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3 Steps to Buying Your First (or Next) Small Multifamily Property

3 Steps to Buying Your First (or Next) Small Multifamily Property

Small multifamily real estate investing could be your quickest path to financial freedom. These properties, from duplexes to quadplexes, typically offer higher cash flow and scaling opportunities than traditional single-family rentals, with less competition. After a decade in the game, it’s still Dave Meyer‘s top investment strategy. Wondering how to get started?

This episode lays out three beginner-friendly steps to dive into small multifamily investing. Anyone can break into this financial freedom-enabling asset class—even without prior experience. We’ll explore why small multifamily rentals are the ideal entry point for new investors and tackle the biggest hurdles to landing your first deal.

We don’t just talk theory; we’ll take you inside a real small multifamily property on the market. Stick around as we show you how to use the BiggerPockets Rental Property Calculator to analyze this live example, giving you the tools to run the numbers on ANY small multifamily property you come across. Whether it’s your first or next rental, small multifamily properties might be your best wealth-building move yet. By the end of this episode, you’ll be equipped with everything you need to start investing confidently.

Ready to build your financial freedom? Become a BiggerPockets Pro today! Click here to sign up and use code “PMULTI24” for an exclusive discount!

Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts.

Listen to the Podcast Here

Read the Transcript Here

Dave:
Are you looking for a way to get into real estate investing that’s both scalable and profitable, or maybe you’ve already started investing maybe with single family homes, but you’re looking for other types of properties that can help you scale your portfolio? Well today we have a bonus episode for you that’s going to walk you through exactly how to get started with a really great asset class that’s near and dear to my heart, small multifamily properties. I started this way. I’m going to teach you how you can also use this great and very unique asset class to build your portfolio with ease and confidence.
As you might know, in addition to me talking on this podcast all the time about Real Estate, BiggerPockets is way more than a podcast. We have this whole website with tons of educational content, we’ve got great books, and one of the things I do on that website is make webinars. And this episode is actually just an audio version of one of these in-depth webinars that I made on the website. So you know it’s going to be packed with a lot of really practical actionable tips and information. So let’s get into it. Hey everyone and welcome today’s BiggerPockets webinar, how to Buy Small Multifamily Properties. My name’s Dave Meyer and today I’m going to share with you my 14 plus years of experience investing in small multifamily real estate to help you achieve financial freedom through what is probably my favorite asset classes. And today when we talk about small multifamily, when I’m referring to specifically is duplexes, plexes and fourplexes.
So basically anything between two and four units. I’ll explain why that is in just a second. But first, let’s talk about today’s broader agenda. What we’re going to do today, first and foremost is explore a proven repeatable three-step process for finding financing and analyzing your first or your next small multifamily property. And it really can be this simple, just three easy steps as you’re going to see throughout the webinar today. Secondly, we’re going to identify and overcome the most common obstacles that prevent investors from purchasing their first property and achieving their financial goals because realistically, there are obstacles in real estate investing, but once you sort of name them and get them out in the open, you can easily navigate around those obstacles. And then lastly, I’m going to give you a live onscreen demonstration of some tools and resources that I personally use and they’re going to help you streamline this entire process of buying these types of properties.
It’s going to make it more efficient and accessible than really I bet you ever thought possible. And I think these tools, which again I use almost every single day are going to help you get to that next deal. Also, in addition, I have a super special invitation for you today. Later on in this episode, I’m going to be extending a special offer for some of the tools, education and training BiggerPockets offers. And because BiggerPockets, we basically value your time and we want to thank you for listening to this episode today. And as such, we’re going to offer a special 20% off discount on BiggerPockets Pro. And if you want to get straight to it, you can just go to biggerpockets.com/pro and enter the code P multi 24. That’s like the letter P like Peter, M-U-L-T-I 24, and that’s going to get you 20% off a pro annual subscription and there are even more freebies for you waiting at the end of this episode.
So stick around, hang out with me, learn more about multifamily, we’ll talk about all of those in a bit. So just to get back to today’s agenda, just want to make sure everyone’s in the right place. By the end of this webinar, you will be on track to buy your first or your next small multifamily property. And I guess maybe you might find out that buying small multifamily meal is not for you and that’s okay, but if you’re into real estate, if you’re into financial freedom and you want this by the end of this webinar, you can be on track for that first or your next deal. So that’s sort of the tactical stuff we’re going to go through. But let’s take a minute to set the scene and talk about the real reason that we’re all here in the first place. And if you’re attending this training, you likely understand the impact of owning investment properties and what that can mean for your financial future and those of your loved ones.
