I Started BRRRR-ing in My Mid-40s, Now I’ll Retire a Decade Earlier

BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast

BiggerPockets

Education, Business, Investing

4.8 • 16.5K Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2025

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Brian Waters was destined to work until he was at least 63 years old. Now, just five years after starting to invest intentionally, he’s got 16 rental units that can retire him a decade earlier! How’d he do it? A combination of easy, done-for-you out-of-state investment properties and the ever-profitable BRRRR method. Brian’s work isn’t sitting at a desk or crunching numbers. He’s a firefighter and is routinely one serious injury away from his career being over. With a family to support, losing his work wasn’t an option. So, in his 40s, he decided to pivot and go all-in on building a real estate portfolio. He bought a couple of properties in his home state of California before Southern California prices began to eat into his limited savings. So, things had to change. By being extremely clear about his plan, Brian began investing out of state, buying over a dozen properties without ever laying eyes on them. He tried a very beginner-friendly strategy that helped him build his out-of-state portfolio before moving on to the BRRRR method, where he gets paid to buy cash-flowing rentals in areas 99% of investors overlook. In five years, he’s completely transformed his financial future, using a method you can, too! In This Episode We Cover The best out-of-state real estate investment for beginners (completely hands-off) How to use the BRRRR method even when you’re living thousands of miles away from your investing market Using your primary residence’s equity to fund your first (or next) real estate deal What to do once you’ve run out of cash to invest (should you raise private money?) Why you do NOT need to wait until you're 65 to finally retire And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1198 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 investor had no exit plan from a demanding and dangerous day job.
0:04.8	Working a full 30 years to vest his pension just didn't feel possible.
0:09.8	But then he discovered real estate.
0:12.0	And now, just five years later, he owns 16 investment properties
0:15.7	and is on track to retire 10 years ahead of schedule.
0:19.9	And he's doing this while investing thousands of miles away from his expensive California
0:25.2	hometown.
0:26.1	This is the path to financial freedom.
0:33.5	What's up, Bigger Pockets Community?
0:35.2	I'm Dave Meyer, housing analyst, rental property investor, and head of real estate investing at
0:40.3	Bigger Pockets.
0:41.4	Welcome to the show.
0:42.7	Today, we're bringing to the story of investor Brian Waters from Huntington Beach, California.
0:48.0	Brian loves his job.
0:49.1	He's a firefighter, but he's seeing friends and colleagues struggle trying to reach retirement in a very dangerous
0:55.9	line of work. So he started looking for a long-term backup plan, and he bought his first
1:01.1	rental property during the pandemic. Now he's amassed a very impressive out-of-state portfolio
1:07.4	that puts him on path to financial freedom well before his 60s.
1:12.2	On today's episode, Brian's going to share what he's been doing, like why he started investing
1:17.2	with a turnkey company instead of riskier value at properties, how documenting his journey on
1:22.9	social media paid off huge when he needed capital to expand and how he's proving every day that the
1:29.7	burr is far from dead in Midwest American cities. Let's bring on Brian. Brian, welcome to the
	...

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