These “Small” Rentals Boast BIG Cash Flow (Even at 7% Rates)

BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast

BiggerPockets

Education, Business, Investing

4.8 • 16.5K Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Think today’s mortgage rates are stopping you from getting rich with rental properties? Think again. Today’s guest built an 11-unit rental portfolio—starting in 2022, with high interest rates—and is cash flowing on each property. In fact, he’s making more cash flow than most investors we know, even with still sky-high rates. How’s he doing it with such little money down? No creative finance, no expert skills—Justin Albrecht is just following a simple, repeatable rental formula. After moving back in with his mom, Justin was getting the itch to find his own place. The problem? This was 2022, where single-family homes for sale were rife with bidding wars. What about small multifamily properties, like a duplex, triplex, or quadplex? That seemed to be the sweet spot. With zero experience in property management or landlording, Justin took the plunge. Fast forward three years, Justin now owns four properties totaling 11 rental units, and just quit his W2 job to focus his full-time efforts on his rentals. He did it all without putting a ton of money down and dealing with 7% interest rates on most of his properties. Still, he’s making sizable cash flow, impressive return on equity numbers, and living for free. Today, he’s breaking down his blueprint. In This Episode We Cover The small multifamily rentals that average investors can use to build massive wealth How to unlock monthly cash flow even with interest rates at 7% (or higher!) Getting into your first real estate deal with just 3.5% down Does the 1% rule still exist in the 2020s? Yes! Here’s how Justin is finding these deals “Turnkey” rentals that are move-in ready but still produce serious cash flow And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1159 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 bought 11 units, almost all of which have 7% interest rates, and he's still producing cash flow.
0:07.9	So if you're sitting around waiting for rates drop before you buy an investment property, you're probably wasting your time.
0:15.1	Instead, you could be in the game, building equity and moving closer to financial freedom every day.
0:21.4	Today's guest is living proof that it's possible right now.
0:29.5	Hey everyone, I'm Dave Meyer, head of real estate investing at Bigger Pockets.
0:33.8	I've been buying rental properties for 15 years now, and on this podcast, we teach you how to
0:39.2	achieve financial freedom through real estate. Today on the show, we have the story of an investor
0:44.0	who seems well on his way to achieving financial freedom himself. Justin Albrecht bought his
0:50.4	first property in his hometown of Kalamazoo, Michigan at the end of 2022.
0:56.1	And since then, he's been able to cut his own living expenses to almost zero.
1:01.1	And he's built a portfolio of four properties totaling 11 units.
1:06.1	And the cool thing is that Justin's not doing anything crazy.
1:09.5	He's just patiently buying one house per year,
1:12.4	sometimes putting as little as $16,000 down at a time. He's also adding value to his properties
1:19.1	by renovating them, even though he doesn't have some fancy construction background. And this is
1:24.9	the exact investing formula I talk about all the time on this show.
1:30.0	Justin is building equity that will compound over the coming years, and that should enable
1:35.3	him to replace his entire income with passive real estate cash flow within the next decade.
1:40.3	So let's bring him on and hear how he got started and how you can too.
1:44.2	Justin, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me, Dave. This is awesome. Tell me a little bit about yourself. Who are you? Where are you from? And how did you get into real estate? My name's Justin Albrecht. I'm 30 years old. I grew up in small town, Michigan. And because I was from a small town, stayed local through
2:02.5	college, I decided to get a job in tech sales from a global IT solutions provider. And I moved
2:08.5	out to Chicago, Illinois. COVID kind of brought me back abruptly. So I started my home search.
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