The “Escape Corporate” Rental Property Plan I Followed to “Retire” in My 30s

Summary

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Podcast Summary: BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast

Episode: The “Escape Corporate” Rental Property Plan I Followed to “Retire” in My 30s

Host: Dave Meyer
Guest: Matt McCurdy
Date: March 23, 2026

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode features the inspiring journey of Matt McCurdy, who escaped the traditional corporate career path and achieved financial freedom in his 30s through rental property investing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Hosted by Dave Meyer, the episode unpacks Matt’s step-by-step progression: from writing his first business plan, navigating the fear of his first deal, systematically scaling his portfolio, and leveraging creative financing—to ultimately "retiring" early. Listeners gain practical strategies, candid lessons, and actionable insights for starting and growing a rental portfolio—even from a modest starting point.

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Episode Breakdown & Key Insights

1. Why Real Estate? The Corporate Dissatisfaction Catalyst

[02:04]

• Matt was 27, “grinding away in a desk job” with little prospect for fast advancement.
• Reading Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad was a pivotal moment.
  • Quote: “I was in the typical role that a lot of people are in in corporate America,...climbing but didn't see it happening as fast as I wanted.” – Matt [02:04]
• Sought an alternative path for wealth building and autonomy.

2. The Power of a Written Business Plan

[03:28–05:00]

• Matt credits his MBA and corporate background for his decision to create a business plan before his first deal—even as a solo investor.
  • Quote: “If it's working for Fortune 500 companies, it probably would work for me.” – Matt [03:30]
• The act of writing clarified strategies and solidified commitment.
  • Quote: “Once you put that onto paper, there's something that happens...you're actually committing to this.” – Matt [04:26]
• Dave emphasizes few beginner investors make this effort, making it a “differentiator.” [05:02]

3. First Deal: Hustle, Lessons, and Marriage

[05:23–09:37]

• First property: $92,000 single-family home, significant “value add” through renovation (expanded from 3/1.5 to 4/2).
• Rehab was a team effort between Matt, his now-wife, and her father.
  • Memorable Moment: They got the property tenant-ready in under three weeks—right before their wedding!
    • Quote: “We bought this house December 13, 2013. We got married January 11, 2014. So...we went from renovating this house to getting married...many, many nights...it'd be midnight, one o'clock, and we were just going after it.” – Matt [07:25]
• Key mistake: Did NOT scope sewer line; learned the hard way when it collapsed during their honeymoon.
  • Quote: “I was actually dealing with a collapsed sewer line and tenants while on my honeymoon.” – Matt [09:19]
• Lesson: Always get a sewer scope inspection.

4. Scaling Up with Extreme Frugality & Creative Financing

[14:52–18:28]

• Lived below their means, saved every dollar from W2 jobs—aimed at maximizing capital for investments.
• Rapid portfolio growth:
  • 2014: Added 2 properties.
  • 2015: Procured 4 duplexes and 3 more single families.
• Used life insurance proceeds from a family loss to help with down payments (“Karen’s duplexes”).
• Discovered better financing through a local, aggressive loan officer (leveraged bridge loans).
  • Quote: “Shop around different [lenders and insurances]. You might find a better option.” – Matt [16:42]
• Real snowball began once he reached around 5+ properties.
  • Quote: “Once you hit five or more, it starts snowballing...instead of hundreds of dollars, it becomes thousands of dollars.” – Matt [17:37]

5. Decision Threshold: “Retiring” After Reaching Financial Goal

[18:28–21:40]

• Planned to reach financial independence at $500/month cash flow per property.
• By 2017, at about 20 properties = $10,000/month in cash flow.
• Corporate job ended in 2017 (job relocated; took severance as a transition).
  • Quote: “I ended up leaving Corporate America in 2017, or Corporate America left me...” – Matt [18:38]
• Concerns about unknowns: operational costs, maintenance, taxes.
  • Quote: “We are not taught to become entrepreneurs...we are taught to get good paying jobs and then go retire and then die. Ride it out.” – Matt [19:41]
• Transitioned from “retired” to “graduated from corporate America,” realizing he was busier than ever growing his empire.

