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Should you invest in real estate or pour your money into the stock market? It's a question you're probably asking yourself right now as you create your financial plans for the year and work on building wealth. So today we're digging into it. Should you put a down payment on that local property or buy more into the s and P500? Hey, everyone, I'm Dave Meyer. Welcome to the BiggerPockets podcast. Today's episode is a follow up to one of our most popular shows from a year ago. We've got former Biggerpocket CEO Scott Trench. A year ago on this show, he proclaimed himself a big bear on the stock market and he announced he was selling $1 million from his stock portfolio to reposition that capital into real estate in Denver. Now, a year later, S and P is up. It's up 15% from that conversation. And Scott is back. And I'll get an update on his life since stepping away as CEO of BiggerPockets, his recent work hosting the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, and then I'll ask him if he has any regrets about that big financial decision he made last year. But more importantly, I'm also going to get his take on the markets, stock and real estate and more for the rest of 2026. I want to find out, is Scott doubling down on real estate and continuing to sell off equities? Or maybe he's changed his outlook and he's back to stockpiling ETFs for the next 12 months. And I'm curious what he recommends for other investors striving towards the same level of financial freedom that he's achieved himself. So let's find out. Scott Trench, welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast. It's so good to see you. Thanks for being here.
B
Good to see you as well, Dave. It is.
A
It's been a while and I'm sure the audience is eager to hear. For those of you who don't know, Scott graduated successfully financially free now and stepped away as Biggerpocket's CEO a couple months ago. So what. Tell us what you've been up to.
B
Yeah, I've been doing a lot of. A lot of lifting weights, a lot of hiking. I got a ski pass for the first time in since 2017.
A
Dude, that is way too long living in Colorado. That's.
B
Yeah, but this year the goal is to go 10 times. So I got a ski trip planned for two or three weeks from now. And yeah, just been hanging out, enjoying, enjoying life and been doing the BiggerPockets Money podcast and having a blast doing that. It's been really fun.
A
Nice. What, what's been going on over at Money? What are you guys focusing on these days?
B
Yeah, we're, we're basically the goal is to build a DIY financial planning toolkit. So I think it's very frustrating that you can't even find like a basic spreadsheet to put in your financial position if you are somewhat sophisticated investor with some kind of complexity. So just like creating, here's a basic personal financial statement, here's a goal setting template, here's some calculators that can help you make very basic decisions around there. And eventually what I'd like to do is I'd like to put out about 25 different financial plans for fake people that others might find familiar.
A
Oh, interesting.
B
Oh, I'm a real estate investor with a complex portfolio. I'm a broke at 50 trying to catch up to retirement and just kind of like, oh, you should do something different in this situation than over here and provide those kind of templates so people can make their own plans and maybe bring them to an advisor.
A
I'd love to see them. I absolutely understand this pain point. It is very difficult to find these things. I am pretty good at this stuff and I've struggled even to make my own financial planning stuff in Excel because it really, it's. Especially when you're in real estate, it is difficult to build that into, you know, a traditional retirement plan. Figure out where you want to allocate resources. So please send them my way once they are done and we'll share them with the audience, of course. But we are here today because I want to understand. I always enjoy sort of just talking to you and about the market and what you're doing and strategy. I think that's something you're always been great at and it's fun to talk to you about. So we're going to get to that. We're going to hear about Scott's 202026 predictions approach to investing. But we got to hold you accountable to your 2025 goals because you were here a year ago doing this. So let's go through your 2025 predictions.
B
Well, just to kind of start the conversation here, one of the reasons I've gotten into vibe coding is because I'm awful at the prediction. So this was a disaster.
A
Right.
B
From a prediction standpoint.
C
Right.
