Buy Now vs. Wait and the Best First Rental for Beginners

BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast

BiggerPockets

Education, Business, Investing

4.8 • 16.5K Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Should you buy a rental property now or wait? If you buy now and prices rise, you’ll get all the appreciation that comes with it and have the chance to refinance at any point in the future. But waiting to have a larger down payment could get you a better loan and put you in a stronger financial position. You want to get into real estate investing soon, so what should you do? We’re answering this question, and more, on this Q&A episode where we field actual investor dilemmas and share what we’d do in these situations. First, the classic buy now or wait debate. Mortgage rates are falling, and so are prices in many areas, and if you’ve got just enough money to buy your first rental, is now the time to do it? Or, do you wait and save, bringing even more money to the table? Should you renovate a house as a first-time real estate investor? If done right, the benefits could be massive, but veteran house flipper James Dainard says there’s only so far into a renovation you should go as a beginner. Plus, do you want 100% financing as a new investor with no experience? We’ve got some interesting news for you! Finally, the one flipping metric to rule them all—what James uses on every flip to see if it’s worth it. See Dave and James live at BPCON2025. Limited tickets are still available! In This Episode We Cover Whether to buy a rental property now or wait until you have more saved up (is it worth it?) Should you buy a move-in-ready rental property or renovate as a beginner? Can new investors really get 100% financing on their first real estate deal? Why James stopped looking at “profit” before deciding on whether a flip is worth it How to get James’ personal advice on your next deal (you have to bring him this) And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1175 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Should you buy a rental property now or wait until you've saved up more money?
0:04.5	Buy now and if prices rise and interest rates drop, you'll get appreciation and beat the competition.
0:10.5	Wait, and you could put down more and have bigger cash flow and be in a relatively stronger financial position.
0:17.8	If we had just enough money for a down payment and we were starting from
0:21.3	scratch, this is what we'd do right now in 2025.
0:29.9	Hey, everyone, I'm Dave Meyer, head of real estate investing at Bigger Pockets. And today on the show,
0:34.5	I'm joined by my friend and on the market co-host James Dainard.
0:38.7	James, thanks for being here.
0:40.2	Oh, I'm excited. This is my favorite kind of show.
0:42.4	There's so many things that get popped around.
0:44.1	I just love digging into like the little specifics.
0:46.6	All of the success, I feel like, is hidden in those specifics on these individual circumstances.
0:52.0	And the cool thing about this is that we have great questions today,
0:55.2	that even if they don't apply perfectly to your situation, going through the thought process
1:00.5	and hearing sort of the different criteria, the metrics, the thought process that James and I
1:05.0	have in answering these questions, I think will help you understand how to drive your own
1:10.1	portfolio forward better.
1:12.6	And the questions we have today are awesome and are probably applicable to almost everyone
1:16.3	listening out there.
1:18.3	First question we have is from an investor who's debating whether to buy a deal now or
1:22.9	save up more cash.
1:23.9	We're also going to talk about how much rehab is too much rehab for a first-time
	...

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