From Single Mom (Working 3 Jobs!) to 5 Rentals in 2 Years

Real Estate Rookie

BiggerPockets

How To, Education, Business, Investing, Entrepreneurship

4.8 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Think you’ve missed your shot at real estate investing? Whether 25 or 55, you’re about to learn that it’s never too late to start. Today’s guest got started as a single mom in her 40s, and she’s already bought five rental properties in just two years. She’s not reinventing the wheel either—everything she’s doing, YOU can do, too! Welcome back to the Real Estate Rookie podcast! Liz Connelly knew she wanted to invest in real estate, but her financial house wasn’t quite in order. While raising two children, Liz grinded away at three different jobs to rapidly increase her income, pay off debts, and save for a down payment. Now, five properties later, Liz is diversified across three different markets and has built teams in each one to make managing her real estate portfolio that much easier. And she’s not done yet! Liz is still trialing different investing strategies in search of the right niche for her. You don’t need to have everything figured out either. Tune in as Liz shares why taking action today, no matter your age or marital status, is the best thing you can do for your future self! In This Episode We Cover Why it’s never too late to start investing in real estate (whether you’re 25 or 55!) The investing strategy that gives you steady cash flow with minimal upkeep The two biggest “traps” rookies fall into when investing out of state Why you must get your financial house in order before investing (and how to do it!) The real estate tax strategies that helped Liz write off $84,000 in one year How to choose the right market(s) for medium-term rental investing And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/rookie-599 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	Think you need to start at 25 to make real estate work? Well, today's guest was a single mom with a W2 working four jobs and didn't close her first deal until 40.
0:10.8	Now she's on out-of-state MTRs, fix and flips, and even a Poconos STR without a trust fund and without over-extending herself.
0:19.2	From burnout to buying out of state, Liz Connolly proves you don't need to have it all figured out to get started.
0:30.6	This is the real estate rookie podcast. I'm Tony J. Robinson.
0:34.5	And I'm Ashley Care. Well, Liz, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining
0:40.1	us. Let's start off with what finally made you pull the trigger at 40 after following bigger
0:46.9	pockets for so long. Thanks for having me. I really have been just in research mode for so long.
0:54.0	And with working multiple jobs as much as I could,
0:57.2	I had finally banked enough that I was like, okay, it's really time to take some action. And that
1:04.5	catalyst, I think, was really the 30-day stay, Bigger Pockets book by Sarah, Weaver, and Zeanna McIntyre. It was one of those that
1:14.4	really just told me, hey, the Midwest is a really good market. There's good price points there.
1:21.6	And my get up and go was kind of like, well, what's the worst case scenario, right? If I can afford the
1:28.1	mortgage and the place just sits vacant, then that's the worst case, right? So why not jump in
1:34.5	and at least try? Liz, I think for a lot of folks, they think that maybe they're too late in
1:39.9	life to start investing in real estate. Like if I didn't start when I was, you know, a 22 year old
1:43.8	college senior, then there's no point of me even trying. What did you tell yourself to say no matter how old you are? And obviously 40's not even that. It's not even old, right? But like, there's a lot of people who think like, man, I haven't started earlier. I shouldn't start. What was going to your mind to say, hey, it doesn't matter where I'm out of my life, I can still start today. Real estate just in general has always been a passion of mine.
1:46.3	And I've tried hobbies like any,
2:06.8	you know, anybody else going through that midlife as a millennial. We try everything, right?
2:11.5	Different crafts and things. And I always just kept being drawn back to real estate. And as much as, you know, I like to say I've started, I've probably lived like four different
2:22.5	lifelines at this point, you know, between my first marriage and kid and dealing with military
2:28.5	life actually at that point.
2:29.8	And then going through my divorce and being single.
	...

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