From a Foreclosure & 200 Credit Score to Building Wealth with “Grandma” Houses

Real Estate Rookie

BiggerPockets

Entrepreneurship, Education, Investing, Business, How To

4.7 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2026

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Fear you’ll never be able to invest in real estate because of money, credit, or bad timing? This single mom lost her house and had a 200 credit score, yet she was still able to rebuild her life and buy rental properties. If she can find a way to build wealth, so can YOU! Welcome back to the Real Estate Rookie podcast! Just months before the 2008 housing market crash, Sarah Weatherbee found herself unable to make her mortgage payments. So, she rented out her home, moved to Nicaragua, and lived off the rental income until the dust settled. Unfortunately, shortly after returning to the U.S., she lost her home. The silver lining? Although things hadn’t panned out, Sarah had been given a small taste of what it’s like to own a rental property—with someone paying down your mortgage for you—and was determined to own real estate again one day. And that’s exactly what she did by buckling down, rebuilding her credit, and stashing away money for her next property. Fast forward to today, and Sarah has bought multiple properties with low money down. Stay tuned as she shares the investing strategy she uses to do it! In This Episode We Cover How Sarah rebuilt her credit and bought real estate again after losing her home Making over $130,000 in pure profit from ONE real estate deal The investing strategy that allows you to buy multiple properties with low money down When to move to another area of the country to invest in real estate The one reason why Sarah didn’t quit real estate investing after failure And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/rookie-671 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠advertise@biggerpockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today's guest went from foreclosure, a credit score in the 200s, and leaving the country to owning multiple properties, house hacking, and dealing with bats in her rentals.
0:09.5	And what I love about the story is that it proves you don't need to be perfect to start in real estate.
0:14.4	You just need to keep going.
0:15.9	And if you've ever thought, man, I've already messed up.
0:18.1	So maybe this isn't for me.
0:19.5	Then this episode is going to hit home.
0:26.5	This is the Real Estate Rookie podcast, and I'm Ashley Care. And I'm at Tony J. Robinson. And make sure to follow us on Instagram at Bigger Pockets Rookie or Ashley at Walth for Rentals, me at Tony J. Robinson. And now let's give
0:38.1	a big warm welcome to today's guest, Sarah. Sarah, thanks so much for joining us today.
0:41.8	Thanks for having me, guys. So Sarah, take us back to your very first home purchase.
0:46.7	What did that deal look like and what went wrong with this property?
0:51.2	Hard to call it a deal. And what didn't go wrong?
0:56.0	Well, it was definitely in my mind at the time that I was just buying my primary residence.
1:02.0	And I really, I found, I think on Zillow, you know, picked that realtor that they recommended
1:08.0	to view the property and then followed them around to a few houses, pick their lender that they recommended to view the property and then followed them around to a few houses,
1:13.0	pick their lender that they recommended. And I was sure, just went along with the flow.
1:17.3	They said this is what I could afford. And so bought a cute little two bedroom, one bathroom
1:23.5	bungalow in St. Petersburg, Florida. And it was a great little house, super cute. The first
1:29.8	year, you know, it was right at the top of my budget. I was a science teacher at the time.
1:37.0	And my partner was also a teacher. So we're on teacher salaries, you know. And then I didn't
1:42.4	know about homestead exemption. And I think the next year, the rent went up even more. And we were like,
1:49.7	it's really strapped. And that was 2007 going into 2008, which we all know was the real estate bubble.
1:57.0	And I was definitely a victim of that. And was it got out of my control couldn't afford
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