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Everyone's heard of rentals, house hacking, and even fix and flips. But what if I told you there are four niche strategies outperforming in 2025 that most rookies don't even know exist?
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And look, these aren't just buzzwords. We're talking about real deals where rookies can create values in ways the average investor is simply overlooking. So if you're a rookie and you want strategies that are working right now in 2025, not the same old stuff we talked about before. This episode is for.
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The Real Estate Rookie podcast. I'm Ashley Kerr.
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And I'm Tony J. Robinson. And with that, let's jump into our first niche strategy.
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So this first one is a Section 8 overhang. And this brings into account low income housing and specifically the low income housing tax credit. So a lot of people have heard of section 8 and if you haven't, it is when a person qualifies for for financial assistance to pay for their rent from an organization such as your local housing authority. So here in Buffalo it is Belmont Housing. And a Section 8 voucher is somebody applies and most often the rule is that their income has to be like less than the medium income for that county, things like that. There's different rules. You can Google your local housing authority to see actually what the amount is that qualifies for somebody for low income. But usually your tenant will go ahead and do that themselves. You really don't have to be involved until they want to move into your property. And that's where Section 8 will come in and do an inspection of your property, make sure it is rent ready and then you will actually sign a lease agreement with them to actually pay you part of their rent income. So it could be a portion of it and it will be different based on what the person can qualify for and, and then your tenant pays the additional portion so you can do a lease agreement with your tenant. Some of the housing authorities do it different ways depending on what organization you go through to do this. But if you just search section 8 vouchers in Buffalo, New York or whatever your city is, you'll be able to find the housing authority that actually handles them. And they usually have a landlord tab and it will tell you everything you need to know about becoming a landlord that accepts Section 8 tenants. And they even have their own listings there where you can list your property for rent. So all of the like counselors there that help people get placements, they can look at your listing and maybe they'll know already have somebody that can it's waiting for an apartment to move into there. Okay, so that's section 8. One pro of section 8 is that people can consider it guaranteed income because it's the government paying the income and not necessarily relying on the tenant if they lose their job or different things come up. So during COVID people really liked section 8 because you still got paid that portion of it. Another thing that I've seen From the Section 8 tenants I have is that they are more likely to pay also because if they stop paying, they lose that Section 8 voucher and now they get no funding at all. So those are some of the benefits. I've actually never had a bad experience with Section 8 resident, but there are people that have and people that stay away from it. But one advantage that isn't often talked about is the low income housing tax credit. So this is actually where you can get the tax credit and you have to comply, of course, with rules and regulations and your property has to fit the bill. But this is an additional benefit that can put more money back into your pocket. And Tony and I recently did an episode on what we're doing for tax planning and tax advantages. And this is another way to save money from these tax advantages that are available out there for real estate investors. So Tony, when you had your properties in Louisiana, did you have any Section 8 tenants?
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No, no. No Section 8 experience on my side. That's why this strategy, I think is even more interesting to me because I'm, you know, it's all new and foreign, but I guess, you know, help me understand like. So section 8 is obviously subsidized rent, you know, rent being subsidized by the government. But the low income housing tax credit, just walk me through, how does that work? So basically, if I'm a landlord and I buy a property that satisfies the conditions for this, this low income housing tax credit, am I getting some kind of tax benefit that offsets the income of that property? Just how, like, how does it actually work, the credit?
