The 2-Year Blueprint for Buying Your First Rental Property (Starting from Zero)

Real Estate Rookie

BiggerPockets

Entrepreneurship, Education, Investing, Business, How To

4.7 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2026

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You want to buy a rental property, but there’s one problem: you don’t have the money! The good news? You’re not as far away as you probably think. If you want to save as much money as possible for a down payment, today’s guest will show you how. In just two years, she went from zero to building a strong financial foundation and taking down her first property! Welcome back to the Real Estate Rookie podcast! When Mimi Fall was laid off from her W-2 job, it was the last straw. In that moment, she decided to take responsibility for her financial future, and that meant getting a better job, cracking down on spending, and throwing every extra dollar toward savings. All of Mimi’s hard work paid off, as within two years, she was able to buy her very first rental property. Today, she rents out rooms to tenants, and the total rental income covers her entire mortgage payment and then some. In this episode, she shares her step-by-step roadmap for getting your finances in check, her favorite personal finance tips and tools, and property-saving advice for all new landlords! In This Episode We Cover How to save money (faster) and buy your first or next rental property Mimi’s journey from being laid off to chasing financial freedom Covering your mortgage (and then some) with the rent-by-the-room strategy How to lay a strong personal finance foundation (starting from scratch) How to pin down your long-term real estate investing goals And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠h⁠t⁠⁠tps://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/rookie-717. 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	A lot of people tell themselves they'll invest when they make more money.
0:03.7	Today's guest was a college freshman working midnight shifts at H&M when COVID hit and she got
0:08.9	furloughed. That moment lit a fire. She went from no real estate knowledge to a house that
0:13.9	fully covers her $3,300 mortgage. She is going to show us that the path to your first deal
0:20.0	is actually a personal
0:21.3	finance story before it is a real estate story. And look, what I love about Mimi's story is that
0:26.5	it's not about finding some secret market or getting lucky on a deal. She just built a system.
0:31.4	She sucked to it for two years and that put herself in a position where investing was the
0:36.4	natural next step. So if you're trying
0:38.3	to figure out how to get from where you are today to your first deal, this episode is a blue
0:42.7	movie. This is the real estate rookie podcast. I'm Ashley Carey. And I'm Tony J. Robinson. And with
0:52.9	that, let's give a big warm welcome to me, me, me, me. Thank you for joining us to the podcast today. Super excited to have you. Of course. Thank you for having me. I've been listening to Bigger Pockets for years. So probably like everyone else, this is a dream come true. Well, Mimi, you were a freshman in college working midnight shifts when COVID hit and you got furloughed. Walk us back to that
1:12.6	moment in time would actually change inside you. Yeah. So I've always been the type of person who's
1:19.0	trying to find a way to make money. I started working when I was 16 through like a summer youth
1:25.6	program in New York. And that led to me working at H&M my freshman year in
1:32.1	college. I like not worked with a friend. She got me the job. But I remember being like,
1:36.7	okay, like this is my life now. I have this going on. I was an international studies major
1:42.4	working at H&M. And then I got furloughed. And,
1:46.0	you know, my mom and I lived together when I was in college. I stayed in the city just to,
1:51.4	you know, not have to take out loans after I graduated. So when that happened, I was like,
1:57.0	hmm, everyone tells you go to school, get a job, but what happens when a life event
2:02.3	causes you to lose your job, right? Now you're like, oh, like, what's going on? And thankfully,
	...

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