6. Scaling Smarter: Packages, Creative Down Payments, and Property Management

[22:40–32:26]

• 2018: Bought package of 10 single-family homes off MLS—used commissions, cross-collateralization; only brought $100K to closing.
  • Quote: “I was able to cross collateralize some stuff...representing myself as a buyer. So I only brought I think maybe $100,000.” – Matt [23:35]
• Weighing less cash flow per property for ease of scaling (“turnkey” approach).
• Growing pains: Managed everything himself at first, tried out external and mom-and-pop property managers, eventually brought management in-house for quality and control.

7. Recent Play: Mobile Home Parks & 22-Home Package with $35K Down

[32:35–35:12]

• Continued to diversify into mobile home parks (2020, 2021) while sticking to single and small multifamily as his “bread and butter.”
• 2023: Acquired a 22-property portfolio in Cedar Rapids for ~$2.2 million with just $35,000 down by using commission and cross-collateralizing existing assets.
  • Quote/Memorable Moment: “I brought like $35,000 in cash...22...2 million dollar purchase....It's all about getting creative.” – Matt [35:10]
• Took advantage of a lull in the Iowa market and leveraged local relationships as a broker.

8. Portfolio Today & Giving Back

[35:25–37:18]

• Matt’s current holdings: ~50 buildings, 60 doors, 90 filled mobile home lots, 100 more lots to infill.
• Recently published a book, Corn Fed Millionaire: The Guide to Buying One to Four Unit Real Estate—created primarily for his son but aimed to share foundational, actionable knowledge with new investors.
  • “If I got hit by a bus, I have all this knowledge that I haven't shared with him...” – Matt [36:24]
• Stays active in brokerage and offers a free market report.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Short term sacrifice equals long term gain. That’s the way I look at it.” – Matt [14:54]
• “If you look at the way Matt…went from hustling his first deal to getting a little bigger...That’s how you scale.” – Dave [37:51]
• “It's all about getting creative.” – Matt [35:16]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:04 – Matt’s corporate background & “aha moment” from Rich Dad, Poor Dad
• 03:28 – Writing the business plan & the mental shift
• 05:23 – Details on the first rental property deal
• 07:25 – The “marathon” of renovating pre-wedding
• 09:19 – The collapsed sewer line and lesson learned
• 14:52 – Frugality, saving, and using a family inheritance to scale
• 18:28 – Leaving (or being left by) corporate and reaching financial independence
• 22:40 – First portfolio acquisition: 10 homes, creative financing
• 30:05 – Managing scale, hiring and firing property managers
• 32:35 – Recent focus: mobile home parks and the 22-property mega-deal
• 35:25 – Matt’s current portfolio and his book Corn Fed Millionaire

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Final Thoughts

This episode offered an honest, practical roadmap for anyone looking to exit the corporate grind through deliberate real estate investing. Matt’s journey displays the realities of hard work, rigorous saving, and creative problem-solving—while also embracing mistakes as part of the process. The conversation is refreshingly free of hype, breaking down the steps and mindset needed to build a scalable, sustainable rental business.

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Further Resources:

• Matt’s Book: Corn Fed Millionaire
• Free Cedar Rapids Market Report: investoredgere.com/biggerpockets

“You have to put in that effort up front. And then these opportunities, it does start to snowball...This is how you build a successful real estate investing career. It takes 10 years. It takes 15 years, but you can absolutely do it.” — Dave Meyer [37:51]

Transcript

[A]

Fifteenteen years ago, Matt McCurdy had everything most people want. A fresh MBA, a stable corporate job, and a clear path to retirement in 30 years. There was just one problem. He didn't want to wait 30 years. So he sat down, wrote a business plan for real estate investing and bought his first rental property. Then he bought a few more when his stable job became not so stable and he had to leave his W2 job. A few years later, he he didn't panic. He already had a backup plan generating income for him. So he decided to go all in on real estate and continue to build an impressive rental property portfolio. Today, Matt owns more than 50 properties and has achieved financial freedom decades earlier than he would have if he had stayed in that cubicle. Matt took his financial future into his own hands instead of relying on a corporation. And you can do the same thing. Keep watching to find. Hey everyone, I'm Dave Meyer, Chief investment officer at BiggerPockets. Today's show is an investor story with Matt McCurdy from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Matt's going to share his story of how he escaped the corporate treadmill by buying great cash flowing properties in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In this show, we'll talk about why he waited almost 18 months to buy his first property, how he navigated a crossroads of whether to stay small or keep scaling, and how he bought 20 home a single deal with only $30,000 in cash. That actually happened. It's a great story and there are a lot of lessons that all of you can apply to your own investing careers. So let's bring on Matt. Matt, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Thanks so much for being here.