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So when you would file your tax return, you would get the, the tax credit savings on your, your tax return, you know, for you, you know, report your income and expenses for it. And I honestly don't know exactly how it's calculated for the tax return when you're reporting the rental income. But I do know there are some restrictions as to like even how much you can charge. And it has to be like under that certain amount in order to fit like the low income housing tax credit like cap that they have. So some of the reasons I think this is actually worth looking into for rookie investors is because affordable housing demand is actually exploding and with higher interest rates and rental rates increasing, it's getting harder and harder for people to find affordable housing. And if we do start to shift into a recession, this is actually can be a recession proof income for you because Section 8 will still pay most of the bill for these renters that you have in place. Or you know, if somebody's living in a luxury unit and all of a sudden they've lost their job, affordable housing may be what they need. So one thing that I did want to share is how to actually find out if a property is actually eligible for this. And this is one of the nice things about this strategy is looking for properties is that you can most of the time find out if it qualifies before you even purchase the property. So hud they actually maintain a property database. So this is the LIHTC database and this is where you can search by city, county or even zip code and it will tell you if the property is already part of the program. The next thing you could do is also contact your like your local state housing finance agency, commonly referred to as hfa and you can tell them the property address and they will actually just tell you if it's already approved and also when the compliance period ends. So some of these tax credits, these programs, like, there's also one for like Timber that I've learned about too. They have an end period where you can get these tax credits but they end after so many years. So you have to like commit and this one is usually 15 years. You commit to being the low income housing 15 years and then after that you can decide if you want to re enroll or if you'd like to do something else with the property, which I think gives it flexibility that it's not like something you have to do forever with the property. You can also go ahead and get your property approved. If you already own a property too and you maybe already have a section 8 person in place there and you're not enrolled into this program but you want your property approved, you can go ahead and actually go through the process to you get it approved to get that tax credit to.
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So Ash, if, if I'm tracking correctly, really what we're talking about here is just stacking two strategies together because not every section 8 property also qualifies for this low income housing tax credit. And not every property that qualifies for low income housing tax credit is also being filled with Section 8 tenants. But you're saying if you combine both of those, you get the certainty of the Section 8 voucher and the government backing up their, their rent payment. But then you also get the tax benefit that comes along with this credit. So we're really putting kind of two strategies together. Focus on affordable housing.
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Yeah. And I, I think this is also another way to stabilize a property you already have. So if you already have a property, you could go ahead and do these two different things, these two different strategies and implement it into that property to be able to get these benefits and maybe make it a better performing property. So I actually went and looked up what the, what Section 8 actually pays in my area. And so I looked at one of the, like it breaks it down very, very specific by zip code. And so I looked at one of the, the properties that I have and I'll tell you the market rent first. So the market rent and this is based off of my properties I have there. And my friend manages 240 unit apartment complexes there and I know some other units and what they're going for or whatever. So the market rent for a two bedroom is around 950 for just middle of the road, no luxuries, nothing. Just your regular standard apartment. 950 for a two bedroom. Okay. For a section eight in that area, they would pay up to $1300 for a two bedroom apartment. So in some cases you may be able to raise your rent. Even if the market rent isn't there, you still can list it for that with Section 8 and they will pay up to that amount as long as the tenant they have is, you know, qualified for their portion. Like we've had circumstances where you know, Section 8 would pay it but then the person you know was on the, you know, only approved for $1,000 that they would get and they couldn't afford the extra 300 or whatever it would be. So. But yeah, so that's just, you know, something to look into if you're not looking for a new property is just seeing what you can do to maximize your rent now with a property you already have.
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All right, but what if you don't want to deal with tenants like at all? That's the beauty of land flipping. No late night maintenance calls, no lease agreements, just dirt that you can actually buy. So we'll cover what this is right after a quick word from today's show sponsors.
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All right, so we're back and our next strategy is what we call mid range land flipping. So we all know home flipping, you buy an undervalued home in disrepair, you fix it up and you sell it for more than what you bought it for. You get to keep the difference. But there's also this concept of land flipping where you can pretty much do the same thing, but with land what mid range land flipping is. It's, I guess most land flippers focus on like super cheap pieces of land. Think, you know, like 1,000 to $5,000 one or on huge development lots where there's going to be like a subdivision of, you know, a bunch of homes and that's in the millions of dollars. But there's this mid range land flip that's, you know, I don't call it like 50 to maybe $250,000. That's turned into a bit of a sweet spot for folks who are looking to do this. And you can buy a parcel with kind of good underlying fundamentals and that's, you know, are there, is there access, you know, can you actually get to the property? It's not landlocked. Are utilities nearby? Zoning is placement good. If you need to put like a well or septic or any of those things, you hold it for, call it six months, maybe a year and a half and then you resell this after making some small improvements and you get to keep the difference. I've never personally land flipped. Have you, have you ever flipped land Ash?