B
So last year I put together a deck call. I get Irrational Exuberance 3.0 and I'm like the stock market, the s and P500 in particular is at all time highs or close to all time highs from a Cape or Shiller PE ratio. That's crazy. I don't understand that. I'm not taking a part in that. I was like, gold has surged recently. I don't understand Bitcoin. I'm not taking a part of that. Bonds are too low. Where do you go for all this stuff? And so my move at that time was to sell portions of my stock portfolio and move it into paid off real estate. Because I'm like, I can get a 6,7% cap rate deal here in Denver all cash right now and go with that. And so that's what I did. I ended up selling a million dollars of S&P 500 and putting that into a quadplex. I actually sold a little bit more than that and I bought another duplex a few months later. And so that quadplex I underwrote to a 6.5% cap rate and I just did my taxes and annualized. It was almost exactly that, like 6.42% with property management. So I got what I was looking for with, with that quadplex. The duplex has some work, so I'm finishing up stabilizing that. There is a tenant in place. And so I began to work three or four months post close. So we'll have to come back next year to see what that cap rate ends up being. But it should be higher. Yeah, that was what I did with those funds. And so I got my cap rate and you know, depending on how, what you want to assume for appreciation on an illiquid asset, some appreciation there. And then I missed out on the 12% growth from February when I sold to the end of the year. We're recording this in early June, January of the S&P 500 plus whatever yield came from it. So that was like $100,000 loss on those, on those moves compared to what I would have gotten if I just stayed in the S&P 500 over the course of the year. Now who knows what The S&P 500 will do this year. Maybe it goes up even more and that move looks even worse. Maybe it immediately crashes or doesn't go anywhere for a while and that ends up. So time will tell how that ends up looking, but from year one perspective, doesn't look so good on that front.
A
Well, I love the honesty, but it's like, you know, you, you're still up. You're just perhaps up on paper as of today, less than it would be. We'll see. No one knows. Yeah, but I'm curious, just like from a philosophical perspective, is that something you regret or beat yourself up or like, how do you think about that kind of decision?
B
No, the first property, every single month, every single month I'm able to transfer five and a half, six thousand bucks. You know, someone says a little less when, when I have like property taxes or insurance and you know, there's a reserve in there for CapEx, you know, but, but I'm able to just transfer that and I spend it.
A
Yeah, that's great.
B
Pays for my life. Right. Second one, you know, again, like for the first three or four months it did, and I knew I had this, this, this project in there that was all factored into my, my underwriting. So once I get that stabilized, that should do the same a little bit lower, like, like four and a half to 5,000 on that. And that just feels great between those two properties alone. Not to mention the rest of my rental portfolio and that still half of my net worth that is in the stock market in investments that are either the S&P 500 directly or in other stock market ownership.
A
Yeah, I think that's the right way to look at it because obviously it can be easy and somewhat tempting to say, oh, I should have done this, I should have done that. But I made a similar decision. I did not sell nearly as much stock, but I sold some stock at the beginning of last year too, just because I felt like there was risk. And I don't necessarily think the stock market was going to crash, but I think the probability of the crash is going up and I'd rather just take risk off the board. And the way I think about that is like, I'm willing to give up some potential gains to take risk off the board. And sometimes that works out where, yeah, you, you don't realize as many gains as you would have in the stock market. But like a year ago, who knew which way the wind was going to blow? And I think it's a totally rational decision to try and hedge risk and real estate. I think just more of a sure thing, at least in the last year or so. And I would argue going into this year as well.
B
Yeah, I felt and feel way better about it in terms of, like, I can, I'm spending that money. Right. Like that's the difference. If I was saying, oh, I'm going to wait 30 years and just accumulate, then I, you know, then maybe that's different. But I'm, I'm actually spending the cash flows generated by this rental property to fund my lifestyle. That's a major improvement for me in this particular situation. Although it's clearly has cost me somewhere approaching six figures ish.
A
But again, we'll see. I guess that's a good transition to what we're looking forward to in 2026. How are you feeling about the stock market this year?