[B]

Yeah, thanks for having me.

[A]

I'm excited for our conversation. Learn a little bit about your real estate investing journey. Let's start from the beginning. Tell us a little bit about where you were in life when you decided you wanted to get into real estate investing and what brough?

[B]

Well, I was in the typical role that a lot of people are in in corporate America, grinding away in a desk job. Didn't really see a way out of that. I saw a corporate ladder that I was trying to climb but didn't see it happening as fast as I wanted it to. So read the book that everyone typically has read Robert Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad, Poor dad, you know, and then it kind of took off from there.

[A]

That is a common angle. People, you know, reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad. How old were you at the time when you were thinking about this?

[B]

I think I was 27 when I read that book.

[A]

And what was your career like? You know, you said it was a desk job. Were you making decent money, just not fulfilling?

[B]

Yeah, decent job. Call myself middle class. Did a four year degree from the University of Iowa and move through two different corporate positions and in the supplier management role. So got to manage a lot of suppliers through project schedules, budgets, and from there just didn't see a way to transition to executive level to make the money I wanted to without going through the mundane manager roles that just grind people out.

[A]

So where'd you go from there, Matt?

[B]

Well, I started with a simple business plan. Speaking of my educational experience. Harped on creating a business plan and I also saw that through my corporate America experience. So I said, well, if it's working for Fortune 500 companies, it probably would work for me. So that's, that's what I first started with was a simple business plan. I knew I was going to be wrong from the get go. It took me a year and a half to actually buy my first rental property. But after that it was plug and play and rinse and repeat and try to go as fast as I could.

[A]

I love that. So tell me a little bit why you wrote a business plan. It's not something we hear a lot about in real estate investing. What was in it and what was the point if you knew you wanted to do real estate? Like, why go through the exercise?

[B]

It helped me clear up everything that was in my brain and what I was hearing, what I was reading, what I was learning. To put it onto paper.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And once you put that onto paper, there's something that happens between your brain, your nervous system, everything where you are actually committing to this and you're really thinking through it. You can have ideas all day long, but it's one thing to be very strategic with what you're trying to do in your business. And now you're trying to articulate it on the computer or writing it down on paper. Nowadays it's through AI.

[A]

Why not?

[B]

It's very simple now, so there's really no reason not to do it.

[A]

It's a differentiator. Right. Like so few people do it. Whatever format you want to put that in, that doesn't really matter. I think it's the exercise of like thinking through all the variables and what you're good at. I love that. I think it's really good advice that people should be following. So once you did that, Matt, what was your first deal? How do you go about actually getting in the game?

[B]

Yeah. So the first one was a prototypical single Family house that was three bedrooms, one and a half bath house in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, not too far from a local elementary and high school. Just location wise, it made a ton of sense. I wanted to position myself to rent to as many people as I possibly could.

[A]

No, I. I mean, I think especially for your first deal, just trying to get that mass appeal kind of rental where you. You're not gonna have a lot of vacancies, you know, you're gonna find a high quality tenant. Just makes a lot of sense. What was it like, though? Like how much you buy it for? How do you finance that?

[B]

Yeah, I bought it for $92,000, which sounds ridiculous nowadays.

[A]

It does. Which still.

[B]

This kind of shows you where I was at in Cedar Rapids in particular. We're right around probably 225 to 250 for that house nowadays. I was always looking to force appreciation, and really through that was just buying a house that needed some work. So this house needed about $15,000 worth of work. Some of it was sweat equity my fiance and I did at the time. But that was a three bed, one and a half bath that we made, a four bed, two bath.

[A]

Okay, so you were doing real value add. This wasn't just like cosmetic. You like, was doing some structural stuff. And you did all the work yourself?

[B]

No, so I would say half and half. I had a contractor. My actual father in law helped me on some stuff too, because I. My wife and I, or my fiance at the time, both of us had W.2 jobs, so we were very busy. But we were burning, you know, the candle at both ends, going over there after work, working on weekends, just doing anything and everything, kind of clawing to scratch and claw to get that put together.

