$6,800/Month Cash Flow with 4 Small Multifamily Rentals

Ashley:
Today’s guest is a full-time filmmaker but has a side hustle. It’s bringing in $6,800 a month in peer cashflow from four rentals all within walking distance of his house.

Tony:
Ryan Ossoff didn’t start with the trust fund or real estate experience. He bought a duplex to stop paying rent. Then he used HELOCs, local lenders and even email only deals to grow a full portfolio.

Ashley:
This is the Real Estate Rookie podcast. I’m Ashley Kehr,

Tony:
And I am Tony j Robinson.

Ashley:
Okay, well, let’s give a big welcome to Ryan. Thank you so much for joining us today. Ryan,

Ryan:
Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Ashley:
So you’re a filmmaker by day, but what made you start investing in real estate?

Ryan:
Yeah, it’s a long story Going back, I grew up in a large family. I’m one of seven kids, so we had a very nice modest home. I remember growing up with three of us in one room, and so it was tight. And I remember in high school and middle school, my dad actually started to read, I remember Rich Dad, poor Dad, and then he bought a fourplex and I just saw we got a boat and we were able to do I think more things than I remember growing up and that always stuck in my mind. And so when I finally got to the age of 26, I hated paying rent and I said, I want to buy a duplex and have someone else pay for it. And so that’s kind of how it all started.

Ashley:
So you had this big realization that rent money could actually go towards ownership. So what year was this that you ended up buying this property? And tell us a little bit about it.

Ryan:
Yeah, this was April of 2017 and it was a duplex and I just could see, okay, I did the numbers and I could figure it out. The rent that I could get for the upstairs, it was a duplex. I was going to live on the first floor, had renters up above and that rent would pay for the mortgage insurance and it would pay for the taxes. So I knew I’d break even, but in my head I was already paying $600 for rent at the other place. So I was making 600 and it worked out really well. I got a 30 year fixed loan and it was a first time home buyer, so I only had to put 10% down and it had no PMI, so it was a very affordable loan to get into my first rental

Tony:
And ran. I guess I’m curious, I mean it sounds like a pretty solid deal, but how did you find it? Was it listed on the MLS? Were you walking around the neighborhood? What was your secret to finding this first house hack?

Ryan:
Yeah, I knew nothing. I knew nothing about real estate, so I just went on Zillow and I found the first duplex and I typed in my information and they paired me with a local lender totally out of the blue. And I went and toured it and it was a dump. It was terrible. Even the realtor was like, you don’t want this house. And it’s funny because that short interaction of happenstance now led to, she actually paired me up with her daughter who was just starting to be a realtor, amazing realtor here in the local Milwaukee market, and I’ve now used her to buy five separate homes since then. She’s my go-to, and it just all happened. And so for the first home she showed me after that dump, that was the one. It just happened to be, we had showed other ones after that and I was like, no, no, no, no. That very first one that you showed me, that was the one

Ashley:
I was not expecting you to say that at all.

Ryan:
I still can’t believe it. The very first house that Paris is her name that she showed me was the one that I ended up buying and that was the one that I lived in for many, many, many years.

Tony:
Brian, you say that your realtor said it was a dump and that you shouldn’t buy it, but yet you bought it anyway. Why? What did you see?

Ryan:
I apologize. I’m sorry. That very, very first place was a dump. And then the second one, which was the first one with Paris, that was the one I ended up buying. And that one wasn’t a dump, it was distressed and it was definitely needed some TLT and some love, but it was today in my price range, and so I ended up buying that second one. I toured

Tony:
Going into it. Your goal was to house hack, but did you run any analysis to say, okay, the numbers make sense on this, or was it more just emotional and I like the way that it looks and I see the potential. How did you analyze that deal to know whether or not it was worth pursuing?

Ryan:
Going into that I knew nothing about real estate. I really didn’t know numbers. I didn’t know, I didn’t even know house hacking. All I knew is okay, the mortgage is going to be about this much and I think I can get about this much in rent because I’m paying this much for rent a couple blocks away. And so I was a rookie. I didn’t do much calculations to be honest. Besides that, I had a good feeling about it. But a big thing for me was I just hated paying rent. I hated, I’m a very frugal guy and I just hated paying rent and losing all this money every month and having nothing to show for it. So that was a driving factor for me and it was kind one of those things of this, I got to take the first step and I’m going to figure this out along the way. I don’t know how to be a landlord, I don’t know how to manage all this. I think the numbers are going to work, but I just took a leap of faith.

