13 Rental Units with a “Rinse and Repeat” Investing Method

Dave:
This investor bought a property worth one and a half million dollars in a great neighborhood in a major US city with only $35,000 cash in 2024. It is actually possible. Hey friends, welcome back to the BiggerPockets podcast. I’m Dave Meyer, head of real estate investing here at BiggerPockets. And today on the show we’re talking with Mike Johnson, an investor in Chicago. Mike started his investing journey with a $13,000 down payment on a duplex in 2021, and he has house hacked his way into 13 units in just four years now. He’s living in one of Chicago’s most desirable neighborhoods with thousands of dollars in monthly cashflow and the potential for millions in appreciation over the next couple of years. And Mike isn’t doing anything that the vast majority of people can’t do. He’s found deals on the market, he’s putting down as little as possible. He’s done relatively hands-off renovation and now he’s sitting on this incredible portfolio. Just a couple of years later, Mike today is going to tell us how his deep analysis of investing options has led to real estate in the first place. How one of the more extreme problem tenants I’ve ever heard of led to a free rehab for him and why he’s a fan of the extremely long close. So here we go. This is me talking with investor Mike Johnson. Mike, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here.

Mike:
Nice to meet you Dave. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

Dave:
Yeah, so give us a little bit of background. What were you doing when you first got into real estate and how long ago was that?

Mike:
So I got into real estate four years ago during Covid in 2020, and I was a medical device sales rep that sold devices in the operating room. So once Covid happened, we were restricted access to hospitals, which was a major part of my day. Ironically. This was about the same time where I had no student debt anymore and I had this nest egg that was building. So naturally I started looking at investment vehicles on where do I park my money for the best return long term? And that’s when I stumbled upon real estate and kind of started edging my way to my first deal.

Dave:
Great. Congrats on paying off your student debt, by the way. That’s always a really good feeling and an important step on anyone’s early retirement or financial freedom journey.

Mike:
Yeah.

Dave:
So tell me a little bit about the types of investments you’re interested in because I think people get to this point where you have a little bit of capital, it’s a great place to be. You could choose to go into flipping, you could do long-term rentals, short-term rentals. What appealed to you first about real estate?

Mike:
I know when some people invest in real estate, they use it as a means to an end to get out the daily grind, quit their W2 and kind do this full time. I have the kind contrary approach to that where I enjoy my W2 job. So I am a long-term buy andhold investor. I’ve done four house hacks essentially at this point in my investment journey. So up to 13 units across four buildings. And for me it’s really just to build that passive income and it gives me security in my W2 job so that I can take more career risks with positions to get new experiences that may entail a pay cut. Whereas if I didn’t have this as a fallback, maybe I would be less prone to taking those risks in my W2, where long-term I think that’s going to pay dividends for higher level roles that require that you have some diversified experiences. And so it’s actually helped progress me in my W2 career and it’s a fun side hustle. It’s your own business, it’s yours, and it’s fun to see it grow.

Dave:
So set the seed. Where do you live and is that where you chose to invest as well?

Mike:
It is. So I was born and raised in Wisconsin, small town of 5,000 people, but I moved to Chicago about seven and a half years ago. So I’ve been here ever since I took the medical device sales job. But interestingly enough, my first deal was actually in Milwaukee. We can kind of get into the reason why I chose Milwaukee Market, but then the other three deals have been in Chicago where I currently reside.

Dave:
Alright, yeah, let’s get into it. I mean if you listen to the show, Henry has, I love the term he dubbed of Lake Effect cashflow, which is just that anywhere in the Great Lakes region, the Midwest there is high potential for cashflow. I think Chicago falls into that, but Milwaukee is always kind of one of those standouts. When you look at lists of places that do offer cashflow, Milwaukee’s always up there. So is that why you targeted it?