The passive income that comes from real estate investing can last a lifetime. The cashflow that you can get coming in month over month like clockwork can honestly ease a lot of financial anxiety. I know it does for me. And these things like the cashflow, the equity that you can build this financial freedom, those things are really nice, but there are sort of a means to an end, right? You want cashflow. Of course these are sort of tools in your tool belt, but what you actually want is probably something bigger or something more meaningful, and it’s different for everyone, but at least for the people I know who are into real estate, it’s something like financial independence. That means living life on your terms and getting to spend your time how you want or creating generational wealth that’s going to create this lasting financial legacy for you and your family.
Or maybe it’s this financial fortress that makes sure that no matter what happens in the economy or whatever else happens in your life, then nothing can penetrate it or destroy your financial situation, but whatever, it’s, you can find financial freedom one property at a time, and that’s what we’re going to get to today. And I want you all to think about this just for a minute before we get into the three-step processes. Imagine for a minute what it would feel like to be able to take into your own hands creating a brighter financial future. So what would that future look like? It could change everything, right? This can take you from where you are, which I hope is in a decent financial position, but put you in a position where you really don’t have to worry about your finances well into the future and your retirement could be secured.
The road to financial freedom starts with your first property or your next one if you’re already got one. But the road to financial freedom is steadily buying these properties one at a time, and it really isn’t that hard. So the question becomes, if this is so obvious and so great, why isn’t everyone doing this? Well, there are some common reservations that I encounter from newer investors all the time, so let’s walk through a couple of those reservations and just talk about them, get them out in the open. First and foremost, not enough money. This is probably the most common thing that we have here about that you don’t have enough money to start, but the truth is that you can take actionable steps right now to build your savings and when you find the right deals, securing funding is actually a bit more achievable than most people think, and we’re going to talk about that a lot today.
Or maybe you’re worried about losing everything on the wrong deal and that can happen. There is a small chance that you can lose everything because there is risk in real estate investing. There’s risk in every type of investment, but if you follow a proven approach and use the right tools, you can actually greatly minimize that risk and increase your chances of success. And we’ll talk about that more in a minute, and I want you guys to know that when I talk about these reservations, I know how you feel. I’ve been doing this for a long time, so I’m not as nervous about these, but when I first started investing, I faced very similar doubts. I was super worried when I bought my first deal. I didn’t actually know where I was going to get the money when I was doing it, so I had a lot of these reservations, but I was able to do it because I just understood a couple things.
And basically that happened through trial and error. First, you need the right tools. Second, you need the right education, and third, you need to surround yourself with the right people. And if you’re able to do each of these three things, you will be able to get on that path to the next property. Now, I am telling you this because I actually lived it. If you guys don’t know me, my name is Dave Meyer. I have been investing in real estate for more than 14 years, but actually the first six years were really a grind. I was just making stuff up basically. I really had no idea what I was doing, but once I figured out all I needed were the right tools, the right education, and the right people, my business really took off. And I have built a real estate portfolio that has hit pretty much all of my financial goals.
And yes, I do still work at BiggerPockets because I have a great job. I get to host a podcast, write books, help investors like you, but I am financially independent because I was able to sort of systematize my business through the right tools, through the right education, and through knowing the right people. And luckily for you, you guys don’t actually have to all the trial and error I did. You can just use BiggerPockets. There’s so many tools. There’s a great community, there’s tons of resources for you to use. You can scale faster than I did because you get to use ’em from the start. You don’t have to bumble around like me for the first six years. Now, my story about using BiggerPockets to scale is great, but it’s not unique at all. I just found this post in the BiggerPockets forums from Jason Veli who said he started investing three and a half years ago and now his cashflow has replaced his living expenses so he could quit his six figure finance career to do real estate investing full time.