Tony:
I love that you used the phrase leap of faith because I think where a lot of rookies get stuck, Ryan is in the dreaded analysis paralysis where they listen to the real estate rookie podcast, they watch the YouTube videos, they read the books, but they never actually get to a point where they’re able to take action. What fears or limiting beliefs did you have, Ryan before you got started? Because we all have them. And how did you actually overcome those to secure that first deal?

Ryan:
I’m a frugal guy, and that down payment was $27,000. And nowadays maybe that doesn’t sound like much, but I was 26, I was scrapping and I was working a W2 and I was also a server. I saved up that money for years. That was my entire life saving. So it was a massive decision and it was so scary to put that down. And I knew I had to do something and this felt like the most calculated way to take a risk but still be confident that the outcome will be very beneficial for me and for the future. And I’m a big person for self being able to do something for myself in the future. And so I knew my future self was going to appreciate this move that I took now. And I know there’s a saying that it’s fear of a mile wide but only an inch thick, and it’s all about taking that first step and I just knew, I just had a feeling that this was going to pay off in the long run.

Ashley:
Where did this property end up? So did it actually pay off? Were there struggles? Did you have to sell it? Tell us what ended up happening with this property.

Ryan:
Yeah, this property honestly will be the one that I will remember forever as being the best decision of my life. It was great. Everything was great. The first year I got a great group of girls that lived above my girlfriend at the time, moved in with me below. We were very friendly with each other. They ended up living there for four years. It was the best situation,

Ashley:
No turnover in four years. That is like a landlord’s dream,

Ryan:
You’re telling me. And it was the best case situation, which I know often on many podcasts you don’t hear from the very first interaction to step into real estate, but those tenants were amazing. We would even split the cable and internet bill, so even other aspects of my life got even more affordable. It was so great. And we’d leave for the weekend and they’d make sure the house was good. And it was a great, great decision because now since then I’ve used that house as collateral to get a heloc, which then I pull out more money and I get another property. And now I’ve since left that property. But before leaving, I refinanced it as a owner occupied 30 year fixed rate at 3%, and that was in 2021 and then I moved a couple months later, so I locked that in for 30 years with a super low payment. That one is kind of the cash cow that one’s doing really good and set up.

Ashley:
I think it seems like one of the things you may have realized is that even though this was a great deal to start with, the real power of this property is the long-term play. You just explained exactly what you have been able to do with it besides just having cashflow. And I think that that is something I definitely learned over the years, that it’s not just cashflow. As you hold these properties longer, there is so much more value to them that you can tap into and the equity, the appreciation, the mortgage pay down, all of that can give you longer term benefits of the property. I look at some properties that I’ve owned and I’ve had them for 10 years now, and it’s like, wow, that is a lot of money that is in these properties that I have access to, could do the heloc, I could do a cash out refinance or I could sell the property.

Ashley:
And we see in the BiggerPockets forum all the time that dilemmas. But the thing with these dilemmas is that these are opportunities. No matter which one of those options you picked, it’s going to have some kind of benefit to you. These are good choices, these are good options to have. And so I think that’s just such a great, wonderful realization of real estate is that at the buy can be great, the buy can be okay, but what the real power of these properties is, is that long-term play of what you realize, what else you can do and what other opportunities become available to you. And

Tony:
Actually I think it’s harder for rookies to understand that because we live in an age where everything is sensationalized and things only get traction if they’re attention grabbing and the hook has to hit. And social media paints a certain picture of why we invest in real estate. But what it really comes down to is exactly what you just said. It’s a long game in the same way that people invest in the stock market in the same way that people put into their retirement accounts. Like real estate is a long-term vehicle for wealth, not just a, Hey, let’s try and get rich overnight because most of times that doesn’t work. So Ryan, thank you for illustrating that point so strongly.

