How to Buy 4 Rental Properties by 40 Years Old

BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast

BiggerPockets

Education, Investing, Business

4.8 • 16.6K Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2026

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Four rental properties by age 40? It’s possible, and if you can achieve it, your financial future will change forever. Henry and I have done it—both of us were able to buy four rental properties before our forties, and not only will it allow us to retire early, but our traditional retirement will be much wealthier. So, how do you start? This is exactly how to buy four rental properties by age 40, step by step. (And don’t worry if you’re over 40, you can use the same steps.) We’ll start with an easy property that many new investors can qualify for (with a bit of work), then a property with a huge upside for your net worth. Next, a cash-flowing investment that can help you have more rental income, and finally—where it all comes together—an investment property that you have expertise in. If you can acquire all four rental properties, your life and the life of your family could be changed forever as you create serious equity, grow cash flow, and leave a legacy behind. Four rentals by 40? This is exactly how it’s done. In This Episode We Cover The first rental any new investor should start with (least money down, no experience needed) How to add value to rental properties to increase your net worth Out-of-state real estate investing for cash flow, where home prices are more affordable The upsides to pay attention to when adding value to a property Real estate investor vs. average American’s net worth (the differences are huge) And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1245 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	Four rentals by 40 years old. That's all you need to cement a comfortable retirement or even
0:05.9	retire early. If you can achieve this, you'll be significantly wealthier, and I'm talking
0:10.9	millions of dollars wealthier than the average American. Plus, you'll have passive income to
0:16.4	support yourself in retirement instead of just a Social Security check.
0:23.5	Getting to four rentals is a huge deal.
0:29.1	And today I'm going to share the four-step plan anyone can use to build a small but powerful rental portfolio that accelerates their timeline to retirement or at least makes them a heck
0:34.0	of a lot richer.
0:35.2	In the example, I'm sharing today, buying only four rental properties,
0:38.8	even if you stop there and do nothing else, would increase your net worth by $3.3 million
0:44.8	by the time you're ready to retire. And if you're already 40 or you're over 40, don't worry,
0:50.4	you can follow the same steps and map out your own retirement timeline using the walkthrough
0:55.1	I'm going to share with you today. So you don't need a dozen properties. All you need is for. This
1:00.2	is how you get there.
1:06.6	What's up, everyone? I'm Dave Meyer, chief investment officer at Bigger Pockets.
1:11.5	Today on the show, I'm showing you how acquiring only four rental properties by age 40 can
1:16.5	completely transform your financial trajectory. We're going to dive right in with an example of
1:22.4	how this works step by step. And this is a plan almost anyone can follow. And actually, it's pretty similar to
1:29.9	the types of properties and the timeline I personally followed on my own journey to financial
1:35.9	freedom. And I'm sure there are some people out there listening to this who want to scale
1:40.0	all the way up to dozens or even hundreds of properties, which is cool if you want to do that.
1:45.0	But I think four properties gets most people where they want to go by retirement.
1:50.4	So we're just going to talk through the first four steps.
	...

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