And what Jason and I have done is really not unique. You can go on the BiggerPockets forums, you can find this in a ton of different places there. Now, Jason and I and a lot of other people use BiggerPockets, but we’ve also discovered a little bit of a hack, and that is small multifamily investing. It’s kind of this perfect sweet spot in investing that I love. And the great part about it is because they’re sort of bigger properties, you don’t actually need that many of them to get on that path toward financial freedom. Actually what you need is just a couple of well chosen properties that can eventually replace your income and build wealth so you can live life on your terms. And going back to that formula that I was just talking about, knowledge, tools and network, you can actually get to that next property and you can select these few great multifamily deals a lot faster than you’ll think.
And guys, just know that this is not some far f gold that you’re never going to hit. The stuff I’m talking about today is sort of immediately achievable and you can actually get started today and have a property under contract or in your possession in the next couple of months, and today I’m going to prove it to you. Now it will take a little bit of work. Real estate is much more passive than your job is going to be, but you have to put in effort. But remember, this is not you inventing something new. I today am going to show you a well proven path that tens of thousands of other investors have followed to build the wealth that you’re seeking. With that, let’s dive in. So the first thing we’re going to talk about here is just why small multifamily in the first place.
I sort of alluded to the fact that it’s this hack and there are four major reasons small multifamily is so great. First and foremost is cashflow. Multifamily buildings by design are designed for cashflow, right? The only reason you build a multifamily property is for an investor to own it. While some homeowners do own a duplex or triplex, they’re basically designed to be some investor’s dream, not someone’s dream home. So that makes it a lot easier to cashflow with these deals. The second thing is residential financing. And this is why when we talk about small multifamily, we only talk about four units or fewer because if you go above four units, lenders will see that as a commercial property and you’ll have to get a commercial loan, which is very complicated, usually more expensive. And if you’re just getting started, you definitely don’t want that. So that’s why we recommend you focus on four units or fewer.
You can put less money down, you’ll probably get a better interest rate, and there are a lot of benefits of residential financing. The third is less competition. Most people who are buying single family homes are homeowners and they buy on emotion. Then when you talk about a lot of investors, they’re mostly big institutional investors. They’re going to be looking for those 20 unit deals, a hundred unit deals, 500 unit deals. That means that there’s this kind of sweet spot for small to medium sized investors like you and me, and that is small multifamily. It means you can get better deals. And then the last one is house hacking. This is sort of just a subset of the entire small multifamily strategy, but if you are able to occupy live in one unit and rent out the others, it is an incredible strategy for getting started in real estate.
I know hundreds of other people have done it. This is how I got my start in real estate. Actually, my first deal was a small multifamily. Here it is. I bought this four unit complex in Denver, and before I recently sold it, it was cashflowing 2200 bucks a month. My second deal in Denver, which I still own, is a small multifamily three units in Denver providing 2,500 bucks a month in cashflow. And actually my most recent active deal that I did was also a small multifamily. I think just this past weekend I analyzed for small multifamilies. I love this asset class because it is so achievable and really makes building that portfolio step-by-step easier than I think any other asset classes. So let’s talk about the three steps to buying your first small multifamily deal because hopefully you’re sold on this asset class by now and we’re going to get you one.
So the three steps are this. Step one is finding deals. Step two is analyzing deals, and step three is financing those deals. It’s not exactly physics or rocket science like anything like this. And yes, real estate has challenges, but it is not complicated. This is stuff anyone with the right motivation and the right work ethic can do. So let’s jump in and just talk about step one here, finding deals. Our surveys here at BiggerPockets found that finding deals was actually the second biggest perceived challenge to investing in real estate only behind funding, which we’re going to talk about in a few minutes. And note that I said perceived challenge because finding deals is not something to be overwhelmed by. Here are three strategies that you can use. One you can drive for dollars that’s basically going around and identifying properties that you want to buy.
You could do a similar strategy with direct mail, just mailing out marketing materials to owners. Both of those two strategies, you’re basically trying to find someone who hasn’t yet listed their property but might be open to selling to you and because you contacted them first, they might be willing to sell to you and you can get a great deal. You can also look at other off-market deals on Craigslist or Facebook. So feel free to use any of these strategies if you want, but do you want to know my personal favorite strategy for finding deals? Well, it’s pretty easy. You just work with an investor friendly agent, and I know there are a lot of complicated strategies, but you could just go find a good agent and they will send you deals. The duplex I bought a couple of weeks ago was on market and I found it because of my agent.