Ryan:
Yeah, I see it as, and I don’t know if others will, but I think real estate is just the most simplest form of self-love. It’s embracing delayed gratification and it’s living below your means. So you could build up some equity and it’s not a sacrifice, I think it’s more of a strategy.

Tony:
Alright, coming up, Ryan’s going to share how he negotiated an entire duplex over email and how he used very little of his own cash to get his next two deals.

Ashley:
I do want to talk about my first rental. I thought collecting rent would be the hardest part and I was actually wrong. The admin never stops the expenses, the receipts, tax forms, tenant issues. I didn’t expect the behind the scenes work to take up so much of my time and Headspace every night was another round of paperwork. And I started thinking if it’s like this one, how do people handle five or ton base? Lane helped me get out of the weeds. It’s the official banking platform of BiggerPockets that handles the whole backend for me. Expense tracking, financial reporting, rent collection, even tenant screening. It’s the first time I’ve felt in control and now that I’m not drowning in admin, I finally see how my real estate business can scale. So do yourself a favor, sign [email protected] slash bp today and get a $100 bonus.

Tony:
Alright guys, we are back with Ryan and he just told us about the deal that changed everything. For him, the best deal, the best decision that he’s ever made was buying that first duplex. But Ryan, you don’t stop there, you keep going. And I hear that you bought a second duplex by negotiating entirely over email, which is every introvert’s dream. So what’s the story? How did you do that?

Ryan:
Yeah, this was two years after that first duplex and I was itching to get another, I still at this point was still a rookie. I didn’t know much, so I was touring new ones, trying to find a new one. This was in 2019. I was asking around and it just so happened that my now wife’s friend, friend from college had a friend whose dad had a property on the campus who went to Marquette University and put me into contact through email. And one thing just led to another, to another to about a hundred emails later. I probably wouldn’t have done this nowadays now that I know what I know, it sounds like a scam, but it worked out that we just kept going back and forth and he said, I want this price. And I would email back, I’m more on this price. He would email back this, this, and we got to kind of a middle ground and he had an attorney and I had to figure out, I needed to hire an attorney too to represent me and do all the paperwork and it worked out. I tell that story to people nowadays and I just thought I was thinking, but it worked out. I just took the leap of faith and I went for it.

Ashley:
Ryan, what was a big difference from buying a property on the MLS? Having a real estate agent to now negotiate a deal without an agent, a lot of people wouldn’t know what to do because a real estate agent does really hold your hand and walk you through those steps. So if a rookie is in a similar situation where they have a deal that’s off market, what are some of the things they should do right away to actually move this deal forward without a real estate agent?

Ryan:
Yeah, it was definitely nerve wracking because I was still new to this. I didn’t quite know everything, the ins and the outs and I had only gone through one and it was property and that was two years ago. I toured it right away. I just wanted to make sure, okay, I’m talking to this guy via email, is this legit? Is this real? I go there and he has a property management company. So I meet with the manager, ask her a bunch of questions. I came prepared with a bunch of questions, verified the leases, verified the rents verified everything that he was telling me, saw it for myself in my own eyes, toured the property and everything checked out, all the boxes were checked. You have that feeling in your stomach, is this real? Am I getting scammed? But no, everything checked out. So it is just about doing your due diligence, making sure the numbers check out, the leases are accurate, talking with the property manager and really just going through everything to make sure it’s real.

Tony:
I think we’ve all heard the story of the Nigerian prince who they need you to wire X number of dollars and they’ll change your life. So I’m glad that didn’t happen to you, but I want to go back to you just getting connected to this person in the first place. So you said it was your wife’s friend of a friend of a friend whose dad did this thing. This is someone who’s maybe five, six degrees of separation from Ryan. How did they know that you were a real estate investor and how did it make it all the way back to you?

Ryan:
And so I got the email, it was actually at a party, it was like a birthday party and we were just talking and my wife talked to her friend and she’s like, I know this person. And I got his email. So I reached out to him directly and I said, this is who I am. I’m a real estate investor in Milwaukee. And the story was he had wanted to sell it, he bought it for his daughter, but he lived in Seattle and the house was here in Milwaukee and he had had it just under management and now just didn’t want it anymore. But it was a beautifully fully gutted and renovated home only three years past renovation. So it was flawless, didn’t need anything. And he would said, yeah, I thought about putting it on the market, but I’ve just been so busy, what would you give me for it? And that’s how the conversation started and we just snowballed from there and finally got to a price that was mutually agreeable.