B
One of the things that this year I'm going to with my humble pie and I'm not going to be using words like irrational exuberance 3.0 or anything like that. And I'm not even going to pretend or have any input at all on any asset class outside of real estate. I feel like my real estate takes over the years have been generally fairly close. I've never been wildly crazy in the wrong direction on those in my time at BiggerPockets. I feel comfortable talking about that. I have no idea what the hell is going to happen with Bitcoin. I don't understand gold and all this stuff de dollarization. If that's going to continue or just revert wildly, I think I could flip a coin and come up with something on items there. You know The S&P 500, the same stuff I was talking about last year continues to scare me, you know. And there it's like hey, it's trading. It's like a 40 times cape ratio. Some people don't like cape. It's at the highest ever price to sales ratio in history. It's trading at a highly elevated price to forward earnings in there. Very high trailing earnings. One thing that's I've been noodling on is AI spending. AI capex alone is like $400, $430 billion is where it's going to shake out in 2025 and it's going to be 600 billion next year. And what's interesting about that is I'm sure you noticed this, but I use AI all the time now. Of course, yeah, whenever I vibe, I'm switching between these vibe coding apps all the time. It's free or very low cost each time I use it. And every three months the model I'm using is made obsolete by the the next one developed by some competitor. And so I'm like, what's interesting about that is I believe that the bulk of that is capitalized by these companies. So it's not showing up in your price to earnings report when you look at Global S&P 500 price to earnings for a trailing basis. But it's spend. It's not capital expenditure, it's spend because of how rapidly it becomes obsolete in my view. So I think that's even like another thing on there that I'm like, okay, I'm interested in. But at the same time it truly is making things more productive. It's truly making life easier and faster and making everything easier for me as an individual. So surely that's going to show up on the scoreboard somewhere in profits or earnings or revenue or individual income, somewhere in the world that's going to show up on the scoreboard making the world a better place or people more productive at least. But it's just like, is that all going to translate to corporate profits for these, the Mag 7 or the Fangs? I don't know how that'll play out. So I only have questions this year and I'm like, I'm sitting very comfortable with my diversified, safe, boring portfolio, large cash position of two and a half years of spending in my paid off rentals and I'll probably miss out on something, but I just have no idea where it's going to be, where that next piece is going to come from. And I think that there's still plenty of risk on the table. So that's my take this year and next year we can count the next 200,000 that I miss out on this particular move.
A
I'm sort of in a similar headspace as you. That's like I'm at a point in my career, luckily where I don't need to maximize profits and like part of me just wants to just kind of like protect what I got and keep going slow and steady. So I'd love to actually talk to you more about portfolio allocation, Scott, because this is a super important and tricky question for our audience, but we got to take a quick break. We'll get to that right after this. Running your real estate business doesn't have to feel like juggling five different tools. With resimply, you can pull motivated seller lists, skip, chase them instantly for free, and reach out with calls or texts, all from one streamlined platform. But the real magic is AI agents that answer inbound calls, follow up with prospects, and they even grade your conversations so you know where you stand. And that means less time in busywork and more time closing deals. Start your free trial and lock in 50% off your first month at resimpli.com biggerpockets that's R E S I-M P L I.com biggerpockets for decades, real estate has been a cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios. But it's also historically been sort of complex, time consuming and expensive. But imagine if real estate investing was suddenly easy. All the benefits of owning real, tangible assets without the complexity and expense. That's the power of the Fundrise Flagship Fund. Now you can invest in a $1.1 billion portfolio of real estate, starting with as little as 10 bucks. The portfolio features 4,700 single family rental homes spread across the booming Sunbelt. They also have 3.3 million square feet of highly sought after industrial facilities. Thanks to the e commerce wave, the Flagship Fund is one of the largest of its kind. It's well diversified and it's managed by a team of professionals, and it's now available to you. Visit fundrise.com bpmarket to explore the fund's full portfolio. Check out historical returns and start investing in just minutes. Carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of the Fundrise Flagship Fund before investing. This and other information can be found in the Fund's prospectus@fundrise.com Flagship this is a paid advertisement.
C
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C
Sure.