Mike:
It is. So for me, actually, once I got into the BiggerPockets podcast, the books did the free webinars on how to underwrite after I kind of took that in. I looked at the markets, right, a duplex two to four unit in Chicago versus Milwaukee, dramatic difference in the cash that you need to invest. So for me, in my geography, for my medical device sales job, I covered Milwaukee, a lot of rural Illinois and parts of Chicago. So I could technically move and live in Milwaukee and still do my day job, but I would’ve to invest far less cash. And so for me, Milwaukee is one of the most heavily concentrated duplex cities in the country. And so there’s a lot of options. And so that’s why I decided that if there’s any fires that I have to put out in person for some reason I could drive there and be there in an hour 20. So just having that comfort of my first investment property, that’s kind of all the reasons why I chose Milwaukee.

Dave:
Oh, cool. And did you house hack? Did you actually live there?

Mike:
So I did a 10% down owner occupancy loan. And it’s kind of funny. So right around when we closed, my geography changed from, they took away all my Wisconsin and they gave me Iowa. So I called my lender because I called my lender and I said, Hey, I got to just be honest with you. Here’s my geography and when it’s shifting in the new fiscal year, I can’t move Milwaukee, but what do I do? And he just said, as long as you change your insurance, he’s like, you had intent when we closed to live there, we’re okay with it, but obviously confirm with us, write us a letter telling us what happened. And I had the documentation right with my GI changes every year, and so I never ended up moving into that property, but I did do a 10% down owner occupancy loan. So that was November of 2020 and the duplex was 128,000 in Milwaukee. To give some context,

Dave:
All right, nice. 128 grand, you put 10% down. So I assume with closing costs and everything, somewhere around 17, 18, maybe up to 20 grand was kind of like what you needed to get into that deal.

Mike:
Yeah, 19,000 is essentially what I put into the deal itself had a 2.8% rate. So of course we all know that the rates were very low at that point.

Dave:
Do you remember what it took to carry that? What was your monthly expense all in?

Mike:
So my PIT, I mean right now is it’s 9 22, so principal insurance, taxes and interest, the building’s bringing in 1700 a month.

Dave:
Wow, that’s awesome.

Mike:
There’s a nice spread on there, and I’ve had the same tenants all four years.

Dave:
Wow.

Mike:
Zero vacancy. They’re happy to live there. The units were recently redone when I bought the place, and so it’s been very low lift to kind of maintain that property.

Dave:
That’s amazing. Wow. Very cool. I just want to re-emphasize what Mike just said to everyone listening is that Mike was able to get into his first duplex for under $20,000 total. And of course prices have changed, but this type of strategy where you’re getting an owner occupant loan with 10% down, even if that went up to two 50, maybe it’s goes from 19 grand to 25 grand, but just demonstrates that these types of lower money down options are still available. I love hearing that your PITI is under a thousand dollars. That three digit monthly payment is a rare thing. Probably pretty hard to find these days. Hold onto that for dear life.

Mike:
Yeah, nothing’s really come close to that sense that, but it was a great first step into real estate investing and no regrets with the first property at all up to this point.

Dave:
Why do you think that you’ve had tenants for four years? Is there anything you did in the screening, anything that you looked for that you attribute that success to? Because as we all know, vacancy kills zeal.

Mike:
So for me, first and foremost, yes, I am the landlord, but I try to just be a human. So I have conversations with them. If there’s any issues, I just say, just text me directly. They didn’t have a very good property management company managing the building before. So I introduced myself and I just kind of talk to ’em and say, Hey, is there anything that you basically want fixed right off the bat? Can we take care of that? And then anytime there’s an issue, I get it taken care of right away. So they trust me. There’s open communication. And so when it comes to resigning the lease, I’ve increased rent two to four years, but I always provide comps. I always give them under market rent, but then they have justification of, alright, if I move, I’m going to pay more per month and then it’s moving costs. And so they’ve just decided to stay every year. And so it’s worked out. It’s just funny because sometimes when you’re looking at getting into real estate investing, you think that there’s all these special things you need to do. It’s just you do the same things again and again. You’re a good person, you take care of issues when they occur, and most of the times over time, the investment’s going to work out just fine.

