I Started Investing with Just $7,500. Now I Own Millions in Rentals

**Dave Meyer** (0:00)
You know what it's like, you work all year long for your company, then your boss sits you down, tells you, you've done a great job. So you're expecting a promotion, a raise, maybe even a company car. But then they tell you, excellent work, we're happy to be increasing your pay by 2%.
2%, that's it. There must be a better way to make money than this. And that's exactly what today's guest, Remington Lyman thought. Just a few years into his working career, he realized his hard work wasn't paying off proportionally. What does reward hard work? Rental property investing. So he started buying properties with a partner using any money they could get together. Then a couple of years later, when his job laid him off, he was already well on his way to financial freedom. Now he's got single-family homes, multi-family properties, commercial deals, and more that give him the income a job never could. He started with just $7,500, but now he's got millions in real estate, all because he placed a bet on himself.
What's up, everyone? Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Podcast. I'm Dave Meyer. Today on the show, we have a super fun investor story with Remington Lyman. I really enjoyed this conversation because Remington's story is so familiar. He was not feeling like the reward he was getting from his full time job was proportionate to the effort that he was putting in and the value that he was creating for his company. So he decided to place a bet on himself and find a way where he could be fully rewarded for the risks he was taking and for the effort he was putting in. He picked rental property investing and has approached it in a way that I think all of you are going to learn a lot from. Let's bring on Remington.
Remington, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.

**Remington Lyman** (2:00)
David, thank you for having me.

**Dave Meyer** (2:02)
Let's talk first a little bit about your background. Who are you and what was your history? What were you up to leading up to your investing career?

**Remington Lyman** (2:09)
Yes. I'm originally from Connecticut. I got recruited to The Ohio State University for the rifle team.

**Dave Meyer** (2:17)
Rifle team?

**Remington Lyman** (2:18)
Rifle shooting, yes.

**Dave Meyer** (2:19)
I did not even know that was a D1 sport. That's very cool.

**Remington Lyman** (2:22)
Yes. Punching holes in papers. It was good. I trained really hard and got a scholarship to college and came to university, majored in finance, minor in econ. When I graduated, I got your typical finance bro job at JPMorgan. I was an analyst and was always very entrepreneurial, and the W2 just wasn't doing it for me and wasn't accomplishing my goals.
So I quickly realized I needed to start my own business. And through that process, my roommate and my lease was ending. And we're like, hey, instead of paying a landlord monthly payments and rent, why don't we go out and buy a property with the intention to later on turning it into a rental property? So that's what we did. We went out and we actually did a house hack. That was my first deal in real estate.

**Dave Meyer** (3:10)
It's a classic story. Love it. Very similar, honestly, how I did. I did my first deal with my one of my partners was my roommate at the time as well. We got tired of paying rent. We're like, we got to do something better here. Where were you living at the time when you did this?

**Remington Lyman** (3:24)
I was living in Columbus, Ohio. So my roommate and I, we found the dumpiest apartment you could find, had a bunch of roaches and we were splitting $600, so each paying $300 to save up money. That allowed us to put the down payment on our first duplex.
We did all the work ourselves. We did the renovation to the other side, we did the leasing, we mowed the grass, did the management and that allowed us to save a bunch of money. Three months after our first deal, we went out and purchased a four unit and did the same thing.

**Dave Meyer** (3:56)
Wow, that's awesome. What were you buying these things for?

**Remington Lyman** (3:59)
Our first duplex was actually pretty expensive for the time. It was about $330,000 and this was back in 2017
But after we released up the other side, we found another roommate for our side on Craigslist, and we moved in his girlfriend and we charged her like $300 a month. By the time all that was said and done, we were making about 50 bucks to the good every month. We'll live in pretty much rent-free.