She Bought Her First Rental Property with $0 Down (Her Exact Playbook)

18:58Tony J. Robinson:Crystal, how did you find these additional grants? were these found through your lender were you doing research on your own who where were these grants coming from and tell us more about the grants you're able to secure it was like all hands on deck I was like doing all the research that I could um just like if anybody mentioned something I would like immediately write it down and go look into it like when I met you at the conference you mentioned NACA and so I like looked into that until like a final point um so yeah I would just like sign up for like all of the like first time home buyer classes and they would always mention something there so I would just compare all of the programs that they had um and like yeah just using the time in the car to like listen to more and more about each of these programs and kind of like seeing every idea to an end and um i also communicated this with um my entire like acquisitions team um so all throughout they were also looking for like similar programs for me so everybody on my team was geared towards the same goal do you remember the i guess a the amounts but b the the terms of those grants like was it was it truly just free money or, you know, like, like for example, when I, when I bought my first primary residence, we went through this program called Cal Hafa, which is the state of California.

20:08Tony J. Robinson:I think it's like the, I just looked it up. It's like the California housing something association. But basically they gave me a loan that operated as like a silent second mortgage on my property. So it wasn't my full down payment, but it was a good portion of my down payment was funded through this CalHafa loan. And it was a silent loan, so I didn't have to make any payments on it. And only until the original loan was either paid off or refinanced, but we didn't have to make payments on that loan. We ended up refinancing like a few years later, we paid that off, and we don't have it anymore. But that's how ours was structured.

20:41Tony J. Robinson:So I'm just curious if you recall the actual terms. Is it truly free money or like just a grant that they gave to you, or is it like a loan product that you'll have to pay back at some point? um so it was kind of mixed we stacked a couple of them um about 8 550 of it was seller credit um and then i had a 5 500 grant in there from my um from the lender and then there was also a home buyer grant stacked in there so the home buyer grant was really um the home buyer grant and the grant from my lender were the two like free money portions of this but um there was also a 4 ,477 project reinvest grant.

21:22And that is going to be like view on sale, like if I ever refinance or sell the house. So that will be the only piece that I have to pay back.

21:29Tony J. Robinson:It's incredible. It's incredible. It makes me think of like, man, have I not been looking for enough grants, you know, even for myself, right? So the funding part makes sense here, Crystal, but I think the other piece that's important is how you actually layered not just your kind of funding strategies together, but you're also layered the actual real estate strategies together. And I think that's part of what makes your story unique. Most people hear the word house hack, and they just picture a duplex where you live in one side, and you rent out the other, which you did do, right? You're renting out one side, but then you went one layer, one step deeper.

22:02Tony J. Robinson:So walk us through how the roommate inside of your own unit changed the math and the profitability on this first house hack. Sure. So the tenant in the bottom unit, as I mentioned, pays$1 ,299 a month. And my mortgage is$2 ,054. So he pays about like 63 % of my mortgage. But I kind of wanted to get closer to having most of it paid or even cash flowing. But right now I'm making even because of the roommate. so when I added in the second bedroom of my own unit my roommate pays$700 a month so between the two renters about 97 % of my mortgage is covered now and so that layered approach is really what changed the math because it just kind of like offset my housing like instead of just offsetting my housing by 63 % I now have 97 % of my mortgage covered from the beginning which was really nice and it just made me a lot more confident in the property because now I know that I like when I do move out of this bedroom, I could get like similar rents as my roommate pays, which would help me cash flow as soon as I move out.

23:06And so, yeah, just adding the roommate layer to this deal made a massive difference, but it's definitely based on like personal preference. And I didn't really need like the extra space in my unit. And so since I like just graduated college, I was already used to having roommates. And it also meant that instead of like potentially having to find a place to rent and spending like over thousand dollars on rent I'm only spending about like fifty five dollars a month out of pocket um to cover the other like three percent of the mortgage and paying like half of utilities um which are like split down the middle by my roommate and I because the bottom unit is separately metered so um adding in the roommate changed a lot and crystal when did you close on this deal

23:44Ashley Kehr:what month in uh march 9th so march 9th of 2026 and everybody says there's no deals out there you can't cash. You're technically not cash flowing, I guess, but you're also living in the property. You're spending$55 a month to live in a unit that you could potentially rent out for$700. Or like you said, you'd have to pay$1 ,000 to go and rent somewhere else. So that is incredible that from attending BP Con to March 9th, you were able to find a deal. And there's people out there making excuses that they can't find a deal. But I think you showed how much work you are putting into it, how much research you are doing it.