[A]

How long did that take?

[B]

Well, we closed December 13th and we had a tenant in there January 1st, so.

[A]

Oh, okay.

[B]

Yeah, we weren't messing around. And that's.

[A]

Yeah, we're in. Celebrating the holidays that year.

[B]

No, we did. We bought this house in December 13th of 2013. We got married January 11th of 2014. So roughly a month later, we went from renovating this house to getting married. I can remember many, many nights, you know, it'd be midnight, one o', clock, and we were just going after. But we were young and stupid, you know?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, it helps sometimes to be young and stupid. At least in my case. Yeah, well, good for you. I mean, that's kind of the hustle that it takes, man. A lot of times when you're. You're just getting started, you just got to do what it takes, you know, it's going to be different for everyone. But recruiting your father in law, doing the work yourself, figuring out a way to get it funded, that's usually what a first deal looks like. I know a lot of people want to raise private capital or do something advanced right to start, but I think the hustle approach is not only the most common way, but. But often the best way. You learn a lot. You learn what you like, what you don't like, what to avoid in the future, and whether or not honestly if you're going to like this business. But I assume since we're talking here today, Matt, that you liked it. Even though it sounds like a stressful couple of weeks and, you know, very big push to get this thing open. Sounds like it worked out well for you.

[B]

I had my idea and I went with it. I'm too stubborn to stop. We had. I learned. Speaking of learning some things, I did not scope the sewer line, and that house, unfortunately had Orangeburg sewer lines, which people don't know what Orangeburg was. It was this magnificent, revolutionary product back in the 60s that they put in a lot of houses for sewer lines. And it was wrapped with some kind of cardboard, paper type exterior, which, you know, go figure, in the ground, it's eventually gonna rot and fall apart.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So on our honeymoon, I was getting phone call and I was actually dealing with a collapsed sewer line and tenants that were fortunately patient with me and. And were able to. We're able to get some people to help and while I was out of state.

[A]

Yeah. These are the things you learn right now. I'm sure you get a sewer scope on every deal you do, so. Sounds like a great first deal. Matt, I want to hear about what you did next, but we got to take a quick break. We'll be right back. As a host, the last thing I want to do or have time for is to play accountant and banker. But that's what I was doing every weekend. Flipping between a bunch of apps, bank statements, and receipts, trying to sort it all by property and figure out if I was actually making any money. Then I found Baselane, and it takes all of that off my plate. It's BiggerPocket's official banking platform that automatically sorts my transactions, matches receipts, and shows me my cash flow for every property. My tax prep is done, and my weekends are mine again. Plus, I'm saving a ton of money on banking fees and apps that I just don't need anymore. Get a $100 bonus when you sign up today at baselane.com BP Biggerpocket's pro members also get a free upgrade to Baselane Smart that's packed with advanced automations and features to save you even more time. 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 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 4700 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 profess and it's now available to you. Visit fundrise.com bp market 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 [e-mail] Flagship this is a paid advertisement. Most investors spend all their time talking about their high level returns, but that's not the number that actually matters. What actually matters is what you keep after taxes. And that's where multifamily real estate quietly stands out. With built in advantages like depreciation, the right deals can generate steady cash flow while reducing the tax drag. BAM Capital structures its multifamily investments around those fundamentals, pairing tax efficiency with disciplined operators and a long term approach. This isn't about chasing hype or guessing market timing. It's about building durable tax aware wealth over time. Learn [e-mail] Bam 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 4700 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 Funds [e-mail] Flagship this is a paid advertisement.

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[A]

Welcome back to the BiggerPockets podcast. I'm here with investor Matt McCurdy talking about his first deal, how he hustled into a single family home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Matt after that first deal, you know you had a couple of hiccups, but sounds like overall it went well for you. What do you go on and do after that?

[B]

That unfortunately I didn't have a bankroll. I didn't have the idea of syndications back then. So I really just used my W2. I did the old fashioned way. Saved a lot more than I spent. We were living pretty broke just to try to save every dollar because every dollar and cent got me closer to my end goal, which was ultimately to leave corporate America. So the faster I did that the the quicker I could get to it. So short term sacrifice equals long term gain. Oh yeah. And that's the way I look at it. So we 2014 we just bought a couple properties, two single family houses and then in 2015 we really scaled up a lot quicker with four duplexes. And then, wow, I want to say three additional single family houses.