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No, I don't think that I have. I mean, I guess I would know if I did, but yeah, if I did, it was like accidentally with another property or something. But I do have 10 acres under contract that I did nothing with and I'm selling it for, let's see, $5,000 more than I bought it for. Definitely not covering my holding cost. But I really like this strategy because in my market I am seeing every single week on Facebook and the local group says to looking for, you know, two acres to build a home. Does anyone have anything available? And all across the US right now are builder incentives, like crazy incentives to purchase a house. But a lot of times builders already have their own lots that you can pick and choose from. And most of the time they're in developments. Like they're in, you know, a cul de sac. You know, you're right next to each other. So for the people that don't want to be right next to each other, you can go and, you know, buy 10 acres and parcel it off into five 2 acre lots. You know, you have to, you know, there's lots of things you have to check on this as to make sure there's enough frontage so that everybody can have a driveway to their house. You know, make sure that the town will let you parcel it off. Speak with the code enforcement there that, that it won't be an issue to parcel. And then you could even go as far as putting utilities there. Or maybe there's already utilities at the road where it's not a big deal to actually bring them to the house. So, you know, if you're getting pretty rural, you might, you know, you could put in a septic or well, have, you know, electric run under there. But that also can change how when someone's building their house, wherever you put the well, well, maybe that's where they wanted the bedroom because it has a view of this tree or something like that. And now they're not going to buy it. So that's just taking it an extra further step is having the actual infrastructure in. But just this morning I drove by a property that I remembered being for sale. I had to take my car to the dealership. So I took a different route on the way back from school, school. And I remember this property being for sale and it was a single family ranch home. And there was about, I don't remember how much land, but a lot of land with it. And the house was very dilapidated and just old. And it was just like a crazy amount of money. I don't know what it ended up selling for, but the person that bought it, when I drove by, I saw that the single family home had been fixed up, but they also had subdivided the land on the other side of the street and they had driveways put in. Some of them already had like contractors sign up front that people were, you know, coming in to do the foundation, put in the wells, things like that. So they had actually gone and subdivided this land. What ended up with the single family house? I don't know, like maybe they moved into that or maybe they rented out, but selling the lots paid for the whole thing, you know, so they. That's what I like about the opportunity of land. And this subdividing is like you can go ahead and buy it and then parcel it off and then maybe you keep a parcel for yourself to build, put a rental on, do whatever with, keep for the future for you to build a house or something like that. But I think that mid range is really key because you're going to get the developers, the house builders that are going to buy up those bigger lots where they can put a whole paved road through, create the cul de sac and have 20 to 30 lots right on there. And then smaller lots, you're just, you can only fit one house and sell it to one person and not be able to. To subdivide there.
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And I think that's why this One's kind of like that sweet spot. Right. Because you think about the cheap land those homeowners are getting bombarded with, people trying to solicit to, to buy their lots of land and the big parcels. Right, like that, that's where all the big institutional builders are going. But it's like that, that mid range, it's maybe a little less crowded. You know, you got less folks going after that. And then from an affordability perspective, I think you brought up a good point, Ash, of if I want to build my own home, sometimes. Well, first is sometimes it's cheaper to build right now than it is to even buy like a resale home in certain markets. Right. Like we know that that's, that's definitely a shift that's happening. But what, what about the financing portion? I think all of us understand that to go out and buy a traditional single family home, we go to a bank, we get a loan 10, 20, 30% down. What's this process like if someone wants to do this mid range land flipping?