B
I mean my portfolio is, is very straightforward. About 40, 45% is in real estate equity here in Denver, Colorado, in multifamily properties that I own and I have a property manager but could operate here. And that's what I know. I'm kind of digging my heels in for a slog on that front for a little bit. But with the low leverage, I'm generating pretty good cash flow from that almost entirely alone funds my lifestyle. And then the other 55% of my wealth is spread across various retirement accounts, free tax retirement accounts like my 401s or equivalents, post tax like the Roth, my HSAs, my after tax brokerage accounts. And that position includes a two and a half year cash reserve and then is allocated into fairly aggressive stock investments. Generally speaking, my new investments, the new cash that I put into it when I do have cash inflows, is tending to go into value stocks right now particularly I like these, these relatively low fee actively managed value funds from Avantis, both domestic, international and emerging market.
A
Why such a big cash position?
B
Several reasons. One is I'm a real estate investor. Two is I'm no longer the CEO of a big company so I don't have this large income coming in. And then third, I wrote a book called Zet for Life and I think it would be particularly embarrassing to go bankrupt after having authored such a book. So I keep a particularly large cash position even if it is a drag in my overall portfolio returns.
A
See, people don't talk about the unexpected, the hidden consequences of being an author or a public personality. You have to hedge against going bankrupt. Everyone needs to. But you need to do it a little bit more. It's pretty funny. All right, well, cool. Thank you for sharing that because I think sometimes I talk to real estate investors on this show, Henry James D. People you know as well, like, they're 100% in real estate and you clearly believe in real estate. So why so much in the stock market then?
B
Well, I'm 35, but I won, right? I'm very lucky. I got what I wanted out of my financial portfolio. I do what I want with my day at this point. And so I just want to maintain that position on an indefinite basis and be able to harvest my portfolio. I'm a little bit even more conservative probably than this 3 1/2, 3.75% safe withdrawal rate for my portfolio. So it's that diversification across these different stock portfolios to make sure that the growth is there long term to sustain that position.
A
Well, good for you and congratulations. It's an incredible place to be. Being able to say that you've won at 35, I think is the dream for pretty much everyone. So let's turn our attention to real estate because obviously we all want to hear your take on real estate right now. You alluded to a slog. So what do you. What are you seeing in the market right now?
B
Now for real estate, I'm going to just dive in there. And I think that the word I'm going to use to describe what's going to take place over the next three years is absorption. That's it. That's the theme I've got here. And I think that that is really going to be the main driver of what happens in the real estate market across the nation. Now, every region is different, but I think in most regions around the country, on average, you saw rents not go up very much, maybe decline a little bit. And that's really a problem for real estate investors who are really betting on inflation implicitly on housing costs as part of the core thesis behind the investment. And the reason you didn't see that we've talked about this for years, is the onslaught of multifamily supply. We're specifically talking about the residential market right now and the historic deliveries in 2024 and in the first half of 2025. So we've been talking about that for years. And those abated right in the second half of 2025. And now heading into 2026, we're going to see relatively low net new deliveries of multifamily across the nation. And what is going to happen, I think, in 2026 is that vacancy rate is just going to come creeping down. It's going to come down maybe 200, 300 basis points in some of these markets like a Denver. And what that's going to do is that's going to drive rent growth. Two years ago I would have said rent growth was going to be very high in Denver in 2026. And the reason I'm going to say it's going to be more muted absorption this year is because the demand side of the equation has changed in a lot of these places with a lot less movement. And I think a big part of that is the huge change in immigration policy in this country, for sure. And for the record, I think it's a good thing to have the border under control in there. We won't get into more politics than that. But just that alone is stopping several hundred thousand net new illegal immigrant arrivals on a monthly basis. On top of that, you have deportations. I really don't know what source to believe on deportation data at this point. I think it's actually wild how hard it is to get believable data on that point. And these are either voluntary or involuntary. But no matter how you slice it, you're getting close to about half a percent or maybe even a little bit more than that in terms of population differences nationally versus what you would have forecast two years ago if you just expected those numbers to continue. So there's other forces at play with that. But I think that alone is actually going to have a fairly reasonable impact on and slowing absorption rates over what you might have otherwise thought was going to happen at this point. Zero vacancy. And it's going to compound each year. I think you're going to see that rent growth that I thought was going to be really high in 2026, 2027 and 2028 two years ago. I think you're going to see it much more muted. I think you're going to see something in the 3% to 4% range for rent growth in 2026. And then you're going to see something a little bit higher than that in 2027 and higher yet again in 2028. So it's still going to be strong rent growth, but it's not going to be. I was putting up some big forecast numbers. I thought we were going to be bumping double digits in 2027 for rent growth at least in some markets. And I think that number needs to be tempered now because the demand side is just a little lower. Rent growth is common, but it's not going to be the party and rent growth that I think landlords were thinking was going to happen two or three years ago based on this delivery curve. On the supply side, I'm a little.