Just in the last couple of days, my agent sent me four different off-market deals that I have been analyzing and actually might make an offer on one of them sometime during this week. So it doesn’t have to be super complicated. You can just find a good agent and have them send you deals. Now if you’re wondering how do I find an agent with a knowledge to help an investor, that could be super easy, whether in an out of state or you just want to invest in your local market, you can get matched with an investor friendly agent by going to biggerpockets.com/agent. We have this tool, it’s called the agent finder. It makes it super easy to tap into our trusted network of investor-friendly agents. You basically put in a couple of data points about yourself, like what your budget is when you’re looking to buy, and within two minutes you’re going to get a free match with an agent who really understands the mentality of an investor and understands duplexes, plexes, those small multi-families.
So that is probably the easiest way you can go find deals is just to get a great agent. Alright, now that you have a time friendly strategy for finding deals, let’s move on to step two, which is analyzing deals. And I actually think analyzing deals, I’m biased because I wrote a book about analyzing deals, but I actually believe that analyzing deals is the most important skill in real estate investing, and that’s because no matter what your deal finding strategy is, you’re going to need to analyze tons of deals. Even if you have the best agent in the world, they’re probably going to send you 10, 20, 30 different deals that you’re going to need to actually run the numbers on before you can find one that makes sense for you. You’re going to have a lot of leads coming in regardless of your strategy, and you need to find the one that makes sense for you.
Not only do you need to find the best deal, but you also need to know which deals to avoid so you don’t wind up getting yourself into a bad situation. I know for people who have never analyzed a deal before, maybe don’t like math that much, the term deal analysis can feel a bit intimidating, but I promise you it does not have to be hard. Actually, I’m going to show you how incredibly easy it is to run a deal in maybe 10 minutes or less using the BiggerPockets Rental Property calculator. Okay, so I found this deal earlier today. It is in green, Wisconsin. I picked Green Bay just because I saw some list recently that said it was the highest quality of life or best place to live, something like that. I thought, let’s look for a deal. What I found was a duplex, two identical units.
So you can see here they’re both about 1200 square feet and each side is two bed, one bath and the seller is projecting the rent at 2,400 bucks a month and it’s listed for sale at 180,000. Okay? And if you haven’t done this before, you want to follow along, you just go up here to tools and go to rental property and then I’ll just show you view my reports. You can keep track of them. I use this stuff all the time. You can see that I’m constantly looking at different deals here, but now I’m just going to hit start a new report. The first thing that we’re going to do here is just I’m going to go back to our deal and just copy and paste the address here. We’re going to go here and just copy and paste this. It’s going to pull in some information.
You can see the calculators thinking here and it’s importing the data, and then I’m going to add a photo. I just am more visual when I’m analyzing a lot of deals and like I said, you’re going to need to do 10 or 20 before you find that right deal. I just find it easier to remember them with a little photo. So I’m going to add this picture here. Next, we’re going to go into purchase information, which was 179,000. Oops, $900 and our closing costs are going to be 5,000 bucks. Now, if you’ve never bought a deal, you’re probably wondering where did that 5,000 come from? Well, I’ve bought a lot of deals and I know that’s about what I average, but if you ever get stuck on the BiggerPockets calculator, just go over to here where they have these help little buttons and hit that and you can see that the average is one to 2% or if you’re unsure, use one and a 5% of the purchase price.
That’s a good number to begin with. So that is how I figured out my closing costs. Now, if you want to rehab your property, you can click this button and put in an after repair value and repair costs, but this is a pretty nice property, so I’m not anticipating rehabbing it. So I’m just going to move right along to our loan details. Now, loans, because I’m an investor and I would be buying this property out of state, I have to put 25% down. That’s the most common when you’re not owner occupying it. If you are going to do a house hack, you could put 10 or 10 or 20% down. But for me, since we’re analyzing this deal, and I’m going to give you my example, we’re going to use 25% and I’m going to use my interest rate of 6.75%, which is what I was quoted most recently.
Points charged. I’m going to put zero because I’m putting that 25% down and then loan term is going to be 30 years because I personally love long-term fixed debt. Alright, we are flying through this guys. Hopefully you can see that there are five steps in analyzing the deal and we’ve already done three of ’em. We’re done with property info purchase and loan details. Now we do rent income. So I’m going to pop over to this tool to get a rent estimate here. And all you need to do here guys, is again go to tools. Scroll down here to Rent estimator. I put in the information and I went to see and make sure that this is correct, that it is two bed, one bath. And what you can see here is that the median rent here is actually about 1,250 bucks a month, and the calculator is confident.
