How to Make Bigger, Faster Returns Without Buying Rentals

Real Estate Rookie

BiggerPockets

How To, Education, Business, Investing, Entrepreneurship

4.8 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Buying rentals isn’t the only way to build wealth with real estate—far from it. Today’s guest is making huge returns without fixing toilets or evicting tenants. If you want a more passive way to invest that won’t drain your time or energy, this episode is for you. Stay tuned to hear all about private money lending and how to get started with less money than you probably think! Welcome back to the Real Estate Rookie podcast! Today, Devon Kennard joins the show to break down private money lending and how it stacks up against other popular investing strategies like long-term rentals and flipping houses. Private money may not give you the same appreciation or tax benefits as rentals, but as you’re about to hear, you can often make bigger and faster returns. The best part? This is real, passive income. After a little due diligence upfront, you’ll get to sit back and collect a check! In this episode, Devon shows you how to lend your money, step-by-step, for returns of 12%-15% or more—even if you don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars to deploy. Along the way, he’ll show you key documents and systems you’ll need to structure your first deal, lower your risk, and protect your investment! In This Episode We Cover How to find and structure your first private money deal (step-by-step) How to “become the bank” for other real estate investors (15%+ returns!) Why you don’t need hundreds of thousands of dollars to start lending money Essential documents to have in place for every private money deal Why private money lending beats buying rental properties (if you want passive income) And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/rookie-636 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	Most turkeys think you need to buy properties to make money in real estate.
0:04.3	Not today.
0:05.3	Today's guest, Devin Kinnard, went from NFL linebacker to running a private lending company.
0:11.0	And before you start telling yourself, private lending isn't for you.
0:14.5	The truth is, you don't even need NFL money to do this.
0:18.7	You can start small and still get paid like the bank. By the end of this
0:22.3	episode, you'll know exactly how to structure, protect, and launch your first private loan,
0:27.1	even if you've never bought a property yourself. This is The Real Estate Rookie Podcast. I'm
0:36.7	Ashley Care. And I'm Tony J. Robinson. And with that, let's give a big warm welcome to Devon.
0:41.4	Devon, thanks for joining us today, brother. Thanks for having me, guys. I'm excited to be here.
0:44.3	So, Devon, can you tell us what is private lending and kind of explain it in plain English for us rookies?
0:50.9	Yeah. So essentially private lending is there are people who are real estate
0:55.3	investors and they're buying properties and they're buying them, they're buying them distress. So they need
0:59.9	a lot of work. They're either buying them to fix and flip and sell or they're buying them to
1:04.7	renovate them and then what they like to call burr, which I'm sure you guys have talked about on
1:08.6	this podcast at some point where, you know, they renovated and they refinance and get out of it. Well, there are people and there
1:15.3	are companies who are funding those loans in that in-between. So when they're buying the property
1:20.2	for $50,000 in Kentucky and putting $30,000 into it and now it's worth $150, there's somebody
1:27.0	who's helping fund that and get them
1:29.3	to the finish line whether it's selling it or refinancing it and that's the gap that I think a lot
1:35.1	of people can fill and I'm excited to talk about it on this podcast for beginners because it's something
1:40.3	a lot of people should consider who are like oh I want to get into real estate well this is the way you can get in and make pretty good money, but not have to actually do hammer to nail when you have a nine to five job or are you busy raising your kids.
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