Ashley:
I think about that as far as I was going to put it on the market, but then I just got too busy and I can see a lot of investors or even just homeowners in that same situation. It is a lot of work to list a property, to have the agent come out, schedule photos of the property for the agent to tell you you need to change this, change this, change this because the house is going to sell better. You need to do these things, set up showings on your property. It isn’t sign the paperwork, get all of the information to the agent, fill out all the disclosure forms of what’s wrong with the property, what’s not wrong, all these things. So I can totally get that. And I think another thing to point out too is that your wife must have been talking about what you’re doing for somebody to know about this and word of mouth referrals of just saying what you’re doing.

Ashley:
Not even saying like, Hey, I’m looking to buy a deal if you know someone, but just talking about what you’re looking for. I have gotten, when I first started, probably 50% of my deals were from word of mouth, like a friend’s sister whose brother-in-law was sick of tired of being a landlord, I bought their property. So I think that is such a good lead generation. It shouldn’t be your only way that you’re getting deals, but it’s definitely, it can be a really big beneficial one. So tell people what you want to do or what you’re currently doing.

Tony:
And actually I just want to add to the point too of why this person sold to Ryan without listing. And I think the takeaway from Ricky should be, you should never assume the motivation of a seller because there are a million and infinite number of reasons as to why someone should sell. But I think what you should do is try and understand what that motivation is. And in this seller’s instance, it was the convenience of being able to talk to one person and to be able to get the deal done. And I think the more you know about their motivation, the better you can position your offer to solve whatever problem they have. I’ve shared this story on the podcast before, but we’ve actually had multiple guests who have had similar situations, but someone that we knew or that we interviewed got a really great deal on a home from this lady because she had been in that house for 40 years and she didn’t know how to move.

Tony:
She had never moved before and she was like, look, I’ll give you the price if you can just help me move. And all they had to do is pay a moving company a couple thousand bucks to help the city move and they got a killer deal. Anyway, understanding the motivation of the seller I think is super important. But Ryan, going back to your story, you find this amazing deal. You said it was turnkey, but have you matured or I guess progressed maybe is a better word, onto taking on projects that did need some renovation? And if so, how many of those renovation type projects have you done so far?

Ryan:
Yeah, I like to do a renovation project every year per property now. And that one is definitely turnkey and they’re kind of smaller, but at each one of my properties I like to at least invest one to 3000. And when I first acquire a property, I like to put at least around 5,000 into it and I just think it’s going to increase the rent, it’s going to show the current tenants, I’m here, I care about this property. I want a great home for you to call home. And it just a little aesthetics around the house to really help improve the quality of life of the tenants and then set that property up. I’m all about setting the property up. If something’s broken, I’m going to fix it right away, get it going, and then hopefully it’s nice and it can kind of coast for a couple of years.

Ashley:
Now, Ryan, how are you financing these properties? You did the first one as a primary residence to house hack it. What about these other properties that you have acquired

Ryan:
For that second property? That was the scariest moment of my life for that one. The purchase price was around 337. I looked around for rates and low down payments. I couldn’t find anything more or anything less than a 25% down, so I needed to come up with around $80,000 and I didn’t have it, but I knew that I wanted this property and so I got a home equity line of credit on that current very first duplex that I had and I had all my life savings from that two year window from that first one of this. Second one was around maybe 50,000. And then I used the HELOC another 30, 35,000. And so I was taking a massive gamble and I knew I was going into massive debt and putting it all on this one property and I had done the numbers, I knew it was going to work.

Ryan:
And so the day we closed, I handed over this check for $85,000. And then immediately after there I drove to a jewelry’s store and I bought my wife’s engagement ring, which was thousands and thousands and thousands of more dollars. And we were leaving in two days to go for a two week trip in Spain where I was proposing. So that trip again was thousands and thousands and more. It was so nerve wracking. I did the math, I was like, I spent over a hundred thousand dollars today and I don’t even make half that in a year. I had done the math. I mean that was one of the most scary moments, but it paid off great since then. And I think it’s taught me to bet on myself, do the numbers, do the research, make sure everything no stone is unturned, and then be confident with the decision and move forward and everything’s worked out. But that was such a nerve wracking day there to the jewelry store and not knowing how I’m getting any of this money paid back, hoping that it all works out, but it did.