One of the things I love here is if you’re in a really rural area, you might not find a lot of rent comps and the calculator will actually tell you, you know what? We don’t know if this is a good deal or not, or we don’t have good comps, but they’re confident and you can actually go and look at all the different comps here if you want to check them out for yourself. So I’m going to now assume that we’re going to have $1,250 of rent per side. So remember that when we go and put it back in the calculator, we’re going to use 2,500. So we saw that it was 1,250 per side. So I’m going to put in 2,500 because remember that’s a duplex and we’re just going to move on to our last step, which is expenses. So our first expenses are going to be what are known as fixed expenses, property taxes, insurance.
These are things that for at least for that year, what they’re going to cost. Property taxes for this property are going to be about 1200 bucks, and for our insurance we’re going to pay about a thousand. Again, you can get some help estimating these things, but I honestly just recommend Googling them if you don’t already know. Once we move past our fixed expenses, we go onto what are known as variable expenses, which are things like repairs and maintenance, vacancies and CapEx. Now, repairs and maintenance, I like to put around 8% vacancy. I also put 8% and for CapEx I’m going to put 5% because it’s a little bit newer. Now if you don’t know what CapEx means, it’s kind of like repairs, but it’s actually bigger things like a roof or a HVAC system or making improvements to the property. But since again, this is a pretty modern updated building, I’m going to keep my repair and CapEx expense estimates on the low side.
Then I’m going to move on to management fees, which as an out-of-state investor, I typically pay about 8%. So I’m going to put that there. And then what I love about small multifamilies, one thing you should look out for with small multifamilies is whether you can meter the utilities separately. I always look for deals where the tenants pay their own electricity and gas because I just don’t want to be involved in that. If you can’t, that’s fine. You can charge through, you can pay the utilities yourself and then basically just charge the tenants for it. But I really like it think it simplifies the analysis. It simplifies your operations if you just find these things that are metered separately so you don’t pay electricity, gas, water, sewer usually play garbage. It’s like 25 bucks a month and that’s it, guys. We’re done. We just analyzed a deal.
I was explaining thing as we went. I was talking a lot and it probably took me less than five minutes to do. And so in just five minutes, what you can see is this is actually an exceptional deal. Not every deal you look at is going to be this good. Everyone just want to point that out. I honestly didn’t analyze this deal ahead of time, but 700 bucks a month of cashflow and a 17% ROI is really, really high. So if I was in the Green Bay market, this is probably a deal I would be looking to buy immediately. But one of the cool things about the calculator is you can go through here and double check your assumption. So maybe let’s just say I can’t get a 6.8% mortgage and actually this week it’s up to 7.1%. Okay, well, it’s still a good cashflow and it’s still a good cash on cash return.
Or maybe you want to go and contact my property manager. They’re like, Dave, yeah, 2,500 is stretching it. We feel more comfortable if you want to be conservative underwriting this deal, maybe let’s just say 2250 as a deal. Okay, well, because this calculator is so easy to use, I can see, hey, even if I miss by 10% on my rent estimates and my mortgage quote comes in higher, I’m still getting a phenomenal 11.6% cash on cash return making almost 500 bucks a month. So hopefully you can see if you can find a deal like this. You can see that it doesn’t take that many properties to be able to find financial freedom, and I just want to caution, not every deal you analyze is going to be good like this one, you might have to do 10, 20, 30 deals. Honestly, I look for cash on cash return for 5% or better.
So I would take this deal all day, but it is not to be expected that you’re going to have something this high all the time. Now when you look at the calculator, you can also scroll down and see some of the further out metrics like your annualized return shows that if you held this property for 10 years, you’d earn an average of 13%. That’s way better than the stock market and your profit would be over $114,000. So that’s it guys. You can see now the importance of an ease of analyzing deals. You can find good deals like this one, you can eliminate bad deals. Before we jump back to the presentation, just want to show you one more thing. If you hit this little share button here and then you hit enable share reporting and then download PDF, you get this super cool professional looking deal analysis sheet that breaks everything down that I just showed you in that analysis in a super simple way.