[A]

And you were doing that just still with your W2.

[B]

So that is part of it. The other part is unfortunately, our. My wife, her. Her mom passed away in November of 2013. So we had that on the front end, bought that first house, and then got married. So we had a. Wow. Like I said, a busy couple months. But we use some of that life insurance money to help pay for the down payment on those four duplexes. We still have those four duplexes. We still talk about how those are Karen's duplexes. You know, it's just a great way to remember through that. But what we also did was find a different financing, basically a local credit union. And that loan officer was a lot more aggressive than what I was just used to dealing with with the first few properties.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And that's something I'll always advocate to do. I'm doing it right now. I'm actually trying to shop around different insurance companies. Always trying to shop around. Not necessarily rub it in the current people's face that you're doing it. Just do it kind of behind the scenes and. And see if there's other better options out there. And. And luckily we're able to find a different loan officer that. That took a little bigger of a chance with. It did some bridge loan stuff with us and, and made it work so we could tackle those four. It was a bigger bite than I was used to taking, buying four duplexes all at the same time, but they're all on the same block. Tons of synergies there. And then really, once you hit five or more, it starts snowballing where it becomes. Instead of hundreds of dollars, it becomes thousands of dollars. And now thousands of dollars just. Just sounds better.

[A]

Yeah. It also buys more.

[B]

Yeah, it does. It really does. And then every dollar that you're taking from that, especially if you have a W2 job like I did, I was just. It was just compounding so much faster for me.

[A]

It really does. Like, between the equity you're building, the cash flow you're getting, you're saving more money. It really does have a exponential effect. People call everything exponential growth, but it actually can be exponential growth when you're. If you're reinvesting your profits in the way that you should. So it sounds like you. You grew fast, Matt, but you were working at the same time. Your goal, though, was to quit your job. So did you have, like a number in mind? Like, if I Can get to x cash flow a month. I can quit my job and I need y number of properties to get that cash flow. Is like that what you were working towards?

[B]

Yeah, and I was just trying to keep it simplistic. I ended up leaving Corporate America in 2017, or Corporate America left me is how that went, but.

[A]

Oh, do you. You lost your job?

[B]

Yeah. So they moved my job to corporate headquarters and I didn't really want to move there, so.

[A]

Oh, fair.

[B]

It didn't really make sense for me to move, number one. And number two, I was planning on leaving in April of 2017, but they actually gave me severance until about April of 2017.

[A]

Is it funny how some things work out like that? Yeah, it's like meant to be.

[B]

It is. So what I was doing around that was like $500 a month per property.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Okay. So that's what I wanted. I think I had about 20. 20 properties at that point.

[A]

Oh, so you're making like 10 grand a month in cash flow, which, I mean tax advantage cash flow, too. It's probably more like making 12. 12 grand or 13 grand.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In W2 income.

[B]

Yeah. And looking back on it, I was naive like, oh, is this enough? Because, you know, as real estate investors, we know how much our P and I principal and interest are. The insurance, the taxes, all those things weren't as crazy as they are now.

[A]

No, it was much easier.

[B]

They were more stable. Nowadays it's a little different, but the big variable was your maintenance and repairs. What's that going to cost? What if like, five furnaces go out this year? Oh, man. But it still, it still felt weird because I went through the. The American educational system. We are not taught to become entrepreneurs. We are not taught to be out on our own. We're taught to get good paying jobs and then go retire and then die. Ride it out. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It still felt raw and weird, but I bet it's all right.

[A]

It's also kind of addicting when you have the cash flow and the W2 income. It takes a little pressure off the real estate side at least speaking from experience. Like, you have all this income that I think for most people covers your living expenses and then everything else. You could just keep reinvesting and reinvesting. But I'm sure you have to change your strategy a little bit. Right. Because now you're living off that cash flow, and it's not just pure reinvestment into your portfolio.

