I Bought 15 Rental Units While Making $15/Hour Putting Up Fences

0:00This has to be one of the wildest, funniest episodes I've ever recorded on this podcast. Britton Eads tried college, and then he dropped out. He tried joining the electricians union, then he dropped out. Now he was working for a fencing company getting paid just$15 an hour. And you know what he did with his paychecks? He spent every dollar he had on rental properties. He bought a duplex, then a fourplex, then seven more units while making just$3 ,000 a month. He made the classic beginner mistakes. He bought a house without ever going to look at it. He didn't get an inspection, had pipes burst just two weeks into owning his first rental.

0:38Oh, by the way, don't ever do half the stuff he mentions early on. But what he didn't do was give up. Now he's got over 15 rental units that have replaced his paycheck and built him over$200 ,000 in equity. He used that equity to buy more properties when he didn't have the money, got seller credits to fund his renovations, and did it even with 8 % interest rates. Britton had every excuse not to be successful in real estate, and he made it work. This is how you can do it too.

1:13What's going on, everybody? I'm Henry Washington, host of the BiggerPockets podcast, and we have an investor story for you today. We have investor Britton Eads out of Kentucky. Let's jump in. Britton Eads, welcome to the BiggerPockets podcast. Oh, it's good to be here. Man, so good to have you. For our audience, why don't you give us a little bit of a peek into your background and how you first got into real estate. So I graduated high school in 2021. I was 18 years old. And when I graduated, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. So I went to college for about six months and then I dropped out.

1:49So then I joined the electrician union. My dad wanted me to do that. So I went to electrician union for probably another six months. And then the school started. And I thought, well, I don't know if I really, I don't think I really want to go and do the school because they was wanting us to go and work all day and then go to school for like two or three hours at night after work. And I was like an hour away from my house where I was having to work at. So while I worked there, my wife, well, it was my girlfriend, but now my wife, her grandma gave me the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And I read it. And as soon as I read it, I was like, wow, is it really this easy to go and buy real estate or start a business and not have to work and become financially free through real estate investing?

2:36All right. So then I just, I was like, well, you know, I don't really want to go to school anymore. So then I quit doing that. Yeah, we picked up on that. I noticed the theme of you not wanting to go to school amongst your story, which it was fair, fair enough. School isn't for everybody. I get it. I get it. I got lucky probably to pass high school. Not really. Not really. I had A's and B's, but I hated every single second of it. So after that, I went back to work for my dad and I started looking for properties and listening to podcasts. That was 2022. And by the end of 2022, December, I bought my first property.

3:11It was a duplex for$70 ,000. Wow. But when I bought this duplex, I had never seen it. I didn't do an inspection. I didn't even know how old it was. I didn't know anything about it. You just knew how much it cost. I just knew how much it costed. Honestly, the guy asked me, he said, I want$80 ,000. I said, I'll give you$70 ,000. And he said, okay. He just wanted rid of it too. All right. Okay. All right. All right. Hold on. First and foremost, what I like about what you told me about your story is it was action-based. You took massive action. You started looking for properties, you found something to buy.

3:49I do not love the fact that you didn't see it, nor did you get an inspection. I didn't even know how old it was. That's wild. It ended up being over a hundred years old. And I had no idea. No, no, no, no. It didn't end up being over a hundred years old. That thing was over a hundred years old well before you made an offer on it. You just didn't research enough to know that it was a hundred years old. But you took some action. You didn't go see it. So how far away from you was the property? Was it a drive to go see it or was it close to you? So it was about 30 minutes from where I lived at. Okay.

4:26So you should have went to see it. Got it. Yeah, I should have went to see it. I was working every day. And honestly, I just knew I wanted to buy real estate. That was all I was really worried about. And I knew that. So it was rented for about$1 ,000 a month. So when I bought it, At first, I was making about$200 a month off of it. Some information that was great was you knew that it was rented prior to you buying it, which means it should at least be in somewhat of a livable condition.

4:58Somewhat, yes. Somewhat. But let's talk about the actual property. You paid$70 ,000 for it. You didn't have to do any renovation at that point. So the people that had lived there had lived there for four or five years. So technically I didn't have to do any renovations, but I had listened to Robert Kiyosaki and Ken McElroy and Bigger Pockets. And I thought, well, let's see if I go and put some money into this property, if it'll appraise for more and if I could get more rent on it. So it's about six months before I decided to go through with this. So I went back to the bank and I said, you know, I want to go and fix this property up and see what it'll be worth.