24:32Ashley Kehr:You're analyzing the deals. You're sending a buy box to your agent. So many people talk about building out their buy box and stuff like that, but very few people actually send that out to their agent and are having leads sent to them. I think just all of the little action items that you did just shows how valuable it is to do those next steps. Tony, what does Brandon Turner call that?

24:57Tony J. Robinson:The most important next step.

25:00Ashley Kehr:Yeah. Okay. Couldn't be more obvious. Yeah. A lot of those next steps were kind of like defined out from listening to this podcast. So I'm really thankful to you guys as well, because I like took notes. Like I had my phone in my hand and I would like take audio notes whenever I was driving. And so just like whenever I would hit the next step and go like, okay, what do I do now? Like I have to keep the ball rolling. I would just like look back and it's like, well, Ashley said this on this day and Tony said this. So I always had like a good frame of reference because of you too. And then you picked what Ashley said and now it's all in the night.

25:32Tony J. Robinson:I wouldn't disagree with that. But Chris, I mean, you took action, which is incredible. But I also just want to highlight like what an incredible story. I mean, you were obviously super tenacious and doing the work. But like, let's just think about what you just said. You have this deal where you have now control and ownership and equity and this appreciating asset with virtually$0 out of pocket, and you've reduced your living expense down to zero. So you've got loan pay down that's happening from your tenants, like 97 % of your mortgage is being paid by someone else. So your loan pay down is there.

26:11Tony J. Robinson:This property will continue to appreciate year over year and it literally costs you nothing but some time and some hard work like where else can you do that like that is the beauty of real estate investing that i think so many people uh should be taking advantage of so i mean i just absolutely love absolutely love the story here um how did you find the the roommate for your actual unit was it a friend that you already had or how did you find that person um no i hadn't met her yet but um like the tools that i learned on the podcast with like screening tenants kind of made me confident that I could pick a stranger and like verify that they were actually safe to move into my house um so I went onto Facebook and I joined a bunch of groups for like the universities that are in the surrounding area um and luckily I'd like just graduated so I feel like I'd seem like a lot less intimidating so I reached out to a bunch of students that were looking for housing and just kind of like um told them about the property and told them like reach out if you're interested So I sent out about like 15 different messages.

27:08I pre-screened a couple of people and then eventually ended up continuing with like just my one roommate and she's been great so far.

27:16Tony J. Robinson:So what kind of questions? Because I do think that when you're when you're house hacking in a traditional sense and there's like walls separating you and your tenant who's in a different unit. Obviously, you still want to screen really well, but it's a different element when you're in the same unit together. do you remember crystal what kind of questions you were asking to to screen to not only get a good you know to get a sense of this person will be a good tenant but will this person be a good roommate for me personally and if she's a terrible roommate then we can skip that question we're gonna have to answer that she's been an amazing roommate i actually have the questions i could pull those up so um i developed a rental pre-screening questionnaire using um obviously like the tools that you guys have given me which is like every part of this but um i just basically asked for like some basic information like name email phone number and then um asked about like when they would want to move in um and like how long they wanted to occupy the room for and then I asked about like income and employment and like um what their current employment status is how um much they make per month before taxes and um like what their source of income is what their credit score is and then I moved into like the rental history section um like asking how many times they've been evicted um and like if they have any prior landlord references and i like took the time to like call the past landlords and just like verify that all of this information was true and then um just like asked a bunch of like housing fit questions like if they're comfortable living in like a shared unit with the owner of the house and like if they smoke which was a really big one for me and um if they have like any pets and what their reason for moving is and um what they're looking for in their next living space just like a bunch of questions to make sure that we were actually a good fit as roommates.

28:55And so that kind of helped me to weed out a couple of the people that like either like smoked or like would have been disqualified for one reason or another.

29:03Tony J. Robinson:I love the, I love the screening portions. It sounds like you had a really good sense of who this person was, but now with you guys actually living together, how are you giving up responsibilities? Like, like we we've interviewed some folks who have like, you know, like a cleaning schedule for the folks when they're, you know, they've got like the co-living strategy kind of going on. It's like, hey, this week it's Crystal's turn to clean the bathroom and next week is this person's turn. Do you have any sort of mechanisms in place to actually make living together run smoothly? Like, you know, groceries and, you know, household essentials like toilet papers and paper towels.

