How to Diversify Your Rental Portfolio for Financial Freedom Faster

BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast

BiggerPockets

Education, Business, Investing

4.8 • 16.5K Ratings

🗓️ 12 September 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You’ve built up (or are about to build) a rental portfolio, but something is telling you it’s time to pivot. Maybe you’ve gone too far into one strategy, like owning eight short-term rentals. Or you’re seeing new build-to-rent properties with low prices, low maintenance, and low interest rates, and thinking “hmm…that seems like a good deal.” How do you know when to stay on course with your original plan or pivot to something greater? Which will get you financial freedom faster (and safer)? This is a dilemma that you’re probably facing, and if you aren’t right now, you will. Garrett Brown is facing this conundrum head-on. He’s spent years building a real estate portfolio, but he’s deep in the vacation rental realm. He wants a safer, more passive, less time-intensive way to diversify his portfolio, so what should he do? He’s got three options: buy a small multifamily rental, buy another short-term rental in a different part of town, or take advantage of new-build properties with price cuts and significant builder concessions. These are options that are probably open to you right now, and we’re about to show you which makes the most money, which has the least stress, and which is the best for real estate diversification. In This Episode We Cover Build-to-rent vs. multifamily vs. Airbnb: Which is the best bet in 2025? When to pivot strategies and do something new to diversify your real estate portfolio Red flags when buying a long or short-term rental that could hurt your cash flow Are the high returns of Airbnb worth the added stress/time to manage? The unbeatable benefit of new-build rental properties in 2025 And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1173 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	Should you diversify your investments with a new strategy or double down on a formula that's worked for you in the past?
0:07.9	It's a question you'll almost certainly encounter as you scale a real estate portfolio and take steps towards securing your financial future.
0:15.7	Today, I'll explain how to answer.
0:26.6	Hey everyone, I'm Dave Meyer, head of real estate investing at Bigger Pockets. You might only be 10 years away from achieving financial freedom if you start investing in real estate now.
0:32.6	And this podcast teaches you exactly how to do that.
0:36.6	Today in the show, I have Garrett Brown here with me.
0:39.2	Garrett is BiggerPockets short-term rental expert and the host of the Biggerstays YouTube
0:44.4	channel.
0:45.3	But Garrett, the reason you're here today on this episode is because you're actually
0:48.9	thinking about expanding your own investing outside of short-term rentals.
0:53.0	Is that right?
0:54.0	Yep. I've dipped my toe in the many facets of real estate investing before, but I got the
0:59.4	short-term rental bug and went full force there. But now I think it's time to maybe explore
1:04.0	a little more diversification as I try to grow my portfolio. I love it because this is such a
1:08.9	personal question. I don't know if there's really like a one-size-fits-all.
1:12.4	Like should you keep doing what you've always been doing?
1:14.8	Should you explore new diversification options?
1:18.9	So I'm excited to get into this with you today, Garrett.
1:21.9	And actually, Garrett has brought three different real-life deal options that he's actually considering pursuing.
1:29.7	He's got a triplex in a new market that he could long-term rent.
1:33.7	He's got a short-term rental or two new-billed single-family homes he's considering.
1:38.6	So what we're going to do is we're going to break down the pros and cons of each investment
	...

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