5:37I think I can get, I ended up getting$1 ,800 a month in rents. Oh, wow. So what I ended up doing, I put$30 ,000 into this property. I put a roof on it. I put mini splits in it. I put LVP flooring in it. One of the apartments had an old clawfoot bathtub and we actually took it out and put a new shower in, a bathtub shower combo. And we actually got the property fixed up pretty nice and we ended up re-renting it for$1 ,800 a month. But the craziest thing about it is, is I paid 70 for it. When I bought it, it appraised for, I think,$85 ,000. I put$30 ,000 into it with a construction loan from the bank, and it still only appraised for$100 ,000.

6:14Oh, wow. So$70 ,000, that was a conventional loan that you used? So here where we live at, these local banks, they call them commercial loans, and they're on a five-year term, and they'll do 15, 20, or 25 years. That one was a five-year term, 20 years. I think the interest rate was eight and a half when I first got it. Okay. So you did a commercial construction loan, 15 % down. It's on a five-year adjustable rate. Typically, that means you're on interest-only payments while you're fixing it up as well. They gave you$30 ,000 to fix it. So you paid$70 ,000. You put$30 ,000 in it. You're all in for$100 ,000.

6:55Good news, it's renting for$1 ,800, which is definitely positive cash flow. So that's excellent cash flow, but you didn't appraise for enough to pull your cash out. So were you able to refinance at all? Did you do like a rate and term? Yeah. So whenever I got that loan, when I first got it, it was five years fixed, 20 years amortization, and then five year balloon. So when I refinanced it, I refinanced it and it was, I think, eight and a half percent for just one year on the construction loan of it. Okay. So I had a year to fix it and then I had to come back and refinance it again after that. And I refinanced a five, a five-year term on a 20-year amortization again.

7:36And I didn't pull, I couldn't pull anything out cause I didn't have really any equity, but I think my payment was, my payment was$697 a month. My insurance was a hundred dollars a month. Taxes was about a hundred dollars a month. And then I was putting back about$300 a month for fixing things. So I was cash flowing five or$600 about every single month. So my first question is, did you learn some lessons with that first one that you applied now to your second deal so that you didn't repeat the mistakes? Because I'm just going to be honest with you, Britton, some of the mistakes that you made on that first deal, if you were to repeat that now in the 2025, 2026 market, you would be in a world of hurt, right?

8:19But A, you bought something that had a ton of cashflow in it, which was great. Did it appraise for what you wanted? No, but you're cash flowing. So you've got positive income coming in, which is great. But hopefully you learned some lessons that you applied to the second deal. So after I bought that one, it took me about a year and a half to buy my next one, which was April 2024. And when I bought it, I bought a fourplex and I actually bought that one on FHA. So I only had to put three and a half percent down on it. And you know, you have to live in it for a year, but I was able to get a$245 ,000 fourplex with about$7 ,000 out of pocket.

8:53So I met my mentor Hank and I just, you know, I asked and was like, what do you think something like this would rent for? It was three two bedrooms and one one-bedroom unit. And when I bought it, the old landlord had put in a roof on it, had new HVACs, and it was only rented for$1 ,200 a month. The one bedroom was rented for$600, and the two bedroom was rented for$600, and two of them were empty, and they were in really bad shape. I don't know how it really passed the FHA inspection, because they're really strict on it. So we went and fixed that unit up. We put LVP flooring in it, tore that wall out, And we re-rented that unit for$950 a month to a tenant on Section 8.

9:30And I paid the water bill, which was, it's about$50 every month. So we had that one rented for$900 a month. And after that happened, I thought, well, if this one just rented for$900, I can easily rent the other one for that. I like that you waited. You didn't jump and rush right into the second one. And I also like that you did an FHA loan. So give us just a recap of the numbers on this one. your purchase price for this property was how much? It was$245 ,000. Okay. And about how much money would you say you spent renovating the property as a whole? Probably less than$10 ,000. So you paid$245 ,000, you got 10K in it, you're all in for$255 ,000.

10:09And what are your total rents on that property now? I've got three of those units on section eight. So I've got three of the two bedrooms rented for$900 a piece. And then the one bedrooms rent for$850 ,000. So right now, we're getting about$34.50 in rents on that. $34.50 on a property you're all in at$250 and some change, I would say is a good, solid cash flowing deal, especially since you used an FHA and you only had to put$7 ,500. How did you find it? Was this an on-market deal or was this a pocket listing? How did you come across this deal? So every single property I have bought, besides the first duplex I bought, has been off Zillow.

