How to Make Any Rental Property Cash Flow (Before You Buy)

BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast

BiggerPockets

Education, Business, Investing

4.8 • 16.5K Ratings

🗓️ 27 August 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’re going to show you how to make any rental property cash flow as soon as you buy it. Want to know how to analyze a rental property like a pro? This is how. Expert investors don’t just crunch the numbers once and submit an offer or reject it—that’s an easy way to miss out on the best real estate deals. Instead, we’re showing you how we tweak specific numbers in your offer to make the deal as profitable as possible, while giving the seller many ways to say “yes.” Today, our friend and fellow investor, Ashley Kehr from the Real Estate Rookie podcast, brought us a real deal she’s debating on buying. Here are the quick numbers: it’s a triplex (three units) being sold by a tired landlord. The price seems reasonable, but the expenses may be too high. We use the BiggerPockets Rental Property Calculator to run the numbers and see if it cash flows, then tweak the offer in multiple different ways to boost the returns substantially. Now, Ashley is taking these offers to the seller. Yes, offers—plural—to see which one they’ll choose. Either way, Ashley is in a position to make more money from this rental than before, and all she had to do was get a little creative. Today, we’re showing you, too, how to make any real estate deal cash flow. In This Episode We Cover How to analyze a rental property from start to finish (and calculate an offer) Seller financing vs. bank loans: how to give the seller the choice so you both benefit Estimating rents and how to ensure that your units will bring in enough revenue The numbers you can “manipulate” to make your rental cash flow more The three final offers Ashley will be giving this seller, and why you should not submit just one And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1166 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	This is how you make an offer on a rental property that will not only get accepted,
0:04.0	but will also increase your passive income.
0:07.2	Sometimes when you run the basic numbers on a property, it doesn't cash flow.
0:11.5	And that's okay.
0:12.2	It happens all the time.
0:13.3	That is just a starting point.
0:15.0	You have options to craft an offer that other potential buyers are not going to be thinking
0:20.0	about that can help you land a great deal. So on today's show, are not going to be thinking about that can help you land
0:21.7	a great deal. So on today's show, we're going to be running through which numbers you can
0:26.1	actually change and modify before making an offer to a seller to increase the long-term performance
0:32.0	of any rental property you're adding to your portfolio. And we'll also talk about which
0:36.8	numbers you should never
0:38.4	change when analyzing a deal, even if it's really tempting.
0:47.0	Hey, everyone, it's Dave Meyer. Welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Today on the show, we are
0:53.2	going to be breaking down a real live deal that's brought to us by Bigger Pockets podcast. Today on the show, we are going to be breaking down a real live deal that's brought to us
0:57.0	by Bigger Pocket's rookie host, Ashley Care.
1:00.9	Ashley, thanks for being here.
1:02.4	Yeah, thank you so much for analyzing this deal with me.
1:05.4	I've been resisting at temptation.
1:08.3	You actually haven't analyzed this?
1:10.2	I have not. I haven't actually input it into the calculator reports at temptation. You actually haven't analyzed this? I have not.
1:11.3	I haven't actually input it into the calculator reports at all.
	...

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