Dave:
I love your approach to this. I feel kind of the same way. I’m just don’t overthink this. Just be a good human being, underwrite deals, it’s going to work out, be patient. I think patience is another big one that some people have a challenge with, but hopefully listening to this podcast, preaching to you, real estate’s a long game. Just be patient. It’s going to work out. All right. We do have to take a quick break, but we’ll be back with Mike right after this. Hey everyone. Welcome back to the BiggerPockets podcast. I’m here with investor Mike Johnson. All right. So that was your first deal. What came next for you?

Mike:
Actually, I closed on the next house hack in Chicago and Northside of the city. This was my FHA loan that I used. So three and 5% down, it was a $750,000 four unit brick building, which is great.

Dave:
Oh wow.

Mike:
I got a 2.75% rate on this building, and the cash I invested who acquired the building was only 27,000.

Dave:
Oh, okay. I was about to say that you really must have gone up in out-of-pocket expenses because you paid 19 grand out of pocket for the first one. If you put 25% down on a $750,000, you’re talking something closer to 200 grand. How did you pull that one off?

Mike:
Yeah, so this one inherently with the 3.5% down, you’re not putting a lot of cash into the deal for a $750,000 four unit, but I always try to maximize seller credits. So maybe they’re willing to do the repairs beforehand. Sure, you’re capped out, I believe for a two to four units, a 3% of the purchase price is how much seller credit you can do. So I always try to advise that, try to maximize that. That can bring your cash to close as low as possible, and that helps push up your return metrics. So I always try to do that. I don’t know if this is common in every state, but here in Illinois we pay taxes and arrears for property tax. So if I close six months into the year, you get six months of the prorated tax amount at closing. So if you pay 20,000 in annual taxes, you’re going to get $10,000 credit and you don’t actually feel that until you sell the building. So you get all the benefits of lower money down. Oh, that’s awesome. Time value of money and getting return on that money all just because they haven’t paid the current year’s tax bill. And so you just address that so that all those things combined ended up me bringing only $27,000 to the table. And there’s some very interesting stories with this building, and I had some rehabs I also did along the way. But yeah, all in all, it’s performing well year to

Dave:
Date. Is that one of the reasons you chose to invest in Chicago rather than Milwaukee? Or were you just living there? Why switch markets?

Mike:
So for me, it’s comfortable with real estate investing at this point. I kind of got my feet wet in Milwaukee. I understand this. I’ve had some tenant interactions. It’s not the first time anymore. And so now I think for me, I don’t like to do out-state investing. I like to do it in my backyard house. Hacking money is finite. So for me, I only have so much of it. So I want to maximize and my money. And even when I did the FHA loan, I always try to go to the maximum loan limit for these. So the building that I have, the units are huge. They’re four bed, two bath, 18 hundreds for a feet. Cool. So a little bit harder to place tenants, but you can ration higher rents. And so for a four unit, you you’re maximizing the rental income. And the reason why I chose Chicago or just the Midwest in general is I always kind of use an analogy with the stock market.
So you have the tech stocks if you invest in Colorado, California, some of these maybe sexier states, appreciation wise, I think of that as a tech stock. You’re going to get a lot of appreciation, but cashflow is hard. In the Midwest, I feel like it’s a bit of both. It’s like a dividend stock, a little bit of cashflow, maybe a lot, but it’s Chicago, you’re paying more for the property, but you get a mix, you get a little bit of appreciation. I’ve had cashflow in all my properties, and so I’ve had success here and I live here, so if there’s any issues, I have eyes on the property, I have all the contacts for maintenance repairs, and it makes it a pretty seamless transition from one property to the next.

Dave:
What about tenants? Have you had similar ability to retain tenants in the same way we did in Milwaukee?

Mike:
Interesting enough. So ran into some issues at closing, and this was a hard lesson learned, but essentially for this building, I did my final walkthrough the day before closing, and the top floor tenants were all moving out, right? There’s barely anything in the unit. The seller’s agents, there again, I see them physically moving things out. I believe the best in people good to go. They did the repairs they said they were going to do. Fast forward, I close the next day I come back and the door is locked, like, well, this door shouldn’t be locked. So I tried to open it and I see a piece of paper on the door and it’s a signed eviction moratorium. So during covid you couldn’t evict. And long story short, it wasn’t even one of the tenants that was on the lease. It was a guy that was paying them a few bucks a month to crash on their couch. He’s who ended up squatting in the unit.