10:50So I was looking at where we live at in Richmond. And most of the time, fourplexes here where we live at, most of them sell for a little over the 1 % rule. So they're between$350 ,000. Some of them's$400 ,000, which$400 ,000 is on the high end. But I knew that this was a really, really cheap fourplex because you can't find another fourplex for this price where we live at. Now, it was in really bad shape. The owner had taken care of the outside. It had a new roof. Some of the siding was new. The HVACs were new, but he didn't touch the inside of these two units. They had old wood floors that he had just painted black.

11:26Landlord special. When people went and looked at it, he went and had a huge hole cut in the ceiling of one of the units because one of the toilets had licked upstairs and he was too lazy to come over and fix it. So people were going and looking at it and they're looking at that and they're looking at these other two units and they're like, well, this guy hasn't done any work to this thing since he bought it. So I think a lot of people, they see properties like that that are ugly and that need work and they don't want to go and buy a property like that because it had been on Zillow for, I think, six months.

11:54Okay, cool. Thank you for sharing. And look, I know I'm laughing and joking with you, but I 100 % appreciate the honesty and transparency because there are lessons to be learned in wins. There are lessons to be learned in mistakes. And from what I know about your story, you're doing pretty darn well as a newer and especially a younger real estate investor. one last question I had about this particular deal is so you're all in it for 250 and some change have you had it appraised what would you say the value of that property is now I had an appraiser he's he's he's a really good friend of mine actually but he's you know set probably 70 or 80 years old I'm not too sure how old he is and he's like well you know this property ain't worth but 260 or 270 and there's no fourplexes that sell for that where we live at And I got a friend of mine that lives in a little bit of a bigger city and sees some higher prices sometimes.

12:49And he came back and reappraised it for closer to what I thought it would be worth, which was$322 ,000. Well, that's awesome. If you've got a$322 ,000 appraisal, you absolutely have some equity. So this sounds like a decent deal to me. Positive cash flow, great rents, and you've got some equity in the deal. One thing I want to discuss with you is you had mentioned that you found a mentor and that mentor helped you learn how to scale. And I want to dive into kind of how you met that mentor and how you've implemented some of his teachings. But we're going to do that right after the break. Do you ever notice how every passive investment somehow turns into a very active lifestyle?

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16:36all right we are back on the bigger pockets podcast with investor britain eads who has told us all about his first two deals first deal was a duplex that he paid only seventy thousand dollars for he bought it sight unseen and turned out to be a decent deal positive cash flow maybe didn't get the appraisal you wanted but you were making money you waited about a year and a half you bought your second deal a quadplex which the numbers sound really amazing on but as you were telling us that story, you had mentioned that you met a mentor with about 800 doors. I know a lot of new investors are looking for people who would mentor them.

17:14So can we just talk for a second about how you met this guy and how your relationship is and what kind of advice he was giving you on your real estate journey? So after I bought my first duplex, I got stuck. I really, it took me a year and a half, but I would have rather have bought something the next day if I would have had the money or if I even could have found it. And my mom is actually the, I don't know, she's something, she's like a vice president, I think, at one of these banks over here where I live at. And I just asked her, I was like, mom's like, do you know anybody that owns a bunch of apartments?

17:46I mean, you have to see these people all the time and stuff. She's like, yeah. And she gave me this guy's name. His name was Hank Ballinger. And he owned then 800 and something apartments in the city where we live at. And whenever I met him, he was doing a class. So it was a one-on-one class. I think it was$500. And I went there and met him every single day for about six weeks. And he really just taught me about, you know, how to know if a property is a good deal, the 1 % rule, and to make sure that every property that you buy cash flows and to not just buy cheap properties like I did at first with the duplex, but to buy in areas that will appreciate, but also cash flow at the same time so you can hold those for long periods of time and ride that appreciation up over longer periods of time.

18:33He taught me things like that. And he taught me a lot just about, you know, to get inspections on properties when you go to make sure you want properties when you do buy them. He taught you a few little things like go see a house before you buy it. Maybe have somebody check it out before you close on it. Look again, I tease, but I like this because you did what I think, where I think everyone should start. You utilized the resources that you had first in order to try to help you make connections. So not everybody listening is going to have a mother that has a position at a bank where they can introduce you to somebody, but you probably have someone in your network somewhere who knows people in real estate.

19:14Everybody's got a friend or a cousin or somebody who's an agent, right? So start with who's in your network and tell them what you're doing and ask them to make you make connections. Those connections can lead you to other connections. And so if you're listening to this and you want to mentor, start with the people in your network, see who they know, go to lunch, go to coffee, and then ask them if there's somebody else in their network. Now that they know a little bit about more about you and what you're looking for, is there someone else in their network that they can connect you to so you can have your next meeting and you could be well on your way to meeting your next mentor.

