan of Passive Pockets as an amazing resource, looking at deals and learning that, learning that game.

[Dave Meyer]

Yeah, I mean, this is such a valuable thing because I've found in my own transition that being around other people who do syndications is super helpful. Like getting advice from someone who's super active, you know, who's an operator on syndications or on debt funds, it's not really that helpful. You want to sort of like build a community of people who are doing like minded things. Which is why we started Passive Pockets. It's a great free resource, that podcast that Chris is on. We also have our own forums and stuff there that you can check out there as too. So. So that's really good advice. What about sort of like the skills that you need? Because you still need to underwrite these deals and they might be a little bit more complicated than buying a single family or just like a duplex.

[Chris Lopez]

Yeah, I mean, I would say for active investors out there, you probably got like 80 to 90% of the skills you need to underwrite it. Because I mean, as an active investor, like you know how to do rent comps, you can look at pro forma and be like, hey, a 10% increase in rents every year is BS. So you have a lot of skills on there and you have to fill in that, like remaining 20% with understanding the legal structure and also understanding how to underwrite the operator. Because it's like investing in Apple or a company in the stock market. Right. When I invest in Apple, Tim Cook does not care about my opinion and I have no influence over Tim Cook. And when I invest in syndication, that operator, hey, at least they'll take my phone call. Usually like Tim Cook. But I don't have control and no input. So I am, you know, completely hands off. So it's really learning how to do the legal stuff and underwriting the operator, like the two new skills active investors have to learn and one other resource. So I've gone through transition myself that helps with my clients here in Denver. So a really exciting program that I get to kick off that's kind of a joint venture between Bigger Pockets and Passive Pockets is a five week active to passive cohort. So it takes through a lot of the methodical steps we talked about on the podcast today over five weeks we go through and review people's portfolios. Your goals, Learn the basics of underwriting passive deals. We spend a whole week on just tax advantage strategies from Active passive because you typically can't do a 1031 exchange unless you're on like a million dollar plus track. Just the way things are structured, you can't do it. So we go through very methodically how you can go out and look at your portfolio, learn active investing and either make your first investment or maybe start transitioning some of your rental properties and create a game plan for it. It does kick off July 28, so it's coming around the corner, but I am super excited to kick it off and would love to have everyone on there come join us.

[Dave Meyer]

Dude, that is awesome. That is really, really valuable. I get this question all the time people who want to make this transition. So if you want to check that out Chris where do they go?

[Chris Lopez]

So biggerpockets.com forward/transition will take you to the course page. View all the details there and you can reserve your spot and come join us for our July 28th kickoff.

[Dave Meyer]

So anyone who wants to learn how to do this successfully, obviously, as we've heard over the course of this episode, Chris is an expert in this and will be a great teacher to help guide you through the transition from active to passive investing. I wish I had this kind of help while I was trying to figure this out a couple of years ago. Chris, good luck with the cohort. Sounds like an awesome program and thanks so much for being here. This was a lot of fun having you and thanks for sharing your story.

[Chris Lopez]

My pleasure. Thank you so much Dave.

[Dave Meyer]

And thank you all so much for listening to this episode of the BiggerPockets podcast. We'll see you all next time.

[Chris Lopez]

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.

[Dave Meyer]

Or any other podcast platform.

[Chris Lopez]

Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Moss 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.

[Unknown]

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.