The Real “Cheat Code” for Financial Freedom (Not Rentals?)

Real Estate Rookie

BiggerPockets

How To, Education, Business, Investing, Entrepreneurship

4.8 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 20 August 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Rentals can give you financial freedom, but what if there’s a better way? Today’s guest took a much different path, buying a business that gave him immediate cash flow. Now, he’s building serious wealth through both business and real estate, and his strategy might just be the shortcut you’ve been looking for! Welcome back to the Real Estate Rookie podcast! Rather than putting money down on a rental property, Tim Delaney bought a small wine and liquor store—a move that gave him huge cash flow on day one, allowed him to save faster, and helped him scale his real estate portfolio beyond what would have been possible otherwise. As you’re about to hear, it also unlocked a creative deal that allowed him to buy a $1 million plaza with zero money down! Whether you feel stuck, overwhelmed, or simply unready for rentals, this episode will open your eyes to the possibilities beyond real estate. Tune in as Tim shows you how to buy a cash-flowing business for the price of a single-family home, as well as how to build your investing network, find private money lenders, and negotiate seller financing deals! In This Episode We Cover Why you should buy a business before you buy rental properties How Tim bought his first investment property with no money down The 100%-financed businesses YOU can buy, learn, and grow today What you must know before forming a real estate investing partnership The blueprint for landing rare, seller-financed real estate deals The easiest ways to build and supercharge your investing network And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/rookie-603 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 rookies think the fastest way to financial freedom is through buying rental properties.
0:05.8	But what if that's not actually true?
0:08.2	Today's guest says you might be better off buying a small business first, and he's living
0:13.1	proof it can work.
0:14.0	He used his business to buy a retail plaza with $0 down, and now he's building wealth
0:19.6	through both business and real estate. We're sitting down with Tim Delaney, and now he's building wealth through both business and real estate.
0:21.6	We're sitting down with Tim Delaney, an entrepreneur and real estate investor from Buffalo,
0:26.7	New York, who's showing us how to get creative with financing, build systems that give you
0:31.6	your time back and think outside the box when you're just getting started.
0:36.2	If you've ever felt stuck because you don't have the cash or perfect credit to get into
0:40.0	real estate, this episode is going to open your eyes to what's really possible.
0:44.4	So let's jump in.
0:50.3	Tim, a lot of rookies think that they need a ton of money, saved or to have perfect credit
0:56.5	to start investing in real estate.
0:58.5	But you actually bought your first plaza, your commercial building, for $0 down.
1:04.5	Can you walk us through how you were able to pull that off and what rookies can learn from
1:09.4	your approach?
1:10.2	Absolutely.
1:12.5	Thank you for having me.
1:20.0	Look forward to sharing some info on that and other subjects. So my plaza was a purchase that I made after I had already purchased a business, which is what helped me with that plaza purchase.
1:26.5	It was the plaza that my business was in.
1:29.6	I had been operating there for about five years when the owner of the plaza approached me.
	...

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