A
More pessimistic than you are, to be honest. Like, on a national basis, I think it's going to stay close to flat, maybe 1 to 2%.
B
No way. No, no. You're going to see. Because you're going to see. You're going to see net absorption.
A
I'm just worried about household formation. I just think the demand side, I, maybe I'm too pessimistic, but I worry about how stretched people are. Like, the rent burden numbers are really high. The wage growth numbers are starting to come down. The unemployment rate for young people is really high. So obviously it will be market to market. But on a national basis, I think if I had to bet, I'd say it's between 0 and 2, not up to 4, but we'll come back next year. Hold this to this.
B
I'll go a little bit more optimistic than that. I'd say it's going to be in the 3 to 4 range. Okay, 3.0% to 4.5%. Somewhere in that range.
A
Well, I started around BPCON last year calling this, like, era that we're in, like, the great stall. It just feels like everything is stuck, right? And like, prices are kind of flat. Rents kind of flat. Like, what, what do you think this means? 1 for prices and then perhaps more importantly, strategically for our audience, like, what do you do about this?
B
I don't know from a.
A
Pricing.
B
Pricing is so difficult for me because, you know, I look at the Denver total pricing and I would have said, I would have said there's no way I'm not coming on this podcast here in January 2025, not under contract on my next rental property, deploying another round of that, of that liquidity that I have. And I look around the market in the last three months, two months, and I don't see, I don't see very many deals to buy compared to what I saw in June and January, February last year. This is small, multifamily in Denver, so it's a subsector of that. But I'm like, I'm like, why is it actually harder for, for me to buy an unlevered property right now at a great deal or price point than it was this time? Last year I would have expected either that rent growth to start propelling and that's why I'm finding that challenge, or I'd have expected the prices to continue going down and I'm buying that whole curve down operating perspective. So that didn't happen either. From a pricing perspective, I'm not seeing the prices go down, I'm just seeing stuff not really selling. A lot of people put something on the market and then take it down. But I think that that's the, that's the real problem here is nobody really needs to sell.
A
Yeah.
B
And that may not be the case for a long time.
A
Well, especially in residential. Right. Because people have fixed rate debt, so they're just going to hold on. Yeah.
B
And a third of properties are owned free and clear. Right. Or some crazy number like that.
A
40. Yeah, it's, it's crazy. Yeah, it's. But I think, I guess the only forcing function could be if rents keep not going up. But you know, taxes are going up, insurances are going up, maintenance and repairs. So your margins could get compressed even though things are kind of stable from a price perspective. And so that might be an impetus for some people to sell.
B
Yeah. Like there should be in theory reasons to sell. Right. People move, people get divorced, people die, people get sick, people, you know, have, have problems at their properties or whatever. But I mean, it just doesn't seem to be happening yet. So I think that's going to be a challenge here. I don't really know what to make of it.
A
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C
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A
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B
Last year my moves were really made because I'm leaving my position here. I need income or I want more income to make sure that I feel really good about defending my day to day lifestyle. Now it's more like, okay, I'm actually chasing yield if I do this and I'm just not finding the opportunity that I would have guessed would be here at this point.