So if you want to attract a partner, get your spouse on board, or perhaps talk to a lender about a particular deal, if you bring them this analysis and show them that you understand a good deal, you’ve done thorough due diligence, you know how to analyze a deal correctly, that is going to really help bring people on board. So make sure to use this little share feature from the BiggerPockets calculators. Alright, so that was it guys. Hopefully you can see that deal analysis is something you just learned a lot about and that you can start working on right now. You can use this really easy software to make sure that when you’re analyzing a lot of deals, all 2030 deals, you need to find a good one that you’re able to do it quickly and accurately. And I just want to make sure that you guys know that.
Again, I’ve said this a few times, but I just want to reiterate that you have to put reps in. It’s not going to be easy on the first, it’s going to take you a little bit longer, but if you keep doing this 10, 20, 30, 50 times, you’re going to get really good at deal analysis and you’re going to be able to spot a good deal quickly and get rid of all those bad deals quickly so you don’t waste time on that. Alright, so in our three-step process, we’ve now done two of ’em. We’ve talked about finding deals, you now know how to analyze deals quickly. So let’s get to the final piece of the puzzle, which is funding deals. Now, there are a lot of ways to fund a real estate deal. You can get a conventional loan, you can get a hard money loan, private loan partnerships so much more.
There are a ton of different ways that you can finance deals. It actually can be a little bit overwhelming, but for most real estate investors, you can use an FHA and conventional loan that’s just basically going and getting a mortgage. And for small multi-families, that works really well. You can also use a partnership if you want to bring in someone else to finance it, or you can even get the seller in some instances to finance your deal for you, which is something called seller financing. And there are plenty of good ways, but we’ve actually found according to our surveys that funding is the number one challenge in buying real estate. And you might be sitting there thinking, yeah, obviously that’s the number one challenge. I don’t have enough money for a down payment. I don’t know the first thing about finding funding, but here’s the truth, and I think this is something that a lot of early investors miss, is that when you find the right property and you have the right network funding deals is not really that stressful and it actually becomes kind of easy.
Now, let that sink in for a second. When you know how to find and analyze deals, financing gets easier. And there’s a key that why financing is the third step in our goal. Because imagine you went to a lender and said, Hey, will you lend to me on an investment property? They’re going to be like, okay, what deal are you going to be buying? And if you don’t have a good deal lined up, it’s going to be pretty hard to convince them that they should lend to you. But if you have followed step one and step two, you know how to find good deals and you know how to analyze them, then approaching a lender gets so much easier. Just remember what we talked about just a minute ago, right? I showed you that if you’re analyzing deals, you can print out that cool PDF, and now you can show that to a lender and they’re going to see how legit you are that you know how to find good deals and you probably have one lined up already and that’s the reason that you’re coming to them for funding.
So hopefully you can see now that we go in these steps in a deliberate order because it makes funding easier. But you’re probably wondering, okay, even if I follow those steps, how do I find a good lender in the first place? Well, I am glad you asked because it can be very easy with the bigger pockets lender finder, right? These tools, they don’t stop coming. BiggerPockets has it all for you. We have a lender finder to help you find investor friendly lenders who know exactly the situations you’re getting in. They know how to lend on small multifamily properties just like the agent finder. All you have to do is go on, put in a bit of information about yourself, and you’re going to get matched with an investor friendly lender who’s going to help you get that small multifamily deal that you found, that you analyze and you’re ready to pull the trigger on.
So that’s it everyone. Those are the three steps to buying your first or next small multifamily property. Just to recap, we talked about finding deals and how to use investor friendly agents to do that, we talked about how to analyze a bunch of deals to get good at spotting excellent deals, and you can use the BiggerPockets calculator for that. And lastly, we talked about finding funding. And third step in the process, once you’ve found a deal, analyze a deal, you can use a tool like the BiggerPockets lender finder to find that loan. So that’s it. Those are the three steps. But I want to sort of circle back to something we talked about earlier. In the beginning of the presentation, I talked about how reservations and obstacles can really slow down your investing career, and I want to talk about them again and let’s specifically talk about fear, because fear can be a powerful obstacle.
