First Rental in 2016, Financially Free in 2026 (Every Strategy I Used)

**Henry Washington** (0:00)
Before real estate, Erika Brown was working at a bank, raising three kids paycheck to paycheck, just trying to climb the corporate ladder. Now, a decade later, she owns an entire portfolio of very different rentals, has reached financial freedom, and is doing what nobody expects, selling off her houses. But Erika is not going backwards. Far from that, she's actually about to unlock an even better lifestyle, one with fewer rentals, lots of cash flow, and way more freedom. Over the past 10 years, she's tried every strategy in the book, Section 8, house hacking, renting out rooms, short-term rentals, burs, and more. Today, she's explaining her favorites and why some of the ones you're told to avoid are actually the best rentals to own, and nobody's paying attention to them. So how do you, like Erika, have the fewest number of rentals with the most cash flow and freedom? Listen up, you're about to find out.
What's going on, everybody, I'm Henry Washington, co-host of the BiggerPockets Podcast. And today's guest on the show is my friend, investor Erika Brown. So let's bring her on.
Erika Brown, welcome back to the BiggerPockets Podcast.

**Erika Brown** (1:10)
Happy to be here. Thanks for having me back.

**Henry Washington** (1:13)
I love chatting with you. I love hearing more about your story. Interested to hear what you've got going on. So for those of you who may not have heard your previous episode on the BiggerPockets Podcast, I want you to tell us a little bit about your story again. Take us back to the beginning. How did you first get into real estate?

**Erika Brown** (1:30)
Oh man, that's a fun story. It has now been 10 years. I have officially been investing in real estate and also a full time business woman for 10 years. It's crazy. But yeah, previous to being in real estate full time, I was a banker and I was in the finance industry and just was trying to figure it out. I had three young kids, husband, starting out, brand new city. I live in Atlanta, Georgia, and we were trying to get out of that paycheck to paycheck cycle and bought our first property using a FHA loan, 203K during times when it was pretty scary. It was right after the recession. Bought a house, renovated a basement, and became a house hacker before you guys turned house hacking.
For us, it was, can we make some money to pay these child care bills?

**Henry Washington** (2:28)
It just used to be called hustling back then.

**Erika Brown** (2:30)
Yes, it was hustling. Then I started reading books. I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and all the things, and I just got the bug. I moved to a neighborhood that was up and coming in Atlanta and fell in love with real estate that way as well.
Next thing you know, I had helped like 10 people buy houses through the local real estate agent. So my journey was I started investing in real estate after becoming a real estate agent. I knew the end goal wasn't to be a real estate agent, but I knew that I could sell houses clearly because I had already referred all this money, $100,000 worth of commissions. So we have a portfolio of businesses now outside of real estate, and within real estate, and it's been pretty amazing, the journey.

**Henry Washington** (3:20)
All right. So this was 2012 when you did the first house hack.

**Erika Brown** (3:25)
Yes.

**Henry Washington** (3:26)
Right. And then in 2016, you moved and got all your friends to buy houses, and you didn't get paid for any of it.

**Erika Brown** (3:33)
Yep.

**Henry Washington** (3:34)
And then-

**Erika Brown** (3:37)
I said, how much does real estate agents make in commissions?

**Henry Washington** (3:40)
Wait. Did you get your license that same year? Or was that after?

**Erika Brown** (3:45)
Yes. I got my license that same year, and it was really hard, but I got it done.

**Henry Washington** (3:50)
And then when did you do your very first official real estate deal?

**Erika Brown** (3:55)
So I believe I left my job March of 2016, and we did our official first real estate deal that fall. I was working for an investor. When you're a new agent, you got to take everything that you can get.

**Henry Washington** (4:09)
You get all the trash leads.

**Erika Brown** (4:11)
Whatever. Okay. And I had an investor, which I love working the investors because they're always buying, you know? And so I had an investor who was like, drive this neighborhood and write down these addresses and try to find these owners. And if you find some deals, I'll buy them. And so I knew that this thing called the Atlanta Beltline was coming, and it was supposed to completely transform the entire city. And I seen that there was one property that was listed on there that was right by the future Beltline.