29:35Tony J. Robinson:How are you handling the part of actually sharing that space together? It's been really nice so far. I added something into the lease about us deciding on like a shared set of rules when she moved in, but I kind of like held back on doing that because we've been just like working really well together. She kind of just like naturally does some of the chores and I naturally do some of the others. So, so far it's been really good, but I do have that part of the lease that allows me to enforce a shared set of rules later on if this system stops working. All right, coming up, the part of the story most first-time investors don't see.

30:08Tony J. Robinson:The day she questioned whether she could actually handle all of this and the lesson with a contractor that cost her real money. We'll get into it after a quick break. April is a beautiful month. The flowers are blooming. The days are getting longer. Everyone's outside. Everyone except you. You are stuck in the seventh circle of tax hell. You forgot to separate your mileage. You've got cash transactions that your CPA is refusing to touch. You replaced the HVAC in March, called it a player and just learned it should have been capitalized and depreciated over 27 and a half years or possibly 39 years.

30:44Tony J. Robinson:And now you owe penalties you didn't know existed on income that you already spent. If you had a rough tax season and never want to relive it, it's time to download Stessa. All year, Stessa's AI tracks your income and expenses and maps them to Schedule E categories. So when tax time hits, you click a button and there she is in all her compliant, deduction-optimized glory. Download Stessa for free at stessa.com and get ready to enjoy April again. A lot of investors didn't plan to become lifelong landlords. Maybe you bought a few rentals 20 years ago. Maybe five turned into 15. And now you've built real equity, but you're still dealing with turnover, maintenance calls, and coordinating repairs every month.

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34:13Tony J. Robinson:If you want insurance built to protect your investment when it matters most, visit nreig.com slash bplc and learn more today. All right. So this deal closed, the numbers work, the keys are in Crystal's hand. Now comes the part of the story that most rookies aren't ready for. The moment you realize you actually have to run this thing. So I'm curious, Crystal, about the lowest points in all of this, right? Because so far the story has been phenomenal. But I'm sure that there's some parts that maybe weren't as glamorous because you're juggling the full-time job, the two-hour commute, the property, the contractors.

34:47Tony J. Robinson:There's got to have been a moment where you said, I don't know if I can actually handle all of this walk us through what that day looked like and what got you through it um so the hardest part honestly came like right after closing i was struggling like having the full-time job commuting really long um dealing with like contractors for any work that needed to be done um like dealing with paperwork tenants having to keep up with like fitness and trying to learn everything like at once and not being able to let anything slip through the cracks because at this point it felt like even if that even if i wanted to put anything on the back burner i couldn't because all of this felt like a priority um so there were definitely moments where i questioned whether or not i could handle all of it but i would stop sometimes and kind of just realize that i was in the middle of exactly what i had been praying for for so long and that once i got through like the adjustment period it would just be easy going forward because i could replicate the same thing and like everything would get easier to manage which it did thankfully um and what got me through it was lots of praying first of all and being really grateful that god had given me these opportunities.

35:47So just like recognizing that I was interested with such blessings kind of kept me pushing forward. And my family and friends were also really supportive throughout this time. My family, especially, they helped me move in and just kind of like kept up with all that was happening and celebrated every milestone with me, which was really nice. But looking back, I kind of learned throughout all of this that growth throughout these different like transitory stages of life can feel really stressful. Not because like you're failing, but because you're doing something that's like really new and really important.

36:17And that stress is always worth pushing through because growth can really like get really uncomfortable, but your dreams and goals that are on the other side of that are so worth it.

36:25Ashley Kehr:That is so well said, Crystal. Now, during this time, you did have a stressful time, like something happened to you with a contractor. So how did you handle that and what actually went wrong with this contractor? um so you know how i mentioned that i was really grateful to have all of my reserves still intact you're like there's a reason for that yeah this was the part where my pockets were like tested and tried um i was in the process of getting the home like move-in ready for my roommate um who was moving in in five days from the moment that i realized like this and um i realized that the shower was loose and that was a problem because like moisture from showering could get into the wall and that leads to a bunch of other issues that i really hope to god never to have to deal with um so i found a contractor through my realtor to come in and fix that and in the process he found that the water the hot water heater in the basement was no longer working and also needed to be replaced and so all that together was a little over a thousand out of pocket um which like if i didn't have my reserves could have gone a lot worse than it eventually did but um basically i ended up paying the contractor too much up front because um like before the work was fully completed and he ghosted me the very second that I put that money out there um and having it finished sealing off the shower which was quite possibly the most important part um and so that kind of taught me like the very important lesson about structuring my payments carefully um because the cost wasn't really just financial it was also like emotional and time related because fixing mistakes took a lot of like energy and more importantly like time which I didn't have much of seeing as my roommate was moving in a in a couple days um but anyway now I'm a lot more intentional about milestone-based payments as you guys have taught me and making sure that the work is actually completed before the final payment no matter how nice and trustworthy the contractor seems.

