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BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast

I Had 4 Kids, No Cash, and a Traveling Spouse: Now I've Got 4 Rentals

BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast

BiggerPockets

Education, Investing, Business

4.816.6K Ratings

🗓️ 16 March 2026

⏱️ 48 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Just three years ago, Joanna Caldera was working as a nurse, raising four children while her husband was gone most of the month in the oil fields. She wanted time with her kids and her husband to come home, but all of that required money. Now, just three years later, she has four rental units, has made $130K in profit from her first two house flips, has replaced her nurse’s salary with real estate income, and has her dream home. Anyone can do the same, using the strategies she shares today, even if you have no experience, even if you’ve got very little cash to play with. Joanna even overpaid for her first property by $20,000—a mistake almost every rookie investor is scared to make, but it paid off. She’s done everything—cosmetic flips, BRRRRs (buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat), added floors and rooms, dealt with hoarder houses, and did it all in between picking up her kids from school, taking them to practice, and oftentimes while working a nurse’s shift. Joanna proves real estate investing is possible for everyone, and within just a few years, your life can completely change because of it.  In This Episode We Cover How to invest in real estate when you have very little time or cash  Why “overpaying” for a property is not a bad idea (if your situation is like Joanna’s)  Using your home equity to invest and why HELOCs are an investor’s secret weapon  Pulling off the “perfect BRRRR” and getting a renovated house for very little money  Raising private money from your friends and family when starting to invest (and how to protect their principal)  Making six figures to renovate your dream home? Joanna did it, you can, too  And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠h⁠ttps://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1252 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

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

I was scared to make my first phone call. Now she has four rental units and she's profited

0:05.2

over $130,000 on her first two flips. In 2023, Joanna was home alone with a six-month

0:11.2

old baby while her husband was offshore working and she was looking for a passive income stream

0:16.1

that could help her have enough money to bring him home. Then I discovered real estate investing.

0:20.8

Joanna didn't have any cash to start with, so she leveraged her home equity. I wasn't seeing

0:25.4

many deals on the market, and that's when I started talking to sellers. She didn't have any

0:30.5

construction experience, but she figured that out. I bought my first rental property for $100,000.

0:36.3

And that's after she paid the seller $20,000 more than he was asking for.

0:40.3

I'll explain that later. Now that house is worth double the amount I paid and it's cash

0:45.5

flowing hundreds of dollars. Joanna has made five more investment deals since 2023 right in

0:51.0

our backyard of northwest Arkansas. Her husband isn't working offshore anymore,

0:54.9

and her family has a beautiful new five-bedroom home. That's the lesson of this inspiring story.

0:59.5

Anyone can figure out real estate investing and start on the path to building financial freedom.

1:03.7

You can even use the same real estate investing strategies I used. Because we're about to reveal them right now.

1:20.9

Jamada, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Henry. This is cool. Like, good full circle moment for me because I've been around you for a while and I'm excited for you to tell people

1:26.1

your story because I think it's really inspirational.

1:28.2

Yeah, I just in a short amount of time, have been able to essentially change my family's life.

1:35.5

It's a pretty big deal for us.

1:37.2

I love it. I love it. So let's start at the beginning. Tell us how you got scarred.

1:42.1

I'm a nurse. My husband used to work in the old field, and we had a lot of children.

1:48.1

So at that time, we had four children.

1:56.3

I was just like, we need to figure something out to where you can come home.

...

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