From a $35,000 Salary to Quitting with 11 Rentals

Real Estate Rookie

BiggerPockets

How To, Education, Business, Investing, Entrepreneurship

4.8 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Most people think money is the biggest barrier to buying rental properties—it’s not! Inaction is what keeps most rookies on the sidelines. Today’s guest was making $35,000 a year and had very little money saved, yet found a way to buy his first property. Since then, he has built an 11-property rental portfolio and walked away from his W2 job. If he can do it, you can, too! Welcome back to the Real Estate Rookie podcast! With just a $35,000 salary to support himself, his wife, and a baby on the way, Matt Krueger knew he needed to make changes to forge a better future for his young family. Thankfully, his in-laws had modeled the power of real estate investing, having retired with rentals many years earlier. So, Matt took action—hunting down his first property and negotiating until he was all in for just $2,500! Feel like money is getting in the way of your first deal? It doesn’t have to! In this episode, Matt shares the “hacks” he used to lower his down payment and closing costs. He also talks about how pivoting to short-term rentals fast-tracked his financial goals and the moment he realized he could ditch his nine-to-five! In This Episode We Cover How Matt went from making $35,000 a year to quitting his job (thanks to real estate!) Little-known “hacks” that can help lower your down payment and closing costs The primary residence “mistake” that could derail your next deal The power of reinvesting your cash flow back into your rental properties Tapping into your home equity to help fund your next investment Building equity fast with low-money-down, “fixer-upper” properties How to self-manage your rental property without it becoming another full-time job And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/rookie-596 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	This is the Real Estate Rookie Podcast episode number 596.
0:11.2	My name is Ashley Care, and I'm here with Tony J. Robinson.
0:15.8	And this is the Real Estate Rookie Podcast, where every week, three times a week, we bring
0:19.5	you the inspiration, motivation, and stories you need to hear to kickstart your investing journey. And today,
0:24.9	we've got Matt on the podcast. And man, what an inspiring story Matt is going to share with you,
0:31.0	where he talks about hustling every year for five years, moving, picking up his young family
0:36.3	to get his next rental.
0:38.0	He talks about finding deals, about working with agents, about working with lenders.
0:42.1	And he talks about the pivotal moment of realizing he actually could leave his job to do real estate full time.
0:48.6	So if you want an episode that is both inspirational yet super tactical, Matt's episode is going to deliver on all of that today.
0:55.9	Well, Matt, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us today. Let's get started with
1:01.3	what your life looks like before real estate investing. I don't even know where to start back at
1:06.3	probably college. So I went to a conservative Baptist school. I actually have a degree in
1:14.0	youth pastor. I was going to be a pastor. That was my goal, at least. After graduation, realized
1:20.7	that pastors don't actually make much money. Who knew? And I was looking for a job just to pay the bills, you know, pay rent,
1:29.2	was living in just a little one bedroom apartment and ended up getting a job at a cellular
1:35.7	retail store, Sprint, selling phones. I met my wife, oh man, 2013 I got married in 2014.
1:45.0	And we bought our first house at the end of 2014.
1:50.0	So that's kind of the life before real estate, but working a dead end job.
1:55.0	Didn't really know where I was going in life, making about 35 grand a year.
1:59.0	She was a veterinary technician making about 14 bucks an hour. So
2:03.0	that was us before real estate. And then what was that moment in time when you found out about
	...

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