Buy 1 Rental Every 2 Years and Watch What Happens

**Dave Meyer** (0:00)
You want financial freedom, but the real estate influencers posting on social media all own dozens or even hundreds of units. Is that really what it takes to live on passive real estate income? No, you don't need to scale a giant portfolio. You don't even need 20 properties. If you can just buy one property every two years, you will be completely set financially. And that doesn't even mean you have to save up an entire down payment every two years. Today, I am going to explain how you can buy a property every other year. And to prove it, I built a financial model demonstrating how much you need to save, when to buy your next property, and how to recycle your capital over and over. I'm going to show you an example with real math of how you can grow a $2.5 million portfolio with over $200,000 in annual cash flow by just buying one deal every two years. That is the power of investing in the US housing market. So forget the massive scale. Forget the bigger is better mentality. If you want to embrace a sustainable, low-risk path to building wealth, this approach is for you.
What's up, everyone? I'm Dave Meyer, Chief Investment Officer at Bigger Pockets and real estate investor myself for 16 years now. Today on the show, we are cutting through all that noise out there, and I'm just gonna say the point of this episode upfront. You do not need to own dozens of properties or hundreds of properties to achieve financial freedom. You only need to buy one property every two years, and that is easier than you think or than it might sound. And in today's episode, I'm gonna give you a framework that I personally use myself, and I've seen thousands of others use to successfully build long term wealth in a sustainable, manageable way. The reason I use it and like it so much is because it is first and foremost, it's just achievable for most people regardless of where you start. If you're starting at 25 years old or 55 years old, it works. If you're starting with 50K in income or 250K in income, it works. That's the thing I just love about it most. Second, it is sustainable. It is not so much work or so much effort that you have to quit your job or you have to give up other parts of your life. This is an approach that works for people who are busy. Third, it doesn't rely on market timing or perfect investing conditions. Fourth, it ensures that you capture all the benefits of real estate both in the short and long term. And fifth, it is just reliable. This is a reliable, proven way to get you to financial freedom. It's an approach that works with really any kind of investment, whether you're investing in stocks or bonds, or in our case, we're talking about real estate. And the number I have come out to for what the best pace is, is to try and shoot for every two years. Buy a rental property, whether it's a single family, a duplex or triplex, every two years.
I like this number because it is feasible. Almost anyone can do this, and I will explain to you exactly how you can do it. It is sustainable. Again, it works on almost anyone's schedule, and it is reliable. It can get you to financial freedom in 10 to 15 years, and I will show you the math in just a minute to prove that to you.
So that's what we're talking about here. That's the goal that you should be aiming for is trying to buy a property every 2 years.
Now I don't want everyone to think that this has to be exactly 24 months. If you want to do it every year, great. If it sometimes takes you 3 to 4 years between deals, that will happen. That's totally fine. I actually personally waited 4 years between my first and second deal. But the goal here, the mentality that you need to have is to keep buying, and keep buying ideally on regular intervals. If you keep buying on regular intervals, that's the key to attaching yourself to that long-term average performance of the housing market and the rental market. But now we're going to talk about how you actually go out and do this. What are the steps that you need to take to make this happen?
Because it's natural, and it is true, that for most people who are just getting into real estate or maybe done one or two deals, just getting that next deal, one more deal, can be intimidating, let alone buying every two years. So let's talk about how you can pull this off.