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Yeah, and that is the difficult piece because it is harder to get a loan on raw land that doesn't have a property on it. The first thing to do is to check with the small local banks to look at getting a loan on the land through them. And some banks will do it if you put like 30% down or a larger amount down. The way that most people when they build a house, their contractor or their builder, if they're not buying a lot directly from their builder, some people will have their builder buy the lot and then wrap it into their home loan. So then they're not even owning the lot yet. The builder is building their house and when they close on their house, they're buying it all in one from the builder. Okay. So you don't have that luxury if you're going to go and do land flipping on this property of doing that. So talk to the small local bank, see if they would lend it on it. But still, that's a lot of cash to have upfront to put 30% down on one of those lots. And you most likely have to have some credibility or some kind of, you know, experience that they're just going to lend to you on this raw land. The, the best way is to get seller financing. Find somebody who will sell or finance a property for you for a year or, you know, give yourself a cushion of how long you think you need to actually parcel it off and sell each of those lots. The next thing is partnerships. Bring somebody in that has the capital you have the lot, you have the land. There's not a lot of things that you need to do to, you know, get this ready besides doing a survey to do the parcels and maybe putting in driveways to the lots. And sometimes you don't even need to go that far. But yeah, you could bring a partner in. And then I think the last thing that you could do is what that house I drove by today did. They bought land with a single family home on it. So they could have gotten financing on that property because there was the single family home. So now the difficult, the difficult piece of that is though, once you purchase it, you can't go and just sell and parcel off pieces of land because that land is part of the collateral of all the loan. So when I worked with this other investor, something he would do is go to the bank and ask the bank, can I parcel off this five acre lot? And the bank would basically evaluate what the value of the land was. Some may do an appraisal, some may just do, you know, book value, whatever. And they would say like, yes, that's okay, like there's still enough collateral in this property, it will work. So you can go to the bank and do that. Like, especially if you were adding value and you're rehabbing the property, then you'll be able to show, like, I put this property, the house is worth a lot more. Can I go ahead and section off this land? Or you could work it out that those five lots you're selling is actually going to pay off the whole loan. You would just have to time it so that those lots are all pretty much at the same closing time to be able to pay off the loan that you have it. But also if you find buyers for each of those lots, I think that would be a pretty easy way to find a private money lender to pay off your bank financing and they hold the note for three months or whatever it takes to actually close, make some interest off of you or maybe get a cut of the deal during that time or until you, you actually close on the other lots.
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I think one other concept too, Ash, is that the cost of this land in a lot of cases might be what you already have saved up for your down payment. You know what you were thinking to buy as a down payment. So you might be able to just go out here and buy some of this land and cash and then, you know, either partner with someone to do the improvements or, you know, whatever the cost may be there. But I think because the price point is so much lower, maybe it does open you up just to using the cash you have sitting around to go out there and take these down. But I guess the last thing that comes to mind for me on this ash is actually choosing the right markets to do this in. Because I think that maybe this works better in some markets than others. Right. Like I'm in California, one of the most expensive places to buy land. Right. To buy dirt. What do you think are maybe some of the things folks should look for as they think about markets to identify?
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Yeah, I think looking on the outskirts of the town, so looking where is their growth that's coming out of the town. So like I think of Denver, for example, like if when you're driving to the airport, like just. I mean, I've probably started going to Denver four years ago, maybe five. And just since then, how much is slowly coming out towards the airport, like the new development? Like, there was nothing there, nothing. And now there's, you know, things popping up. So I think going and looking at different cities or towns where there's a lot of growth and looking where are they expanding to? Where are the pockets where, you know, people who can't get houses in the area, they're. They're moving out a little bit. So look in those areas. And then I think another thing is to look at where there's rising building permits. So, you know, you can look online in most cities, what, how many building permits were filed, what they were filed for. And you know, the more building permits means there's more demand for land already there. And you can, you know, look, are these for residential homes? Do a lot of people want to build residential homes in this market? Then that's probably a good area for you to look for land for. In some, like, really good tools you can use is just like the county GIS mapping system. My dad actually showed this to me. He would use it when he would go hunting to look up who owned land if the deer he was tracking went on someone else's land or whatever. But this was like, I use this religiously for years and it's free to use. There's more advanced options that you can pay for, like propstream, things like that resimply. But the county GIS mapping is free and it will show you who owns a parcel, the mailing address, sometimes what the taxes are. But it will also tell you, like, is it what it's zoned as? It will also tell you, is there frontage? So is there road access? Is it vacant? Is there any property on it? So that's a really Useful tool. Then there's also like just looking for properties. You can go to landwatch land.com, you know, Zillow has a lots and land filter. And then also just even on bigger pockets, they have the market finder to help you analyze the market too.
