From Zero to 11 Real Estate Deals in 6 Years by Buying Properties 99% Ignore

Real Estate Rookie

BiggerPockets

Entrepreneurship, Education, Investing, Business, How To

4.7 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2026

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

You don’t need a huge savings account or even a ton of life experience to start investing in real estate. At just 18 years old, today’s guest used her entire life savings to buy her first real estate deal. It was just an empty parcel of land, but it ended up becoming a $120K home-run deal that catapulted her toward 10 more deals over the next six years! Welcome back to the Real Estate Rookie podcast! Tiffany Da Silva had just graduated from high school when she decided to go (literally) all-in on real estate investing. Despite having no credit and just $12,000 to her name, she took the plunge, using every last dollar to bid on an empty parcel of land at a tax deed sale. What was going to be a simple land flip turned into a rental property that has made her over $120,000! With proof of concept, Tiffany went back to the well, buying up several more real estate owned (REO) properties at auctions and even dabbling in new construction. Whether you feel you’re too young to invest, too old to start, or somewhere in the middle, anyone can follow Tiffany’s blueprint and copy her success! In This Episode We Cover How Tiffany bought her first real estate deal at just 18 years old Tiffany’s journey from zero to 11 real estate deals in six years How to buy discounted properties at tax deed sales and auctions Using hard money to fund your off-market real estate deals Real estate owned (REO) properties explained (and how to find them!) And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠h⁠t⁠tps://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/rookie-713. 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	If you think you need connections, a big budget, or years of experience to find a great deal,
0:04.9	today's guest is actually going to change your mind.
0:07.1	She walked into her first real estate auction at 18 years old, bought a vacant lot for $12,000
0:12.0	and has been finding deals that MLS doesn't ever show you.
0:16.2	Tiffany De Silva is a Florida-based investor, builder and creator behind Beauty and the Builder, and
0:21.8	she's done 11 deals using tax deed sales, REO auctions, hard money financing, and basically
0:27.1	just a willingness to see value where other buyers walk away.
0:35.0	So, Tiffany, welcome to the Real Estate Rookie Podcast.
0:40.2	Excited to have you. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. Well, Tiffany, welcome to the Real Estate Rookie podcast. I'm excited to have. Yeah, thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
0:47.5	Well, Tiffany, before we get into the deals, kind of paint the picture for us who you were before you started real estate investing.
0:55.1	Yeah, for sure. Gosh, I was 18, so freshly out of high school, didn't exactly have a graduation because it was during COVID,
1:00.7	unfortunately. But I think these staying home paid off because obviously it led me down the rabbit hole of learning how to invest in real estate. So 18 years old, obviously you don't have,
1:07.6	or I didn't have any credit, didn't have much money. I was working three jobs
1:11.5	at the time and that's where I was able to save up, excuse me, about $12,000. Ended up running across
1:17.6	a TikTok video on buying tax deed sales. I thought it was interesting. Did a quick Google search.
1:24.4	Lo and behold, a property five didn't, five, lo and behold, a property five minutes
1:29.0	down the road from my house came up. And I thought it would be a brilliant idea without
1:33.3	knowing anything about anything to bid on it. And that's kind of how it all started. So most 18
1:38.8	year olds aren't going to tax auction. So what did you learn once you got there? Yeah. Well, everything was done online.
1:48.1	So because this was five minutes from where I was living, I knew that the area couldn't have been so
1:53.1	bad. It was in kind of like a subset neighborhood, no HOA, large vacant parcels. I mean, really just prime land for development,
2:04.4	which at the time I did not realize and kind of stumbled on accident through all of this,
	...

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