He Built a Thriving Business: Now He’s Trading It for Financial Freedom with Rentals

Real Estate Rookie

BiggerPockets

Entrepreneurship, Education, Investing, Business, How To

4.7 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 6 April 2026

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What if the life you dream of is just a few rental properties away? You don’t have to have it all figured out to start. Today’s guest knew close to nothing about real estate investing when he bought his first rental, but it was one of the best decisions he could have made for his future self! Welcome back to the Real Estate Rookie podcast! Justin Whitted has been cutting hair for over 20 years, and while he’s built a thriving small business in that time, the 55-hour workweeks are starting to take their toll. Justin’s ultimate goal? Completely replace his business income with rental income so he can work fewer hours and spend more time with his family. And as you’re about to hear, he’s well on his way! Justin became an “accidental” landlord 16 years ago when his parents suggested he move out of his apartment and buy a duplex. That first house hack was a home-run deal, offsetting his living expenses, giving him monthly cash flow, and propelling him toward bigger and better deals. With every new property, Justin takes another step toward financial freedom, and by following the advice he lays out in today’s episode, YOU could replicate his success! In This Episode We Cover The most “low-risk” way to start your real estate investing journey Offsetting your housing costs and “living for free” with the house hacking strategy How to create flexibility, financial freedom, and lasting wealth with real estate Creative ways to find great real estate deals in today’s market Justin’s number one lesson for rookie investors (after 16 years of owning rentals) And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/rookie-701 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	Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Rookie Podcast. I'm Ashley Care and I'm joined with my co-host, Tony J. Robinson.
0:07.1	Today we have a really special guest coming out of Buffalo, New York, a guy who's been cutting here for over 20 years, runs his own salon, and somewhere along the way, decided that real estate was going to be his exit ramp from trading time for money.
0:24.3	Justin. exit ramp from trading time for money. Justin, welcome to the Real Estate Rookie podcast.
0:26.7	Thank you so much for having me.
0:27.9	I'm thrilled to be here.
0:28.9	Well, Justin, I love your story because you're still in the thick of it.
0:32.3	You haven't quit your day job yet.
0:33.7	So before we get into the details of your journey, I want to know what was the moment
0:39.1	where you looked in the mirror and said, I have to build something outside of the salon.
0:44.3	The first thing was understanding that you can't do everything, right? And that there seems to be
0:49.3	a shelf life, particularly in the beauty industry where, you know, you're on your feet a lot, and I've been doing
0:56.4	this for 20 years, and I'm fortunate to still feel good physically about it. But I think that
1:00.6	as you look towards the future and you want to be able to pull back, you're either pulling
1:04.9	back to spend more time on things that you enjoy, like your family, activities, things like
1:10.0	that, I think that you
1:13.2	start to analyze, okay, what can I get into?
1:16.5	What can I divest into?
1:18.9	It's going to give me more freedom and more time.
1:21.2	So I'm not sure if it was a particular moment, but I think that over the last 20 years,
1:25.9	particularly the last five years, that you start to question, okay, what's down the road?
1:32.8	Right.
1:34.1	So I don't think it was a particular moment, but I think it was a culmination of leading up to that.
	...

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