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So obviously the mid range land flipping I think is a concept that more folks should be exploring, especially if it's something that makes sense in your market. But the third strategy that we want to talk about is bedroom count conversions. So exactly what this sounds like. The idea is taking a property and simply adding more bedrooms to it. It could be taking a two bedroom home and converting it into a three bedroom, or taking a three bedroom and converting it to a five bedroom. And we've actually had several investors on the podcast who have done this and various strategies. We had the Nossums who were leveraging the rent by the room strategy and they would buy a three bedroom house and convert into an eight bedroom property. Right. So we're talking a massive conversion. Then we also had Ariel Herrera, who heard a big part of her strategy was looking for properties that had oversized square footage for the bedroom count so she could go back and add bedrooms. So I think the idea of finding a property that has the footprint by the existing footprint and this is, you know, obviously you could do this by doing an addition, but I think we're more so focused on here is like within the current footprint, can you add additional bedrooms? And the reason why this is so valuable is because when you think about both appraised value and rental income, both of those things increase somewhat substantially when you add additional bedrooms. And so the, the income from a three bed is substantially higher than the income from a two bed. In most situations, the appraised value on a three bed is significantly higher than the appraised value on a two bed, again in most situations. So finding these properties that give you that opportunity, I think the strategy outperforms because it's a relatively small change. Reconfiguring some walls, adding some closets, enclosing maybe a space that's already open to get a pretty fast and high ROI as opposed to doing like a full gut renovation on something else.
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So one of the things that I really like about this strategy is that I love hidden MLS deals. Things that you go through a showing and look at a property and you get excited that you found something that not everyone would see when they're on the mls. So, you know, and Tony's talking about, you know, using data scrim, looking at all these things to figure out if there is that, that key point there, but also just visiting the property and seeing it. And yes, you don't want to waste a lot of time going to showings, different things like that. But when you find an opportunity, and you know, we're specifically talking about bedroom conversions, but maybe there's something else in your market that will really, you know, add value to a property that maybe somebody could leave out of a listing. And I can't think of a single example off the top of my head. But you know, maybe there's a pond on the property or something like that. In my area, people love to have a pond on their property. So different things like that. And with the bedroom conversion, one thing I will say, because I have made this mistake before, is if you are on a septic is make sure that your septic is approved for how many bedrooms you want to have in the property or even if you're adding another bathroom to add value, that it is approved for that number. So I purchased a property that was a three bedroom. I put in a four bed, a fourth bedroom. The septic that is in and past inspection is only for a three bedroom and not approved for up to four bedrooms. So when I go to resell that property at some point, I will not be able to market it as a four bedroom because when they get the septic tested, they're going to fill out that sheet and say we're buying a four bedroom house, that septic is going to fly, fail inspection because it's only meant for three bedrooms. And then I will have to pay out of Escara for a new septic to be put in at that property, which I do not want to happen. So at the time of selling that property, it will be listed as a three bedroom with an office, with a playroom, with a bonus room. Whatever we have to say to, to not make it a bedroom, which really, really stinks, because that would make it an extra bedroom. But also as a buyer, here's exactly what we're talking about. Here is an opportunity where there's actually more value in the property. So maybe somebody's going to come and look at this to rent this property out and they're going to say, oh, I could actually use that other one as a bedroom and I can get a lot of money for a four bedroom property and not even care about the septic. So I, I think there's, you know, different, like, you know, looking at, you know, the code and area, what, what actually means turning something into a bedroom, what that actually Is like, you know, around here, almost every house has a basement. So if you're putting a bedroom in a basement, like, you have to make sure there's some kind of like, access outside. So like on this property I was talking about, it had a walkout basement. So the bedroom we put was in the basement, but there was actually a window. But where the window was placed, this bedroom had to be a massive bedroom because there was no other way to configure it because we had to have that window. And when we had code enforcement come to the property just to check everything, things like that, he had, he had said, like, this window is like literally the bare minimum of what code is for somebody to be able to escape out of if there was a fire. So like, you know, window size, making sure that you have the correct window size for, to make it count as a bedroom. So there's a lot of little details like that you don't want to miss out on.