Dave:
And

Mike:
It took me nine months to go through eviction court. I actually lost the case, by the way. Did everything by the books. I lost the case professional tenant. And moral story is he ended up vacating on his own accord, thank the Lord. But he completely vandalized the unit. He painted everything purple, hardwood floors, tiles, cabinets, appliances what broken windows, crazy vandalism. And at this point I’m like, I’m just happy to get the unit back, but I haven’t gotten any rental income for nine months. And now I see the whole unit’s trash. And like I mentioned, this is a 1800 square foot, four bed, two bath unit, so it’s not like a two one rehab. It’s everything. So that was a wonderful experience, but it was covered by insurance.

Dave:
Oh my God. Well, I’m sorry to hear that. I have a couple questions. I do think when people think about investing in real estate and get nervous about it, it’s exactly this that people get nervous about. So can you just tell us a little bit how this happened? Did you interact with this person at any point and talk to them about what their intentions were or how did this whole unfortunate situation unfold?

Mike:
Yeah, so I mean, in retrospect, don’t ever close unless you verify the tenants are out, right? That’s a hard lesson learned in retrospect is 2020. But once we got to the point where somebody’s living in the unit, I don’t know who it is at this point, I eventually reach out to the previous owner of the building and I said, Hey, do you have any idea? Can you reach out to the tenants and see who’s maybe still staying there? Do you have any insights? And it was through actually the seller and the seller’s agent where I found out that it was somebody that was paying the previous tenants to crash there essentially. And so I found out his name, I got his contact information, and so I made contact, and of course you want to try to solve things without involving an attorney. So I tried offering him cash to move. I tried to find him subsidized housing. I talked to people in Chicago and is there any place that we can help kind of relocate him? I even offered money to the previous tenants to see if I could pay them to have them move in with them for a few months. He wasn’t interested in any of this. And that’s when I kind of decided that I’m going to have to go the legal

Dave:
Route. And so you were just going back and forth with him being like, what about this? What about this? And he was just like, nah, I’m cool. I’m staying here.

Mike:
Yeah. I even offered to say, Hey, you can’t afford to live here alone, right? It’s a four bedroom unit, but what can you afford? And so I even offered, I will place tenants in the other bedrooms so that you can stay there, you don’t have to move, you can afford it. And then it’s rented by the bedroom. I’m getting the full rental income. And I thought that was maybe a good solution, just wasn’t interested. He led me along to make it seem like he was thinking about it, but I found out at the end of the day, this isn’t the first time this guy’s done this. It’s funny how they can afford a really good attorney, but they can’t afford any of the rent. So from what

Dave:
I’m hearing, you were clearly sort of the victim in this situation. How did you lose that case?

Mike:
So accepting money was the first mistake. He said, Hey, I can afford to pay you partially right now, I accepted the partial payment, but the moment you accept money from him, it’s no longer a squadron. He’s a paid tenant, right? Regardless of if they’re paid in full or not. Essentially I did everything with serving him the notice given the court date, et cetera, correct. Did everything correctly. The reason why I lost the case is because he had a good attorney that brought up case law.

Dave:
That is rough.

Mike:
Eventually in my mind, I’m like, well, this is vandalism. It’s not really covered under my policy. But since it was so bad, obviously it was more than just wear and tear. So they ended up covering the entire rehab, which was around $55,000. Now the unit, I pretty much replaced everything. So now I’m getting $750 more a month in rent. I get better tenants because it’s completely rehabbed. And those tenants have been there for two years now. And so it was a crazy experience. It worked out in the end, but not knowing if it was going to work out, that was probably one of the most stressful times in my life, to be honest.