19:46So Mr. Britton, you now have done two deals and they are positive cash flowing deals. One of them has a good amount of equity in it. But if I've learned anything about you in this conversation, the last thing you want to do is sit on your hands with this gunpowder and this mentor who's teaching you how to scale. So what the heck did you do with all this information? What was your next deal? So after I bought the fourplex in April of 2025, I found a triplex in a house that was on Zillow again, they're asking$185 ,000 for a triplex and a house. So you found a triplex and a house listed online for$185 ,000.

20:28Something's not right with that. That doesn't math to me based on the numbers you were telling me. So why$185 ,000? What was wrong with that? So the house was just a little cottage behind it. When I say it's a house, it's only like a 500 square foot house. It wasn't really technically, it wasn't really a house and they were just on one lot. And the triplex was in pretty bad shape when I bought it. But the greatest thing about it was when I went to look at it and I noticed that there was another triplex next door that looked identical to the other one. And I noticed that there were seven mailboxes on that one porch.

21:02So we called the other realtor and luckily they actually owned the other triplex too. And I said, well, would he want to sell them all together? And he said, yes. So we went and looked at it and two of these units were tore all the way down to the studs. And the one was rented, I think for$600 a month. And they were all rented total for$3 ,200 a month. And when I looked at them, two of the units were tore all the way down to the studs on the other one. And he only wanted $80 ,000 for that one. So 180 plus 80 would get you everything. 185 plus 80 got me everything. And we went and I was like, oh my God, like this should be worse, between$400 ,000,$450 ,000 if it's all fixed up.

21:44And I could get these re-rented for about$6 ,000 a month. So I went ahead and I had about$1 ,500 in the bank and I wrote a$1 ,000 check to put those under escrow. And I had about 45 days to close on these. So I'd done what anybody would do. And I went to the bank that done my other loan. I said, Hey, I found these properties. They're this much. I'll have them rented for this much. You know, they're rented for$3 ,200 right now. And the first thing he asked me, he said, well, do you have the down payment? And I said, yes. People are going to hear this story and you're going to think you got lucky, right?

22:17And is there some element of luck in finding something like this? Sure, there's a small element of luck. What isn't luck is if you are consistently looking for deals. If you make it your job to look for properties to buy, when deals like this come across, you're able to find them because you're consistently looking. Two, Dave Meyer and I talk about this all the time. There are tons of properties listed online. I like to call them misclassified listings where sellers or agents, for some reason, have no idea how to market properties and things are not marketed correctly. It takes a little bit more of a keen eye.

23:02So you saw what looked like a deal You went to the property and you didn't just look at what was in front of you But you looked at what was next door and you noticed some things you noticed that the property next door looked exactly like the property You were at you noticed that the owner of the property once you did a little research on that property, too And then you did what I think every real estate investor should do which is ask Hey, do you have anything else you'd be willing to sell or would you be willing to sell everything? so now you find yourself under contract for a property for$265 ,000 for seven units, two triplexes and a single family home for$265 ,000.

23:40But the key, the thing that I think is important about this deal is the current rents. Current rents were above$3 ,000, which means as the property sat, the day you paid for it, It was cash flowing. Like that means you're buying yourself a good deal because everything else that you force in terms of cash flow down the road is additional icing on the cake. And this wasn't that long ago. This was 2025, correct? Yeah. Yeah. This was. So I've seen it in April 2025. We closed May 2025. Absolutely. So people say there are no good deals out there. There are deals out there. You have to you got to have a different pair of eyeballs than everybody else to be able to see things that other people don't see.

24:22but I like the fundamentals of this one because as the property sat, even though it was in bad shape, even though there were two units down to the stud, the property was making money. And that opens up options for you in terms of how you're able to finance the deal. So you've got this thing on the line for 265. The banker asked you, did you have the down payment? And you said, yes. I did the exact same thing on my first deal. I absolutely did not have the down payment, but the banker asked me, did I have it? And I said, yes. because all that means to me is I got time to go find it, even if I don't have it in that moment.

24:56So talk to me about the financing of this one. How did you take this deal down? So I was part of this other community and they had other people in there that were millionaires. And I just got on there and posted. I said, hey, I got this property under contract. It should be worth about$450 ,000 whenever it's all finished. The rent will be$6 ,000. I'll do 10 % interest only a month for one year and a 10 % balloon payment when I refinance the property. So within two weeks, I had somebody message me. They said, Hey, we're interested in doing it. I talked to him on the phone twice. And a couple of days after that, they sent me a wire for$46 ,025.