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I know what it can sound like Ash is talking about a lot, but honestly, I think this strategy in my mind is actually simpler than doing like a full house flip. Because if, if the property is in good condition and we're literally just moving a couple of walls, I think that's easier than having to do a full gut rehab where, you know, you're, you're tearing down all of the walls and you're, you know, redoing plumbing and electrical and, you know, all these other things come along with the full rehab. So in, in a lot of ways, it, it actually, I think might be a lower risk way for a rookie to get into the game while still doing almost a, a burr type deal, but with way less work and way less overhead.
A
When I, I was in college, the guy that I dated, he was in a frat and, and all the fraternity guys and sororities, they lived off campus in these houses. And I remember him and his friends were getting a house and we went house hunting. And I could not believe what was considered bedrooms for these college kids. So like, you're in college towns, like, you probably have way more like, flex as to what can be considered a bedroom. Like, every single dining room was turned into a bedroom. The house they ended up settling on, the dining room was the biggest bedroom. And then behind it was two more bedrooms. Then off of the kitchen was a pantry, and the pantry had a, a window. And the pantry was considered the fourth bedroom. And so they rented this house and it was like, someone is actually going to stay in there. And it was like a gross, disgusting room. And it was like, I mean, obviously it was a big pantry, but it was still like the smallest room and just like the creepiest room. And what they did to decide as to who would get what room is, they each picked one competition. So like one picked basketball, one picked a video game, one picked, I don't know, whatever. And so they had like this whole tournament and every place that you got in each of the competitions, you got points. And based on your points, you got, you know, pick of your room or whatever. So you got to pick. Which I, I actually thought that was pretty creative, but it was just so shocking as to like, wow, college students don't care. Like, you can live. Like, even the house was disgusting. Disgusting. Like, we ended up, me and him ended up living there over the summer to do like a summer program or whatever, before anybody else even moved in. And we, so we did the initial walkthrough with the landlords, people that work for them. I don't even know. Literally the bottom of my shoes were disgusting. And I was like, I don't think I could live here. I don't think we had to go to, you know, go to the store and buy all these cleaning supplies and I just scrub it. But it still was just like, it's just dirt and grime that never, ever comes out.
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But you guys still moved in. Yeah.
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Oh, yeah. There you go. Yeah. So I had to live there for six weeks out of the summer. And then I was back to my very nice luxury on campus, you know, apartment with four of my friends. And we had a nice kitchen, everything. We had two bathrooms in our thing.
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So the moral of the story is go. Go after tenants with low expectations, like a bunch of boys in college.
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Okay, so we're gonna take our last ad break. So what if instead of moving walls, you placed an entire home home on a piece of land? Prefabs are giving investors a way to create affordable housing at half the local median price. And they're selling fast. It's like flipping, but you're starting with dirt and ending up with a brand new house. Let's break down how that works for rookies after a quick word from our sponsors.
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D
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C
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B
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A
We're going to be talking about prefab homes. So this is pre fabricated homes where the home is like a modular home or even a manufactured home. But I specifically like modular homes better than manufactured homes because they first of all look and feel more like a, a stick built home, I guess. So these prefabricated homes are built most of the times in pieces and then trucked to your land and put together in pieces. So I've actually never done this. Tony, any of your Airbnbs or any tiny homes or anything set up as prefab homes?
B
No, but a friend of ours, Brody Fawcett, I know he's working on a development, it might be close to done now. And it was a short term rental development and he got his homes from Zipkit, I think it was, but they offer modular homes as well. And he's building out like a little tiny home community built of nothing but these modular homes.
A
Yeah. So like one of the benefits of this is you can you, you have it built a lot faster than if you were starting from the ground up because you could ideally order one of these before you even close on your land where if you haven't closed on your lot, you can't start building from the ground up yet until you've actually closed on the property. And plus since a lot of these are, they're you know, kind of the same built out. Like you're probably picking a floor plan and picking a property. Some of the lead time is even less because they're already just manufacturing, making these. I did know a guy once who was building one on some land and he talked about like the, the finishes you can pick out. Like you know, his wife was deciding on what light fixtures and things like that. But it was, they would bring the thing and you know, the pieces and put it together and then there was like a period of time where it had to like sit before they could actually like move into the property too and like do a bunch of like the little finishes and, and things like that to actually make it move in ready. But the thing I like about this is because usually it is cheaper to then building like a, a stick home from the ground up. I, and I say stick home because that's pretty much what's, what's built around here is your framing out a property in wood and then you know, building out from there. It's not you know, concrete homes or anything like that, but that, that this is more affordable. So like this actually might be a great option for a rental. I don't know the pros and cons of it. Like I think it would be really interesting to look at like the lifespan of a modular home. Like how is the, the quality of the build compared to actually building one from the ground up? My guess would be it's not as good. But that's only just because nobody I know does it. And if it was better quality, why wouldn't you do it?