Ashley:
All I can think about is, I don’t know if you guys ever watch Parks and Recreation, but two of them are like treat yourself and they have the treat yourself day and they just go and buy everything. And that’s what I think of except you made investments, investments in a wife, investments in yourself and personal care and vacation and a property. So

Tony:
I guess a wife is in a way, a spouse is in a way an investment. So I’ve never framed it that way. Hopefully you’re getting a good return on that investment, Ryan. Fingers crossed.

Ashley:
I feel like there’s going to be very mixed opinions on me saying that people agree or disagree. Okay, so everything that you have bought has been in the same Milwaukee area? Correct. Have you bought anything anywhere else?

Ryan:
No, I’ve doubled down on the market. I’ve thought about elsewhere, but I know the rents, I know the market, I know the housing. I just feel like I’m so knowledgeable in that area that leaving to go to another market or Madison, Wisconsin or Chicago somewhere still kind of within the Midwest. I just have to relearn that market and I am all about doubling down on tried and proven strategy. So that’s why I continued buy the next duplex in the market and now I bought a house that’s three to houses down from the other one and I just bought another one that’s across the street from that other duplex. So I tend to just buy them in these areas and now I’ll just continue to kind of buy in this neighborhood.

Tony:
Ryan, I think to your point, there is a tremendous benefit to going deep into one market because you pick up an expertise that’s hard to do otherwise. But I think if I were to play devil’s advocate and I’m curious what your take is on this or how you’ve kind of reconciled with this, the downside to going so deep in one market is that you are more exposed to maybe different shifts within that market economically. If you think about cities across the United States where maybe a manufacturing plant closes and people, a good percentage of the population loses their income, if maybe there’s oversupply, say that the city of Milwaukee starts overbuilding multifamily housing and now rents are coming down, there are different economic factors that could impact a city. How do you reconcile with maybe the risk that comes along with investing so deeply in one market with those benefits?

Ryan:
Specifically pick an area. It’s on the east side of Milwaukee, that has always been a trendy spot. It’s close to the lake. There’s a lot of restaurants, bars, and a lot of the tenants I do are young professionals to 30-year-old people and they want to be downtown. They want the lively being able to walk to the restaurants and the bars and walk to the lake. And that’s the area that I really have focused on. And because I’ve been in Milwaukee for now, I think close to 15 years, I went to college here. And so I lived in these neighborhoods through college. I lived in these areas. I’ve lived in this area for 15 plus years and all throughout that time I’ve seen the rents go up and it’s been steady and it’s the most desirable area because it’s fun and a lot of stuff to do. And so I back up my decisions with that knowing I’ve seen it for 15 years. I know the growth that’s there. I know that even if it comes down, this is where people want, this is the area that the crime is low. And I think focusing on an area that has the least risk, that has definitely helped me strategically kind of position where I want to buy. I feel very confident going forward that they’re set up and this neighborhood and area will always be great.

Ashley:
Up next we’re going to find out how Ryan made 10 k Airbnbing his own unit, but also got burned by a Craigslist contractor and what he’s planning for his next big leap into 12 plus units. We’ll be right back. Okay, welcome back. We are here with Ryan. So Ryan, you decided to pivot a little bit and you used Airbnb as a side hustle. How did that actually help you grow your portfolio?

Ryan:
That helped me immensely. This was back in 2017 when I first bought that duplex and Airbnb. I still feel like it wasn’t what it was now and it wasn’t what it was in 2020. And I had heard about it and I said, let’s do it. And so I had to convince my girlfriend at the time, but not wife. And so we rented it out for a weekend and it went great and made some good money and then we doubled, it was a hundred dollars that first weekend and said, okay, maybe we can get more. And we did 200 the next weekend, booked it right away, 300 the next weekend, booked it right away and we’re like, okay, we can make some serious money. As we tested out the pricing and had great experiences, and as a filmmaker myself, I had a film that was playing across the festival across the country.