[B]

Absolutely. At first I said I was retired, and then I was like, wait a minute, my friends are making fun of me. Call me the retired guy. And I was like, no, I graduated from corporate America. So I graduated because flash forward to 2018. I was never busier. I. I couldn't believe how I went from fishing and golfing and trying to fill my time in 2017, see where I would go to just putting on the full throttle in 2018 and acquiring as much as I did. But it was a good reset because I didn't know where I was going to go. I wanted to make sure my numbers were right. I still couldn't believe, you know, that I wasn't going to get hammered with taxes. You know, I was just used to that mindset of the W2 where you get hammered with taxes. You're meant to kind of be average and work through kind of whatever they tell you to do. Whatever HR tells you you can have for a raise, whatever they tell you you can have for a bonus, you accept and you move on. And now I've entered a new space where it's up to me what I make. It truly is. And it's.

[A]

Yeah, it's so liberating.

[B]

It really is. It's very liberating, but also scary. Where are you going to come up with the money to grow at this point? Where are you going to come up with the money? If some of these risks actually come to fruition, I think it's cool.

[A]

The idea of just taking a little bit of time off, it helps reinforce that you really want to do real estate. Because if you have enough money to go play golf and go fishing and then you're like, actually, I like doing this. I want to keep growing. Like, I enjoy this. And I think that's where it goes from exciting and motivating. Because there's this financial element to being, like, fun, you know, and fulfilling, where it's like, you know, this is a business and it's something that matters to me more than just the dollars and cents. So, like, in 2018, when you dove back in, where did you apply your time and your energy?

[B]

It was the first time I acquired a package of single family houses. And that's a really good niche if you have the capital or you have the leverage to be able to do something like that. And this package was sitting on the mls. Oh, wow. It was just sitting there under rented. And that's what turned a lot of people off. They didn't understand what the market rent was for this, this portfolio, to give you an idea, those were $114,000 houses times 10. So 1.14 million. And I was able to cross collateralize some stuff. And I was a real estate agent, use my commission for some of the down payment, representing myself as a buyer. So I only brought I think maybe $100,000 to the. Wow, 20%.

[A]

Oh my God, that's amazing.

[B]

So fast forward roughly eight years. Some of those properties are pushing 200, some of them are 250. Wow, $250,000.

[A]

So on average, double, basically, you know,

[B]

in 2018, some people were talking about, well, maybe we're overpriced at that point. But going back to my business plan, I would have shied away from that because I wasn't making $500 a month in cash flow before repairs and maintenance. I was only going to make about 350 to 400 there. But the way I justified it is do I want to grow? Number one? The answer was yes. Number two is, okay, what have I been doing in the past to make that 500? And it was to renovate a lot of these houses. And there were only about one or two of them that truly needed renovated. The rest of them were just plug and play. And we were able to keep a lot of those tenants in, in place even after major rental increases.

[A]