Dave:
I’m sorry to hear that. That’s crazy. Well, I’m glad it worked out long term. I always ask people this because inevitably every real estate investor has, maybe not to this extreme, but a story where they lost money, something unfortunate happened, it was a pain in the butt, and oftentimes it happens earlier in your career, still learning like this. So were you ever considering giving up or sort of thrown in the towel?

Mike:
It crossed my mind because once I lost the eviction case, that’s where it kind of started to sinking that this could be another nine months. And with Covid, nobody really knew at this point what it was and how long it was going to last, how infectious things were. And so in my mind, I’m like, if this drags on another nine months, I mean, I’m paying out of pocket for stuff. But retrospect, it’s my most profitable building now at this point where the PITI think is 5,300 a month, and it’s bringing in 91 50 a month.

Dave:
Oh my God. 91 50.

Mike:
Very nice spread.

Dave:
Okay. That’s

Mike:
Awesome. And I rehabbed the one other unit where I put $50,000 into our unit. So one year I didn’t buy a property, and so I, nothing penciled out. So I spent 50,000 on a rehab for one of the units, but now I have all newly rehab units, slow repairs, great tenants, and the spread is really nice. Okay, wow.

Dave:
Well, you mentioned at the beginning of the episode that you had four deals. We’ve talked about two at Duplex in Milwaukee, and next we talked about your fourplex in Chicago. We do have to take a quick break, but I want to hear about what you’ve been up to more recently right after this. Hey everyone. Welcome back to the BiggerPockets podcast. I’m here with investor Mike Johnson talking about his portfolio between Milwaukee and Chicago. We’ve talked about two of the deals so far, but the third one, what did you do after that four unit with the unfortunate squatter situation?

Mike:
So at this point, I had the bug and I’m into real estate investing and won a house hack. Again, I’m starting to look at different neighborhoods. And so I end up landing on a three unit property in a west side neighborhood of Chicago. So this one wasn’t a brick building, but ultimately ended up doing a 10% down loan owner occupancy. I moved into the top floor unit and I got a 3.87% rate. Nice. So rates are starting to go up at this point, right? Still competitive market. And for this deal, I ended up putting about $51,000 into this

Dave:
Deal.

Mike:
So by far the most I’ve put into a deal at this point, but I better understand underwriting kind of the little tricks you can do to minimize cash to close. And so that was deal number three.

Dave:
Nice. Okay. And it worked out hopefully. No squatters.

Mike:
No squatters, but I will tell you there’s been tenant a issues. No. Oh

Dave:
Gosh.

Mike:
I had a litigious tenant fix some injuries. Whoa.

Dave:
And

Mike:
It was making threats. And so at that point I said, I am not well equipped and suited for this. I don’t want to make any errors. And so I just decided, I hired a property management company that is well known in the Chicago land area. Him and his team has done a great job, and they have attorneys, they have people that are going to do things the correct way and document things. And so ever since they took over, the relationship is good. There’s no issues. But I think they see a private landlord and they think that they kind of take advantage of the situation, and I was living in the unit so they could gain access to me at any point they see me. And so one thing that I just wanted to do is just separate myself from the tenants. I don’t want to interact and I don’t want to say or do anything incorrectly that’s going to affect me in the court of law in Chicago. And so I can still self-manage the other properties, again, have good tenants, very low vacancy. And so it doesn’t really require much work on my part, but very happy that I offloaded this one property.

Dave:
So the reason the other ones though is because you’re not living there and it’s just like you have sort of that physical separation from tenants that makes you better able to manage.

Mike:
Right? I am not quite ready to forego the seven, 8% of gross income. And I’ve also, I used to do all the showings myself, but now I use an agent. So I don’t pay property management, but I will pay an agent to do the showings for me. So my portfolio is honestly very, very hands-off a couple hours a month maybe. But I have contractors that I trust, plumbers, maintenance people. So that search is over in the beginning. You’re trying to find a reliable person, and that’s stressful. But now that I have a team, it’s very low stress, and so I’m willing to pay a little bit more the cashflow. And so I’m happy to pay the price to be hands off and focus my attention elsewhere.