Ryan:
And so we got into this habit of, alright, we’re going to this film festival in Houston, we’re going over here to la, we’re going to New York, and we would rent out our house on Airbnb and make about a thousand dollars for three days. And we’d go to these towns and we’d book a hotel and it’d be for the whole weekend. We’d spend 800 bucks. And so we would make money leaving, being able to go to these festivals while our place is being rented. And it was a magic time, I guess I don’t know about nowadays we’d have the same demand or price that we could, but it was a great habit and lifestyle that we had at that moment that we could then use that money to supplement fun experiences, but also build up our life savings and a lot of that then went to the next property.

Ashley:
Ryan, what are some of the things that maybe you did do or didn’t do, but if a rookie investor wants to do the same thing, just rent out their primary residence on Airbnb, what are some of the things you have to do or maybe some hacks to make it easier? Just looking around right now like, okay, I got a kid’s toys there, I got books here, I got this right. What are some hacks to make it easier to rent out your property and it still be your own home?

Ryan:
Yeah, I think number one was, I mean they took us a little bit to go over this, but they’re sleeping in our bed, and so we bought brand new sheets off Amazon for every bed in the house. So there was the Airbnb sheets and the bedding for the Airbnb, and then there was our stuff. Keeping that separate was nice, keeping the amenities there, and then we would take away and we’d take away the photos or take away certain stuff and stuff like that, which took a few minutes every time we had a booking, but we just kept it clean, kept it organized. And I think it comes down to communication. I think it’s just treating people helpful, giving ’em suggestions of where to go into town. And this, a lot of people coming to Milwaukee wanted to go to the festivals or concerts and giving them suggestions on where to park, where to eat, where to drink, but prepping the house, we would put out blankets, we put out extra pillows, extra towels. Having those extra amenities like that I think helped with a lot of the groups that we had.

Ashley:
I really have wanted to test this out to see, okay, with kids, how can I just experiment? I listed on there for one week or whatever and to see what happens because I want to prove that anybody could do this, but I’m also very much germaphobe where I 100% would have to do, they have their own towels, they have their own linens, things like that. But I think it would be super easy, especially if you have a more than one bedroom, to take one of those bedrooms and to lock it off and you put your personal things in there. And I did see this family on Instagram that every summer they leave their house and they’re, I don’t know, had five kids or something and they put everything in one room. They showed videos of them packing up everyone’s clothes, everyone’s toys from the rooms, and they just do big bags and big bins. They’re all labeled and they go into that room that’s going to be the storage, and then they rent out and they said, this is how they pay for their two month vacation is renting out their house and they get to experience all these things in travel. So I’m really tempted to do it, but also in the middle of renovating my live and flip. So maybe once it’s done then because I don’t think an Airbnb guest is going to be happy to walk in and see. There’s no trim in the hallway right now.

Tony:
But yeah, Ash, I’ve seen folks do that exact same way where they just pick one room in the house and that’s where they stuff everything and then when they come back they unload. So that could be the strategy for folks who are looking to replicate that. But like me and Ash, you got multiple kids and other folks flying around as well. So it sounds like the Airbnb was successful for you, the small multifamily properties you’ve been buying have been successful for you. But what about the mistake, Ryan? What would you say is your biggest rookie mistake

Ryan:
On that first duplex? When I was starting out, I didn’t know everything about everything, and I ended up hiring a off Craigslist, which I’ve never done since, and he burned me. He acted all nice, friendly, demoed part of the bathroom, started to do some tile and ended up paying him in portions and ended up paying him the ending too soon. And he left, never saw him and ended up having to hire someone come back and they said he did this terrible, they had to rip off the tile rip and it ended up costing more money than it would’ve just been to go with a reliable company. Like I said, I’m a frugal person. I was trying to cut corners, trying to get the cheap bathroom reno, and I learned a valuable lesson of, in my opinion, don’t trust anyone on Craigslist and make sure you go through the vetted people and don’t pay people the entire amount until the work is done. I paid him most and he said he was almost done and that if he could get the final amount, it’d be great. And he was all nice and said, all right. And he gave me some sad story about how he needed the money and