38:20Tony J. Robinson:Where did you find that contractor Crystal? He was referred to me through my realtor but she hadn't personally worked with him so I reached out to her like as soon as he ghosted I was like hey have you ever like had any issues with such and such and she's like no I've never had that happen but he's definitely off my list now so So I think it ended up working out. How did you finish the job? Did you have to hire someone in to come and do it? Or was it just like YouTube University to finish it yourself? YouTube University. Fair enough. It gets the job done. It gets the job done. So Crystal, your why here when it comes to investing in real estate is freedom and impact, right?

38:56Tony J. Robinson:Being able to be present for a future family, being able to travel, volunteering without being financially constrained. So I guess the last question for you is for a rookie that's listening to this right now, maybe two hours into their own commute, questioning whether any of this is actually worth it. Is it worth it to keep listening to the podcast? Is it worth it to save 70 % of your income? Is it worth it to spend the time going to the conferences and making those connections? For this person who's listening and is questioning those things, what do you want them to take away from your story and from this conversation?

39:30I think the first thing would be that it is 100 % worth it. And I think that there's also just like a couple things that I'd want them to be able to take away from this episode. But the biggest thing and something that my mom always told me is that the world is already hard enough without you constantly telling yourself that you can't do something to like not add to the negative voices. and you don't need to know everything before getting started just start learn ask questions build relationships research like all of those things are absolutely necessary but eventually you kind of have to take action which was something that was drilled into me by listening to all of these podcasts and books you can only learn so much by like listening to other people's experiences you kind of have to take that step for yourself and the second thing is to build a strong foundation with the right team around you when I first started out I was really nervous and didn't feel prepared and so I'm like really grateful for the team that I had working alongside me throughout all of this and my mentor who I met at the conference last year in Vegas because they all played such like unique but really integral roles and see me through this goal and just like to be really careful about whose advice you take a lot of people tried to discourage me from pursuing real estate investing because like it had not worked out for them or something or like they had heard like a bad story but a lot of them hadn't actually invested themselves and so now kind of being on the other side of that I can say that if I had taken their advice I would probably be spending like a really good chunk of my salary on rent um and still feel and still like feeling really stuck wondering how to break out of the um thinking that I'd be tied to the same nine to five schedule for many years to come and the last thing would just be that there's always almost a way.

41:09There's almost always a way forward. And if you can stay resourceful, committed, and willing to keep learning that you can do quite literally anything that you put your mind to.

41:17Ashley Kehr:Crystal, not only real estate investor, but motivational speaker throughout this whole thing. Really, really. But thank you so much for taking the time today to come on to the show, to not only share your wisdom, but also to share your journey with real estate investing. we really enjoyed having you on the show so where can people reach out to you and find out more information about your journey thank you guys so much for having me as well it's been really nice speaking with you guys today anybody can reach out to me I'm mostly accessible I'm reachable on Instagram my Instagram is crystal.loyidd with three d's of n so c-r-y-s-t-a-l dot l-o-y-d-d-d well thank you crystal so much for joining us everybody else thank you for listening and if not already, make sure you are subscribed to Real Estate Rookie on YouTube.

42:09Ashley Kehr:I'm Ashley, he's Tony, and we'll see you guys next time.

42:12Tony J. Robinson:Hey, rookies, if you're watching this, we want you to apply to be a guest on the Real Estate Rookie podcast. That's right. Ashley and I are looking for amazing stories just like yours to be a part of our Real Estate Rookie podcast. Now look, you don't need to be an expert. You don't need to have done thousands of deals. Even if you've done one deal, your story could help inspire the next listener.

42:30Ashley Kehr:As a rookie investor, especially if you just got your first deal, it is all fresh in your minds and you are the best person to tell your story, give your experience on how you got it done to help someone else get their first deal.

42:43Tony J. Robinson:So head over to biggerpockets.com slash guest if you want to be a part of our show. Again, that's biggerpockets.com slash guest and we'd love to have you on. There are two types of business owners, those who are busy and those who want to be busy. Toast is designed for both, with tools to keep you humming and help turn grind into growth. That's how you turn busy into business. Toast. Built for busy.