Dave:
That’s great. I mean, I just want everyone to hear how this just methodical approach Mike is taking can build a portfolio that’s super exciting. I mean, no offense by this mike, but you’re not doing anything super flashy. No. It’s like you’d bought a duplex, you placed great tenants, you have no vacancy, you bought a fourplex, you dealt with a lot of the headache. Now you’re generating amazing cashflow, yet another one where you learn to adapt and rather than dealing it with yourself, you’re sort of offloading the stuff you don’t want to do. And now that’s going to cashflow. And this is over the course of what, three or four years at this point?

Mike:
Yeah. I mean, in less than four years, I acquired, I think it’s valued at 3.4 million in properties and yeah, I think it was in three years, in nine months. So it’s not like this took me a long time to do. And to your point, it’s rinse and repeat the same house hacking method, and as you gain experience and rates go up, my most recent deal was a few months ago and I had a 6.5% rate, but I still was able to close in a class neighborhood. And so it’s just kind of funny following the investment journey. It’s like, okay, COVID interest rates, everything, pencils, and then as rates go up, I’ve still managed to make things work and I haven’t done anything. To your point, really outside the box,

Dave:
I just want to point out to everyone that these types of deals that Mike’s doing do still work today. The numbers might be a little different. I don’t know if you’re going to make the same exact level of cashflow, but if you’re trying to inherently just improve your financial position, these types of house hacking strategies where you move from one to the other, this is just a time tested thing that works in pretty much every type of investment environment. Just a couple of weeks ago on the show, we were talking to an investor who started doing this in 2005 and did it through the 2010s during a totally different type of environment. This is just one of those types of approaches to real estate investing that works no matter where you’re coming from. So just want to encourage people, even if you’re thinking, Hey, yeah, these were low interest rate environments, that this is still something that’s possible. And it sounds like Mike, you can tell us about how it’s still possible with a deal you recently did within the last year or so.

Mike:
Yeah, within a few months ago, it closed on this one in August of 2024. This deal was a little bit different. This was a $1.5 million four unit brick building, three units in the front with the brick coach house in the back, but it’s in Wicker Park, which if you know anything about Chicago, this is a very nice neighborhood. So it’s an A class neighborhood, very nice buildings, very walkable. And I use the new Fannie Freddie 5% down loan, so very highly levered, but conventional loan. And so I got a 6.5% rate, but this one I had to get very creative because I only ended up putting $38,000 into this 1.5 million building, which is kind it crazy when you think about that. That’s less than I put in a building that I paid 6 94, which was the three unit. So for this one, again, with 5% down, of course you have that again, maximize seller credits. So 3% on about 1.5 is around $43,000 in seller credits. I got on top of that. I think this is another popular real estate strategy that people use, but I always close in the first or second of the month.

Dave:
Oh, I love this. Yes,

Mike:
Because this building brings in almost 13,000 a month in income. So if you have two months without a payment, you have a $26,000 cushion for future repairs, anything that maybe you need to do. And it’s lower cash to close. And just the last thing was the tax preparation. Expensive building, pay a lot of taxes close the middle of the year. So I got all that tax credit as well. That lowered my cash to close, which I only had to bring, I think $12,000 I think to the closing table. But my all in with earnest money was 38 on this building.

Dave:
Wow. Unbelievable. That’s super cool. I just wanted to explain the thing you said about doing the closing on the first or second of the month. This is just such an easy way to build a cash reserve and lower your expenses. But basically, when you take out a traditional mortgage, let’s say you close on May 1st, you’re not going to pay for May. You’re also not going to pay for June. Your first payment will be due July 1st, and that might not sound like a lot, but like Mike said, if he’s generating 13 grand a month in May and June, that’s $26,000 he has without his biggest expense, you’re still going to have other expenses. You’re going to probably still have financing. And depending on the state of the building, you might have some turnover costs or upgrades that you want to make, but you’re basically taking that profit that you’re just sending to the bank and never going to see again, and you’re pushing it off for two months.
And of course you’re still going to have to pay that money back. That’s how a loan works. Just the mechanics of running a business, this is a really fortunate way to do it. So anytime you have the option or some flexibility about when to close on a property, just do it as earliest in the month that you can. First is great, second is good. Even the first week, you’re really going to give yourself a big benefit there. Obviously when you close, it’s the same amount of capital, but you won’t need to, for example, set as much aside for a cash reserve.