A
Yeah, it's interesting. I still look at the Denver market I'm willing to buy. I haven't bought something in Denver since 2018 and it doesn't look that good to me, to be honest. But other parts of the country I do feel like we're getting more inventory. Like when I look at properties in the Midwest, it's starting to open up for the first time in two or three years. I was looking at properties in the Northeast, in the Southeast. Like it really I think is just market to market specific, which is how real estate is supposed to be. But it makes it kind of hard. Right. Especially for newer investors. Like what do you recommend to people? Like do you wait, do you just like set a strict buy box and be patient? Like what, what's your advice?
B
I think that the core challenge right now for folks that are not buying all cash is negative leverage. Right. And so when you have, when you're, when you're buying even a six cap using six and a half percent debt, third fixed for 30 years, that is a really, that's a pretty all in bet on appreciation and on rent growth. Growth, right. You hear? And so I think that's the challenge is you really have got to wait, you've really got to hunt for that. Those deals that don't have that negative leverage if you're going to use that or you got to force value, the opportunities are probably still there for very creative and very ambitious folks who are willing to kind of rent by the room, do short term rental work or find, you know, live in that property where they're sharing, we're sharing with roommates, or find that assumable mortgage. But I think you got to have a really great deal, great financing or one of these other cash flow strategies to really get the same advantage, the relative advantage out of house hacking that I got with a simple duplex purchase.
A
Yeah, there was a time for Most of the 2010s where if someone asked me where to get started, I just say house hacking no doubt, like no questions asked. But there's some limitations to it now, especially in really expensive markets. Denver, Seattle, San Francisco. Renting is better, even house hacking. I think you and I collaborated on a house hacking calculator once and, or buying and renting and stuff. And I've, I've put it in and you know, renting is cheaper in a lot of places. I would for certain people recommend renting and making sure you still invest that money into something like either in an index fund or into a cash flowing rental somewhere else. But yeah, I don't, I don't think it is as simple as it used to be. But in a lot of less expensive markets it does, I think still makes sense. It might not be as good, but as I've talked about a lot on the show, I think trying to compare your returns now to 2014 doesn't really make sense. What makes sense is is this the best use of my time and money today. And for some people that is still true, but again in those expensive markets that might not be true anymore.
B
Yeah, this brings us in a circle, wonderful circle to two things. So you say renting is better and they're not building new housing. So is rent going to really go down? Like that's like core to that thesis of like rent should grow over the next three years in particular. And then the second thing, I think the other question I think that someone, you know, I'd be asking myself is man, like I believe in index fund investing, I believe in buying U.S. stocks and holding on for the long term. And I also believe that price does matter at some point and price in terms of stocks is not just the absolute price or whether it's an all time high. Who cares if it's an all time high? It's the ratio, the amount of income you're buying per dollar that you invest. And right now you're paying as much as you've ever paid for that in U.S. history other than a point in time around 1999 or 2000. And that's, I think the other challenge to this is what are your alternatives in terms of building wealth. And I think that that's what's confusing me and you. It sounds like last year and worries me to a certain degree and maybe worries other people who listen to this. I think that's the challenge investors have to figure out. For me the answer has been diversification and that's maybe sleep better at night. But it certainly didn't put More points on the board in 2025.
A
I think diversification is the only way to go in this kind of economy. No one knows. It is as hard to predict or to guess what's going to happen probably as it's ever been. Maybe people always say that, but it does feel that way, that a lot of the rules are different now or there's a lot of variables we haven't had to contend with in the past. And so it just feels super confusing. So I get it. But I, I find myself gravitating. I've always gravitated towards real estate, but, you know, when I think about what I'm doing in 2026, it just feels less volatile to me. Like, I. If I can find a good deal, I feel pretty good about buying that and that it's going to be good. Finding a deal is hard, but I don't have the same level of like, like nervousness about it that I do with the stock market, where I'm like, it's totally out of my control. Like, there are forces of AI that I really don't understand. But like real estate, it's like defining a deal is harder than it used to be, but when you find one, like, I feel pretty good that I can operate that and that my performance is going to be what I expect it to be. Sounds like you hit yours on the head as well. And that's sort of what gives me comfort about real estate in this kind of a climate. Yeah.