Ashley:
You want to trust people you want to and

Tony:
Give him the benefit of the doubt. But there’s that saying though, that you have to choose between speed, cost, and quality, and you can only choose two of those. So you can have someone who’s fast and cheap, but then you’re probably giving up the quality. You can have someone who’s fast and great quality, but then you’re probably giving up the cheap cost. But to get someone who satisfies all three equally is probably non-existent. So for all the rookies that are out there, sometimes it pays to wait for the contractor who’s booked out because there’s a reason they’re booked out is because everyone wants them. And the contractor who’s like, yeah, I can be there tomorrow. Maybe there’s also a reason why they can be there tomorrow and they’re not working. So I appreciate you sharing that because I’ve been burned by contractors in that same way. We’re like, do you have a pulse? Can you be here tomorrow? Yes. Okay, great. And then you end up having to pay someone else to fix their work.

Ryan:
And I think this in the end, it ends up costing more money and it’s more stress and it’s more headache and more heartache when it goes awry. And it’s pay more for that peace of mind that this is reliable, it’s going to get done good, and you don’t have to stress about it or worry that they’re going to run off.

Ashley:
Well, I’ve got to say, I have had one Craigslist experience in my life. I actually bought goats off Craigslist and they are the most wonderful things ever. So my experience was very different than finding a bad contractor on Craigslist. But Ryan, what is next for you? I guess first of all, what does your portfolio look like today and then what’s next?

Ryan:
Yeah, so I bought those first two duplexes and then me and my wife got married and now wanted to start a family. So we needed to move out of that first level of that duplex, sadly. So we bought a single family home just outside of Milwaukee where we currently live and real estate I see funded that. And now I see it as a way of, I do the numbers of what the real estate business is, but then I also love seeing it, okay, it covers all the costs of this home where we live in our dream home and we still cashflow, and me and my wife, we live for free technically here because real estate is paying for us to live here. And that’s been one of the, I think, joyous moments of realizing the hard work and those risks and those first few duplexes I bought are paying off because here we are in our dream home and we love it here.

Ryan:
But since then, we invested in a duplex in 2024, and we just bought a triplex in 2025. And with those, I used the home that we live in now, got a home equity line of credit on this property now and pulled out a bunch of money to help fund the down payment on those other investment properties that we bought since. So I love using HELOCs, especially in the climate that we’re in now, where I have 3% rates on my properties and I don’t want to touch that at all. But being able to get the home equity line of credit and using this as leverage to acquire more properties and really try to scale up the portfolio faster.

Tony:
Ryan, your Soar reminds me a little bit of Chad Carson, who we’ve had on the rookie podcast a few times, where Chad doesn’t necessarily do anything super outrageous or sexy. He doesn’t have any super secret strategies where, hey, this is the hot new thing. He just makes very simple strategic decisions and it just compounds that over and over and over and over again. And what you did was a very simple path. It wasn’t complex. Now, I’m not saying that it was easy. Obviously there were challenges along the way, but in terms of complexity, the path that you’ve laid out is a path that virtually every single person who’s listening to this can probably follow as well. Save money, work hard, be frugal, house hack, refinance, HELOCs, do it again, and just repeat that process until you have enough cashflow to go out there and buy your dream home. So again, we live in an age where everything has to be new and sexy, and here’s the greatest thing you’ve ever heard of since sliced bread. But if you just go back to the basics and you focus on that compounding over time, great things tend to happen. So kudos to you, man. It’s amazing that what you’ve been able to accomplish in a relatively short period of time.

Ashley:
Yeah. Ryan, thank you so much for joining us. Can you let everyone know where they can reach out to you and find out more information?

Ryan:
Definitely. Yeah. I’m on Instagram and I do have a website there for my filmmaker profile and then for a lot of the work that I’ve done with that, but it’s a great way that people can still contact me. So it’s Ryan op.film, and that’s my tag on Instagram. And then also Ryan Film is the website that I have. And feel free, you can message me through there or DM me on Instagram. I do a lot of real estate stuff and also film and videos as well.

Ashley:
Well, this has been another episode of Real Estate Rookie. I’m Ashley. He’s Tony. And thank you guys so much for joining us. We’ll see you on the next episode.