Mike:
And the tenants here are people that are working professionals, good jobs, high income, and just no issues. I mean, so the tenant pool is great.

Dave:
I love it. You deserve it, man. After two rough ones with tenant situations that weren’t really of your own making. Good to hear that you got a relatively calm one, but it sounds like honestly this kind of deal, you did a lot of creative stuff and kudos to you for doing your research. You learned the tricks. You learned some of the little hustles that you could do on each deal to sort of reduce the amount of money that you’re putting into it, but realistically, this kind of deal, people could do this deal. This, I think serves as a model for people listening of a great deal that you could execute on today.

Mike:
A hundred percent. And there’s two good things too. So with an FHA, you have the self-sufficiency test, which makes it really hard sometimes to have enough rental income to pass that test and even do an FHA loan. The nice thing about this 5% down Fannie Freddie loan is it’s double the rate limit. So you can buy twice as expensive of a property and there’s no self-sufficiency test. So all of a sudden you can afford to buy in these A class neighborhoods where I’m in, whereas an FHE loan would never pass here because the buildings are just too expensive. So it actually opened up the neighborhoods that I was coming to because I think a lot of people don’t want to house hack, and they’re like, I don’t want to live in that neighborhood, which it’s valid, it’s personal preference, but this new fanny, Freddie 5% down loan, it gets you into the eight class neighborhoods in most cities. And so, yeah, I was able to capitalize on that pretty much right as that loan package came out. So maybe not as common knowledge and there wasn’t as many people utilizing it yet, but it’s a great option.

Dave:
That’s a great tip. Yeah, I didn’t even realize that They don’t have the self-sufficiency test. That’s a really cool tip.

Mike:
Yeah, it’s really nice.

Dave:
Awesome. So what’s next for you, Mike? It seems like you’re sort of doing this methodically. Are you just going to keep trying to do these kind of small every year, every two years?

Mike:
So the thing about me maximizing my leverage on these properties is my DTI is pretty capped out right now.
So I may need to cool it for a year or so, but so one of two things. I think I may do the live and flip strategy where I buy a condo kind of by the lake in Chicago, and then I live there two to five years, do a rehab, and then you can sell that within five and not pay taxes on it. So still kind of use the tax advantage method of real estate that I’m familiar with or look into maybe just renting because this unit that I’m in rents for more than what I’d be willing to live in myself. This is a three bed, two bath, and I’m by myself, so I’ll probably move into a smaller unit, rent this out, and then I could maybe get into a five plus multifamily and kind of start maybe scaling up a little bit, doing some larger deals.

Dave:
Awesome, man. Well, congratulations. And just want to reiterate, this is the example I always give where people say, is your primary residence an investment? Clearly, you’ve shown us, Mike, that yes, it can be you’ve managed to acquire millions of dollars worth of real estate just by using your primary residence and even going forward. I love your thinking because yes, at some point in almost every investor’s career, your debt to income ratio becomes a challenge. You have to cool off, and that’s okay. It’s totally fine. I’ve gone years without buying deals for sure. But also Mike, thinking of good ways to do it too. I love that you’re flexible enough to think about renting. I’ve also done that. When you do the math, sometimes it just makes sense to rent or do a live and flip. That’s what I’m doing right now. It’s just another good way to make money. Alright, I think that’s all we got for today. Mike, thanks so much for joining us. Congrats on all your success and for navigating some pretty tricky tenant situations. We appreciate you being here.

Mike:
Thanks for having me. This was fun.

Dave:
It really was. And everyone remember, we are always looking for more investors like Mike to feature on the show. If you’d like to tell your real estate story to the BiggerPockets audience, you can apply at biggerpockets.com/guest. Thanks again for listening. We’ll see you next time.