The “Repeatable” Strategy That Helped Him Buy 6 Rentals in 6 Months (Working a W-2)

**Dave Meyer** (0:00)
Are you in danger of coming up short in retirement? When Brian ran the numbers, he realized he was nowhere near the amount he'd actually need to walk away from his nine to five. But what could he do? He was already putting in long hours at the fire station. He couldn't possibly take on a second job. Well, like many people searching for financial freedom, he turned to real estate. In just five years, he's scaled to 20 rentals, and against all odds, he's on track to retire early. When we last checked in with Brian, he was buying simple, affordable, turnkey rental properties 2,000 miles away from where he lives. But recently, he's pivoted to a hybrid strategy you've probably never heard of, but one that's helping him scale his portfolio rapidly. In the last six months alone, he's bought six more rental properties, all while working his full-time job, coaching football on the weekends, and staying fully present with his family. And Brian's about to give you the highly repeatable strategy he's using to tie it all together.
What's up, everyone? I'm Dave Meyer, Chief Investment Officer at BiggerPockets. Today on the show, we have investor Brian Waters, a firefighter who is building a portfolio of affordable rental properties long distance from his home in California.
Brian, welcome back to the BiggerPockets podcast. So good to see you again.

**Brian Waters** (1:25)
I can't tell you how excited to get on here for the second time. I obviously had a great time the first time, so it's a pleasure to be back, you guys. Thank you.

**Dave Meyer** (1:32)
There are people who didn't catch your first episode, so maybe just tell us a little bit about yourself and a little bit of background on your investing.

**Brian Waters** (1:39)
Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Brian Waters. I live out in California. Married, have two amazing twin boys that are 13
I was an airline pilot for a number of years, got laid off, became a firefighter for Los Angeles. I'm a captain there now. And I realized at some point like the pension just wasn't going to cut it. So I did all the other crazy stuff that males do in their younger age from just investing in this and that came across BP, BiggerPockets, and it changed my life. Now I'm just scaling my portfolio while combining that with my W-2 job as a firefighter, a busy dad, a football coach, all those things. And yeah, I would love to get into how I'm doing that from 2,000 miles away.

**Dave Meyer** (2:16)
What was your approach when you realized you wanted to buy rentals, couldn't do it in California? How did you go about figuring out the solution that you ultimately landed on?

**Brian Waters** (2:26)
It was almost out of necessity, to be honest, because once I bought that first property out in California, I didn't have a lot of capital, and I was like, well, I can save my way up, but I'll see you in 10 years when I have enough to do it. And so listening to a lot about what you and Henry talk about on the show, you got to come up with a strategy, a plan. Like standing there at parade rest for me is not an option. So what I realized is I'm making a very good income, and I'm blessed to have my job as a fireman in California, and I'm going to go take that money in that capital and go put it to work in markets where it makes sense. So for me, it just became out of necessity, truthfully.

**Dave Meyer** (3:00)
And tell us a little bit about what the strategy is you chose.

**Brian Waters** (3:03)
Yeah, so for me, the initial strategy, which we've talked about on the previous episode, was turnkey. I think it's a very fantastic way for busy professionals. Like I said, I coach my kids' football team. I'm a busy dad.
All those things.
I'd say most of the listeners are on BiggerPockets. So what that is for the listener is you're buying a property that a company goes out and finds. They do all the remodeling. They put a tenant in place. They take care of all the capex, all that cool stuff, and they put it out there and you can buy it. It's off market and then they go ahead and professionally manage it for you. The only problem with that after you do two, three, four, I ran to the same exact problem that I was having in California. Now I have to save my way to the next one. And so I decided to eventually take those skill sets that I was learning, because you're going to learn a lot even in turnkey, and bridge that into doing the burr process, which you guys talk so much about. So I think it was a perfect segue into that. I learned a lot during those things, and I'm still learning, but I was able to put those things to work in doing the burrs, and that's what I'm doing now.