I mean, I think this is part of the, the trade off that you have to make, right? It's like you make more if you dive deep into one property if you're going to do value add. But sometimes when you want to scale like Matt's talking about, you have to give up some of the immediate upside. It's not giving up the long term upside, but like, like you can't renovate 10 properties all at once, right? I would imagine in your position, you're buying 10 and you say this is more of a turnkey kind of thing. I might make a little bit less per unit on this, but I'm getting 10 all good deals at once, even if they're not all home runs. That's just part of the trade off as you scale is just figuring it out. You want to do one great deal at a time or a couple pretty good deals at a time. I think when you're at the point Matt was at the a couple pretty good deals makes a lot of sense. So, Matt, I want to hear more about how you took this over because I do think people are sleeping on this idea of acquiring portfolios as they scale. You were able to not put that much down. It might be more accessible than people think. We're going to dig into that, but we got to take one more quick break. We'll be right back. Here's the truth about passive investing. If the strategy isn't right on day one, the returns won't save it. Multifamily real estate offers structural advantages many investors are overlooking, including depreciation that can help offset taxable income while cash flow continues. BAM Capital builds its investment with that reality in mind. They are focused on solid operators, tax efficiency and long term performance. For investors who want real estate exposure without being landlords and who care about consistency over hype, this is a smarter way to allocate capital. 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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 [e-mail] flagship this is a paid advertisement real estate investors the April 15 tax deadline is coming fast. If you own rental property and haven't visited CostSegregation.com yet, you could be handing thousands of dollars to the IRS that you don't have to cost. Segregation.com is self guided software that helps you write off up to 25% of your building to generate huge tax deductions. With pricing under 500 bucks and average tax savings of $25,000, costsegation.com is fast and affordable, making it perfect for single family rental properties, condos, townhomes and even ADUs. What's more, audit Defense is included in the price and backed by KBKG, the number one cost segregation company in the U.S. cost segregation.com was launched over 10 years ago and has a 100% success rate under IRS audit. You heard that right. A 100% success rate and that's over 10,000 stocks studies. Go to costsegregation.com and use code taxdeadline to get 10% off your first report. Don't overpay the IRS. Head to costsegregation.com before April 15th tax season. Reminder for all the real estate investors listening. If you own rental properties, short term rentals, commercial buildings, basically anything that's not your primary residence, you need to know about cost segregation. It's an IRS compliance strategy that lets you accelerate depreciation on your property, which means you're paying less in taxes this year and keeping more cash in your pocket for your next deal. Cost Segregation guys is the go to firm, having done over 12,000 of these studies with 500 million in total depreciation identified. Head to cost segregationguys.combp to get a free proposal and see your potential tax savings. Tired of traditional lenders holding you back? Host Financial is here to change the game. They've ditched the DTI restrictions and they zero in on what really matters. Your property's income potential. So no more chasing papers for tax returns or personal income statements. Think about it. A lender that values your property's worth over your paycheck, that's the Host Financial difference. Approved in 47 states. They are ready to help you make your next big move. Curious if you qualify? Just head over to HostFinancial.com and find out. Stop letting outdated lending practices hold you back. That's HostFinancial.com where your property's potential meets unlimited financing foreign. Welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Matt McCurdy and I are here talking about his journey from buying a single single family home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa to buying a package of 10 properties in 2018. Let's talk a little bit about these 10 properties because it sounds great. You only put 100 grand to buy $1.1 million of properties, but I would imagine taking over these properties all at once is kind of like an operational challenge. What was that like?

[B]

It is. And then the part I didn't tell you, we actually were expecting our son. He's now 7, but he was born in, in mid November of, of 2018. We closed on those right around like Halloween of 2018.

[A]

Oh my gosh. So everything all at once.

[B]

Yep, of course that's the way I roll. But at that point my wife had a little bit of feedback for me. The question was how are you going to manage all these? Because at that point I was self managing everything and I started My path of hiring a property manager and what I did was I still self manage most of my portfolio, but everything I was acquiring moving forward, I was giving to a property manager because I was still being cheap and scarcity mindset of just not wanting to give over everything because I didn't value my time as much as I probably should have.

[A]

Did you hire a firm or were you trying to hire like a person who actually worked for you and just manage your rentals?

[B]

He was more of a mom and pop property manager versus like, you know, ABC property management company kind of thing.

[A]

Personally, I find those people to be more effective.

[B]

This one wasn't.

[A]

Oh, no.

[B]

Oh, yeah. I went through 2.1every year and then finally ended up hiring someone in house. And to this day, he's still my property manager.

[A]

Yeah, that's. I mean, that's kind of the dream, right? That's the property manager.

[B]

That's the ideal world.

[A]

Did it at least give you confidence that you could keep scaling from that point? Because, you know, like having hired a property manager, did that mean you could go out and buy more units? Did you want to go buy more packages? Like, what did that open up for you?

[B]

If anything, it helped me to really develop that team that Robert Kiyosaki talks about. Develop that team. You got to have a team. And maintenance and repair contractor type workers are just. They're tough. They're really tough to find because all those property management firms have those contractors and you pay for them sometimes dearly. But getting some of that control back was. Was definitely a blessing for. For the portfolio.

[A]

So Matt, after you did this 2018, still, you started to systemize this business. You're now not working in corporate. Like, catch us up to what you've done between 2018 and today.

[B]

I started looking at mobile home parks and I acquired a couple of those. One in 2020 and one in 2021. But I still didn't take my eyes off of the single family duplex area that, you know, I've. I've really have has been my bread and butter. And I ended up acquiring another package in 2023. Back again. Like, prices are white hot. Shouldn't be able to. To get anything. And I ended up buying a package of 22 houses.

[A]

Oh, whoa. In Cedar Rapids. Still all the same.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, that was another thing where I lowered my cash flow expectations, but I ended up buying in for the equity.

[A]

Because you got such a good price.

