Should You Ever Buy a Rental Property with Negative Cash Flow? (Rookie Reply)

Real Estate Rookie

BiggerPockets

Entrepreneurship, Education, Investing, Business, How To

4.7 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2026

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Everyone keeps saying we’re in a “buyer’s market,” but if that’s true, where are all the real estate deals? It’s easy to get discouraged after hearing “no” after “no,” but in today’s episode, we’re sharing the secrets to landing off-market properties and overlooked rentals on the MLS! Welcome to another Rookie Reply! Struggling to find real estate deals at the right price? Ashley and Tony will show you how to modify your approach and get your next rental property under contract much faster. Next, should you self-manage or hire a property manager? Each strategy has its pros and cons, but the right one for you depends on a few factors that we’ll get into! Finally, is it ever a good idea to buy a rental property that will give you negative cash flow? Most people don’t get into real estate investing to lose money each month, but we’ll show you a scenario in which taking a modest loss today could pay off long-term! Looking to invest? Need answers? Ask your question here! In This Episode We Cover The secret to finding discounted real estate deals (in any market) The number one mistake new investors make when looking for off-market properties Whether you should self-manage your rental property or hire a property manager The best tools, software, systems, and processes for self-managing landlords Whether you should ever buy a rental property with negative cash flow And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠h⁠t⁠⁠tps://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/rookie-715⁠. 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

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0:00.0	What if you've been doing all the right things to find deals such as driving for dollars,
0:04.2	cold calling, but you're still coming up empty? We're going to tell you exactly what to try next.
0:09.8	And once you do land that first property, you'll have to answer one of the most debated questions in real estate.
0:15.5	Do you self-manage or do you hand it off to a property manager?
0:18.4	Plus, can a property that doesn't cash flow actually be a
0:21.9	smart investment? We're breaking down all three of those questions today on Rookie Reply.
0:31.4	This is the Real Estate Rookiee podcast. I'm Ashley Care. And I'm Tony J. Robinson. And with that,
0:36.8	let's get into our first question
0:38.4	of the day. So today's first question comes from the Bigger Pockets forums. And it says, we just
0:42.9	recently sold our house and finished our first deal. We've been looking for deals and haven't had
0:48.4	much luck, coal calling or driving for dollars. We're getting into the end of the year and
0:53.7	heading into what feels like more of a buyer's
0:56.2	market.
0:57.0	Any other strategies that have worked for finding off-market deals?
1:01.3	We keep coming up short and are not sure if we're missing something or we just need to be
1:06.5	more patient.
1:08.3	This is great.
1:14.3	I think first let me say, we've interviewed Henry Washington,
1:19.3	Dominique Gunderson, James Zainard, I'm trying to think other folks that we've interviewed who like do a lot of off-market transactions. And they've all kind of said a very similar thing
1:24.9	that as the real estate market has shifted, as interest rates have
1:28.7	gone up, the volume of good deals has gone down. And they're saying yes less often than they
1:37.9	were maybe three years ago. So maybe it's not necessarily a bad thing that some of these deals aren't working out because
	...

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