B
I guess I think the other piece too for me is just like the, the appraisal of those homes as well. Like typically if you go traditional stick built versus like a manufactured home, the manufactured home just simply won't appraise for as much as a comparable stick built home. And I wonder if the, the modular homes maybe have more upside when it comes to their, their long term value. Because if someone wants to, to buy not just for cash flow today, but for long term wealth, are they potentially setting themselves up for less wealth building because they went with the modular homes? Yeah, I don't know. But like some of these modular homes that I've seen, like you would, you could look at them and not even almost know that they weren't stick built, you know. So my hope is that as this technology gets better that maybe it is an option for more folks to get in quicker, more affordably than going the traditional sick bill route.
A
I guess a couple of the other advantages to this is also like the speed to market that you're going to be able to get a property up faster than anyone else to be able to sell it. There's a little recession resistance, so the demand for starter homes rarely disappears. And that's what I'm seeing in my market is the houses that are still flying off the MLS are this perfect starter homes for people. And then I guess like the last thing would potentially be the equity upside. You're essentially creating a house out of just land by placing a prefab onto it. You are multiplying basically the value of your investment by adding value to that land. So instead of, you know, doing a burr or rehabbing a property, you're adding value by putting a property on that land. So I think some of the things to look at as far as like finding the right market are where are high housing costs or is it really expensive to actually build or to buy a property? And you can put in these cheaper prefabs and be more affordable to hopefully attract more buyers to your property. Look for counties with flexible zoning and also builder friendly areas too. Well, those are our four niche strategies that we wanted to touch on today. If there are other strategies that you think are really the Go to strategies for 2025. If you're listening to this on YouTube, please put them into the comments. We'd love to do another episode like this and share with you guys strategies, tips, tricks and advice that we have as investors and what we hope been able to research and find out for you guys. I'm Ashley, he's Tony. Thank you guys so much for joining us and we'll see you on the next episode of Real Estate. Ricky.
Podcast: Real Estate Rookie
Hosts: Ashley Kehr & Tony J Robinson (BiggerPockets)
Date: October 6, 2025
Episode Theme:
Ashley and Tony reveal four lesser-known real estate investment strategies outperforming the standard rental and flip models in 2025. Their focus is on practical, beginner-friendly approaches for investors seeking their first, second, or third deal—not those looking to scale rapidly, but those wanting sustainable, smart gains. Each strategy includes examples, market context, step-by-step guidance, and their signature casual “rookie” banter.
This episode dives into four non-traditional real estate investment strategies poised to outshine the usual rental, flipping, or house-hacking routes in 2025. With a focus on actionable insights for rookie investors, Ashley and Tony break down:
Each strategy is detailed with what works, how you get started, financing or compliance tips, and the unique pros and cons for new investors. The episode is full of tactical tips, memorable moments, and practical advice for rookies.
[00:38–10:57]
[13:13–26:37]
[26:37–36:09]
[40:14–44:23]
Ashley and Tony make a compelling case that 2025’s best real estate opportunities—Section 8 with LIHTC, mid-range land flips, bedroom conversions, and prefab homes—are overlooked, practical, and approachable for new investors. The emphasis is on creativity, leveraging local trends, and stacking benefits (like guaranteed rent plus tax credits). Check the show notes and BiggerPockets resources for more, and contribute your own ideas through the BiggerPockets forums and YouTube channel comments.
Hosts:
End note:
“If there are other strategies you think are the go-tos for 2025...please put them into the comments.” – Ashley [44:23]
This summary delivers the episode’s spirit: practical, supportive, jargon-free, and full of illustrative real-deal stories and tips for new investors.