It can prevent you from even starting on your journey in the first place, and it can prevent you from making good decisions about how to spend your time and how to spend your money. And I totally get it guys there you could be afraid of losing your money, and that is scary. When you’re new to investing, you could be fearful about not being able to secure financing even if you find a great deal and you may be worried about imposter syndrome and that you don’t actually have the right skills or the right knowledge to succeed as an investor. So I’m throwing up this slide one more time, guys, because I just want to reiterate this, that I have been in your shoes. These are very reasonable fears, and if you’re experiencing ’em, you’re not alone. These concerns are common among all new investors, and I face them myself when I got started.
I understand that if you are new to real estate investing and you’ve never been to a webinar like this, that real estate investing can feel a bit like jumping off a cliff. But don’t worry, that is not actually what it’s like. It’s actually more like this. It’s like walking a path with your friends and it’s walking a path with people who have walked on that path before. So I’m going to stick with this metaphor for just a minute. When you go on a hike, what do you bring with you? Well, I personally love hiking. And what I do is I bring experienced companions, people who know what they’re doing. I wouldn’t just wander out into the woods for the first time alone. I also bring the right tools, like a good backpack, the right shoes to make sure that I am properly prepared for the adventure I’m about to go on.
And lastly, I need a plan. Usually that involves which trail you’re going on or a map. You don’t just set up out into the wilderness and see where you end up. You have a plan and a path. Real estate investing is basically the same thing, right? You need experienced companion, you need the right tools, and you need a plan on how you’re going to succeed. Now, lucky for you, BiggerPockets has all of that, and BiggerPockets exists to empower you to live the life you want on your terms through real estate investing. Specifically, we provide the tools, training, and community need to find, fund and analyze the real estate deals that are going to get you to financial freedom. I’m not just saying this, guys, I do work for BiggerPockets, I admit, but there are 3 million investors who have joined BiggerPockets and who are already using the tools that we’ve created to fuel their financial dreams.
Real estate investing works. I’ve literally myself seen it work for tens of thousands of people. And if you feel inspired to start your journey today, we are here to support you every step of the way. So with your permission, I’d like to take a couple minutes for that special invitation offer I talked about earlier to upgrade your real estate investing game with BiggerPockets Pro. BiggerPockets Pro is your one-stop shop to start scale and manage your entire portfolio. It basically has everything you need to succeed in real estate investing, whether that’s tools, content, education, community services, it’s all here. You’re going to get the calculator, leases, all this other stuff that we’ve talked about. But most importantly, BiggerPockets Pro is just makes things simple. Everything that you need to succeed as an investor is going to be in one place. And you’re probably wondering how can one subscription actually provide all of those different things?
Let me show you first and foremost, BiggerPockets gives you the best deal analysis in the game and deal analysis kind of. My thing is you could probably see behind me, I wrote a book on it, but I actually use these calculators all the time when I’m looking for deals. Sometimes I just use ’em for fun. I like understanding what’s going on in my local market. You’ll get that as a BiggerPockets Pro member. You’ll also get direct contact with some of the most experienced pros and mentors in the business through BiggerPockets bootcamps. It is so incredibly valuable to learn from people who have been in your shoes and have done what you are trying to do. And the bootcamps are one of the best ways you can possibly do that, and you need to be a BiggerPockets Pro member to get them. Next, you get the badge in the forums, and I know this sounds silly, but it is one of the most underrated perks of being a pro is to show people that you’re serious and to get sort of into the serious side of the BiggerPockets community.
If you are a pro member, your forum responses are going to get answered more quickly. People are going to be more eager to partner with you and to help you. We also have all sorts of partnerships that are going to fulfill pretty much every need you have. You need property management. Well, we got it from rent ready, everyone else pays for that. But BiggerPockets pros, they get rent ready for free. What about portfolio monitoring? Also free. You get that from essa. You need leases. Do you need legal documents? You get that for free as a BiggerPockets Pro. So if you have any interest in investing in real estate now or in the future, it’s going to cost you more just to create one lease than BiggerPockets Pro is for an entire year. Super helpful. So here’s how BiggerPockets Pro supports you. First and foremost, you’re going to get ACE analysis to build cashflow with confidence and get that next deal.