B
So, I mean, again, I sleep better at night with it, but I'm not putting more points on the board. So I don't know what that looks like. I think that this year it's kind.
A
Of like irrationally confused, maybe, or rationally confused. Maybe it is rational just to be confused.
B
Right. But, yeah, I'm not confident there's going to be very large price changes on a national basis for housing in this country. In terms of the asset value.
A
I agree.
B
I do believe I'm a little bit more bullish on rent growth than you because of the very low supply that we're expecting in 2026. Interest rates are anybody's guess. So on the supply side, low demand side, still low, but not as low as the supply side. I think you're going to see rent growth and then I think interest rates are the wild card. Maybe a new Fed chair comes in and lowers rates, or maybe they lower rates and we still can't lower interest rates because other things increase treasury yields for various reasons. So I don't know what's going to happen on that front. And then I think that the stock market, it sounds like price to earnings and price to sales, and none of those things matter anymore because AI is just going to come in and blow things up so far and so high that none of the old rules matter and it just goes to the moon on stocks.
A
Yeah, for sure. Well, thank you, Scott, for being here. It's always fun catching up with you. Congrats on the family and everything seems to be going well and we'd love to see all the progress that you're making over at Money when you're ready to share it with us.
B
Yeah, absolutely. Just go over there anytime@biggerpocketsmoney.com and check it out. And Dave, congratulations. Another great year with Biggerpockets and more booming business for you in your real estate portfolio.
A
Well, thank you. Thank you. And we'll definitely have you back on soon. Scott, thanks for being here.
B
Yeah, let's talk about how wrong I am with that rent forecast.
A
Yeah, we'll see which one is right. Or we might both be totally wrong. Well, thank you all so much for listening to this episode of the Biggerpockets podcast. I'm Dave Meyer. He's Scott Trent. 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 episode 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.
Podcast: BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast
Episode: Scott Trench’s $1,000,000 Bet on Real Estate (Update)
Host: Dave Meyer
Guest: Scott Trench (former CEO of BiggerPockets, current host of BiggerPockets Money Podcast)
Date: January 21, 2026
This episode revisits Scott Trench's bold decision one year ago to move $1 million from stocks into Denver real estate—a move he made under a bearish outlook for the stock market. Host Dave Meyer catches up with Scott to see how that wager played out, explores Scott’s post-CEO life, his current financial strategies, thoughts on the real estate and stock markets for 2026, and actionable advice for investors seeking financial freedom today.
[01:42–04:15]
[04:15–09:06]
[09:16–12:24, 17:00–19:43]
[19:43–26:33]
[30:03–34:20]
[34:20–36:42]
“Last year I put together a deck... called it Irrational Exuberance 3.0... S&P500 at all-time highs. ... That was what I did with those funds. ... And then I missed out on the 12% growth from February… That was like $100,000 loss…”
[04:27 – Scott Trench]
“Every single month I’m able to transfer five and a half, six thousand bucks... Pays for my life.”
[06:59 – Scott Trench]
“I only have questions this year. ... I’m sitting very comfortable with my diversified, safe, boring portfolio, large cash position, and my paid off rentals and I’ll probably miss out on something, but I just have no idea where it’s going to be…”
[11:55 – Scott Trench]
“For me the answer has been diversification and that’s maybe sleep better at night. But it certainly didn’t put More points on the board in 2025.”
[34:18 – Scott Trench]
“It just feels super confusing... I’ve always gravitated towards real estate... Defining a deal is harder than it used to be, but when you find one, like, I feel pretty good...”
[34:20 – Dave Meyer]
Candid, introspective, practical, and supportive—both hosts speak openly about mistakes, uncertainty, and the realities of wealth building. They avoid hype and encourage realistic, disciplined approaches for investors in today’s market.
For more resources, visit biggerpockets.com or check out Scott Trench on the BiggerPockets Money Podcast.