[B]

Yeah, it really made a ton of sense. I've combed through those numbers so Many times I couldn't believe what I was actually buying. I'm pretty sure from purchase price to appraisal value is roughly a million dollars. Wow difference. And that was me not turning a wrench on anything.

[A]

How would you not do that? Right. How did that come about? Like, were you looking for a package or did it just kind of fall into your lap?

[B]

That's a funny story. I'm a real estate broker in Cedar Rapids and I actually helped this client for the first property he ended up selling. But he just kind of started going with another agent and I guess she convinced him to put them into a package. Or maybe he got tired of dealing with the onesie twosie sales that, that I told him to do and he just wanted to be done and out and just the timing was right. There was a little bit of a lull in Iowa in the fall of 2022 and early 2023, where things were just kind of sitting a little bit longer than they had in the past. And everybody was thinking, oh, I'm going to have my house listed, have 10 offers in the first 10 hours kind of situation. And then when that stuff that didn't happen, people kind of panicked.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I actually told the agent, I said, I don't know how he's going to react to me even offering on these. He has my phone number. He could have totally just reached out to me and saved himself all this commission. But again, I was representing myself as the buyer and got commissioned to buy my own properties. And that one, I didn't bring much to the closing table either because I was able to cross collateralize one of my mobile home parks and use my commission. I think I brought like $35,000 in cash.

[A]

Oh my God. That's unbelievable.

[B]

22.2 million dollar purchase.

[A]

Unbelievable.

[B]

It's all about getting creative.

[A]

So Matt, we got to get out of here. But maybe just tell us before you, like, what does your portfolio look like today and what are your plans for the future?

[B]

Yeah, so my portfolio, I have roughly 50 buildings. So between single families, duplexes, 60 front doors, and then I have about 90 mobile home lots that are filled with about a hundred additional lots that I, I need to infill for, for mobile park stuff. And then just recently wrote a book, got it published right before, wow, Thanksgiving. So congrats.

[A]

What's on real estate?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I call it the guide to buying one to four unit Real estate. And just kind of really the, the idea was to, to write something. I never wanted to be an author, but I have a son that's seven and I'm not sure if he wants to be in real estate or not, but if I got hit by a bus, I have all this knowledge that I haven't shared with him or nor could he comprehend right now, just at his age.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

So I just wrote 15 chapters in this book of things that I, I really think are critical for investors to understand. And it's certainly only, I think, 160 pages long. So it's not terribly in depth to the point where you have all these strategies, but at least it gives you an idea of understanding things. And I try to put in stories and humor to make it fun and real life concepts kind of like what I've shared today in that. So, yeah, the book's called Corn Fed Millionaire, playing upon all these farmers in Iowa.

[A]

That's awesome.

[B]

I'm not a farmer. If you're wondering.

[A]

Is it out yet?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, we published it right before Thanksgiving of 2025.

[A]

Awesome. Well, check it out. Corn Fed Millionaire. I love the title.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And you can check me out. I have a real estate brokerage firm. And you know, anybody that's looking at Cedar Rapids Market, you can go to investor edgere.com biggerpockets and you can get a free Cedar Rapids Market report. Kind of tell you what's been going on. We're like every other metro in the country. We have a couple data centers that are coming online and just a ton of, of rental demand that we're seeing from that.

[A]

Well, Matt, thank you so much. Congrats on your success and thanks for sharing your insights with us. You know, I know probably buying packages of houses sounds difficult, but like, if you look at the way Matt sort of methodically went from hustling his first deal to getting a little bigger to getting a little bigger. That's how you scale. You have to put in that effort up front. And then these opportunities, it does start to snowball, whether from your financing or your deal flow. This is how you build a successful real estate investing career. It takes 10 years. It takes 15 years, but you can absolutely do it. And Matt, congrats on all your success. It sounds like you've, you've really done it all the right way. And happy to hear that this has worked out for you in the way you were hoping.

[B]

Yeah, thanks a lot. Thanks for having me.

[A]

And thank you all so much for listening to this episode of the BiggerPockets podcast. I'm Dave Meyer. 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.

[B]

The wrongs we must right, the fights

[A]

we must win, the future we must

[B]

secure together for our nation.

[A]

This is what's in front of us.

[B]

This determines what's next for all of us. We are Marines.

[A]

We were made for this.