Next, you’re going to shorten the learning curve with exclusive live webinars and experts and 50% off your investing bootcamps. Next, you’re going to be able to supercharge your network by exclusive community forms for pro members and that pro profile badge. And you’re going to build this sort of command center for your entire rental property portfolio through property management software portfolio monitoring, and all the leases and legal documents that you’re ever going to need. And another really good benefit, I just want to mention I’m no CPA, but talk to your CPA because for many pro is actually tax deductible, which makes it an even better deal. Now, I’m obviously pretty excited about BiggerPockets Pro because I get to use it all the time, but take it from other pros. Just as an example, Aaron C said that there is no way he could analyze the volume of properties he could without being a pro member.
And remember how important it is to get those reps in and analyze a lot of deals pro makes that happen. What about Beth? She said that it is the foundation of her real estate investing endeavor provides all sorts of valuable tools, connected her to agents, everything that she needs. You can see, I can go on and on and on. There are tons. There are tens of thousands of pro members who are using these tools to succeed in real estate investing, and you can do the same. So the question is, how much is BiggerPockets Pro? Well, if you bought all of the individual components and added it all up, it would be $5,000. And honestly, that’s worth it. If you’re pursuing financial freedom, I’d pay 5,000 to earn financial freedom, but that is a really big investment. But at BiggerPockets, that’s not what we’re all about.
We’re about making this information, these tools accessible to you, which is why we charge just $468 per year if you pay monthly, but I’m going to do you one better because if you actually go pro annual, you save some money and only pay $390 per year. But I told you I had a special offer for you, and I am going to follow through on that and offer everyone here watching this webinar today. 20% off our Pro annual deal. And that means that you can get started with Pro for just $312 if you pay upfront for the full year, that’s $156 in savings. Now, we are feeling extra generous here at BiggerPockets and we are going to offer you a couple of additional bonuses if you go pro in the next day or two. So what you’re going to get is the Show Me the Money Starter Pack.
This is for anyone who’s worrying about how they’re going to fund their first deal. Well, we’re going to give you an ebook on Eliminating Debt and Repairing Credit. We’ll give you a Bulletproof Wealth Plan to build your Pillars of Wealth and a nine hour workshop on No and Low Money Down investing that’s worth almost 500 bucks. We’re also going to give you the demystifying the housing market bundle. I know a lot of people are worried about what’s going on in the market, so we’re going to give you a How to Invest in Changing Economy Guide. I’ll also provide a video on investing in an Uncertain economy, and you can download my, I wrote this, the State of Real Estate Investing report for 2024. That is over $500 of value. And then the last one, which I have to admit is my personal favorite. I get to give away my book Real Estate by the Numbers.
It’s by me and Jay Scott. And it comes with all of these different bonuses that I’ve created, like Excel files, different videos, so you can truly become a master of analyzing deals. If you added all of that up on its own, it’d be over 200 bucks. But you’re going to get the book and all those bonuses for free because I want you guys to become really great at analyzing deals. That is the key to long-term success in real estate investing. Now, if you are excited about this and you want to jump in, but you’re a little worried or on the fence, don’t worry. You can actually try BiggerPockets Pro risk-free with our 30 day money back guarantee. We honestly, truly only want people to go pro if they’re going to use it. So go ahead, try it out if you don’t love it, and within 30 days, we’ll give you your money back, no questions asked.
So those are the special bonus gifts that BiggerPockets wants you all to have. So if you want the tools, community, the education that are going to help you get to that next deal faster, join BiggerPockets Pro today and you can take advantage of that special Discount Pro being just $312 by using the Code P multi 24. Again, that’s P-M-U-L-T-I 24. Go to biggerpockets.com/pro to use it. That is all I have for you guys today. I hope you enjoyed this webinar. I hope you are as excited as I am about the potential for financial freedom and personal growth that comes with small multifamily investing. Again, if you want to accelerate your path to it, go pro today at biggerpockets.com/pro. If you have any questions or thoughts about this webinar, you can always find me on BiggerPockets. Happy to answer any of them there. Again, my name’s Dave Meyer, and thanks again for watching.

 

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In This Episode We Cover:

  • How to buy your first or next small multifamily property in three simple steps
  • Why small multifamily is the ultimate “hack” for fast financial freedom 
  • Strategies to find profitable multifamily rentals in your investing area
  • Analyzing rental properties in minutes with the BiggerPockets Rental Property Calculator
  • How to find an investor-friendly lender for your next multifamily investment
  • The one tool expert investors use to build their real estate portfolios faster
  • And So Much More!

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Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.