Financial Freedom in 11 Years Thanks to This “Perfect” Rental Strategy

BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast

BiggerPockets

Education, Business, Investing

4.8 • 16.5K Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Imagine getting paid to buy rental properties. Well, it’s more than possible, and today’s investor proves it. After spending months looking for the “perfect BRRRR” property, Jon Kessler stumbled upon it and, through a series of fortunate events, got paid $50,000 to buy a cash-flowing rental property. And guess what? This wasn’t a one-time occurrence. Jon repeated this strategy multiple times to build his real estate portfolio with little money and reach financial freedom in just 11 years! So what is the “perfect BRRRR” strategy, and how can you repeat it to get paid at the closing table, just like Jon? Today, Jon is walking us through his decade-long real estate investing journey, starting with being tens of thousands of dollars underwater on his home in 2008 to getting paid to buy rental properties, building an off-market lead business, and eventually getting to his true goal: financial freedom and truly passive income. Jon faced a LOT of ups and downs. He started with zero investing experience, had non-paying tenants, a home with negative equity, and built his real estate portfolio all while working a full-time job and raising kids. Think you can’t invest in real estate in your situation? Jon will prove you couldn’t be more wrong! In This Episode We Cover: The “perfect BRRRR” investing strategy that pays YOU to buy rentals Financial freedom in just a decade and why it’s still more than possible Why you should turn your primary residence into a rental property when you move out Working with wholesalers and how to score super underpriced real estate deals How Jon finds his off-market real estate deals and the method he uses to contact motivated sellers 100% passive income and what Jon is investing in now for more time freedom And So Much More! Links from the Show Join BiggerPockets for FREE Let Us Know What You Thought of the Show! Ask Your Question on the BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets YouTube Apply to Be a BiggerPockets Podcast Guest! Join the Future of Real Estate Investing with Fundrise PassivePockets Maximize Your Real Estate Investing with a Self-Directed IRA from Equity Trust Grab the BRRRR Book Sign Up for the BiggerPocket Real Estate Newsletter Find an Investor-Friendly Agent in Your Area BiggerPockets Real Estate 1072 - How to Make More Passive Income with Fewer Rentals (& ACTUALLY Retire Early) Connect with Jon (00:00) Intro (01:55) "Accidental” Landlord (04:59) Buying His First True Rental (08:05) Finding the BRRRR Method (12:28) Getting Paid to Buy Rentals (18:09) SUPER Underpriced Homes (21:36) Finding Off-Market Deals (25:06) Shifting to “Passive” Income (29:00) 100% Passive Investing Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1093 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	The perfect burr. You may have heard of it, but only a few investors have ever actually pulled it off.
0:06.9	Today, we're speaking with one of those investors who not only executed a perfect bird deal,
0:12.0	but pulled out an additional $50,000 more than what he originally invested.
0:22.9	Hey, everyone, it's Dave Meyer here.
0:25.1	I'm the head of real estate investing at Bigger Pockets and the host of the Bigger
0:28.5	Pockets real estate podcast, where we teach you how to achieve financial freedom through
0:33.0	real estate.
0:34.1	And today's guest has done just that.
0:36.3	We've got an investor story with a guy named
0:38.6	John Kessler from Baltimore, Maryland on deck for you. And one thing I really like about
0:44.5	John's story is that his investing career has three distinct stages. If you've listened to any of
0:51.1	the shows recently where we've had Chad Carson on as a guest,
0:55.3	most recently, episode 1072, you'll hear Chad's framework where he talks about having a
1:01.8	starter phase, a builder or growth phase, and then at the end, sort of a harvester phase.
1:08.1	And John's career follows this framework and path. In his first six years,
1:13.2	he acquired five properties. Then in the next five years, in his builder phase, he scaled up to
1:19.0	19 units, including a wholesaling business. And that's when he did that burr deal where he was able
1:24.5	to pull out more than 100% of the capital he invested.
1:29.1	Now, 12 years later, John has achieved financial freedom and is investing more passively,
1:34.4	so he has time to spend with his family.
1:37.0	So as we hear John describe how he built his real estate business, I encourage each of you
1:42.2	to listen and think about which stage of investing you're in
	...

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