You Don’t Need Dozens of Rentals to Reach Financial Freedom (He Tried It)

Henry Washington (0:00)

You don't need dozens of rentals to reach financial freedom. And if you ask today's guest, less is usually more. For over a decade, John Crutchfield was in full acquisition mode. Despite starting with very little money, he scaled to over 600 units across multiple states and tens of millions of dollars worth of real estate. He even quit his job so he could focus on his portfolio full time. But then the market changed. Interest rates spiked, debt became more expensive, and John's expenses ballooned. Suddenly, owning more properties wasn't making him any wealthier. So he started selling. And in the process, John learned a crucial lesson about building wealth. Sometimes having less can actually give you more.

More cash flow, more flexibility, more peace of mind. In today's episode, John shares the highs and the lows of his real estate investing journey. How he turned a smaller portfolio into a more profitable business. And why door count matters far less than the freedom each property provides.

What's going on, everybody? I'm Henry Washington, co-host of the BiggerPockets Podcast. And today, we're bringing you an investor story with Dr. John Crutchfield, who invests in Tupelo, Mississippi. So let's bring him on.

All right, Dr. John Crutchfield, welcome to the BiggerPockets Podcast, my friend.

John Crutchfield (1:26)

Man, too cool, too cool. How you doing? Henry Washington, the Henry Washington.

Henry Washington (1:31)

Why don't you give us some background? Start a little bit before real estate, and then kind of talk us up to where you are now.

John Crutchfield (1:37)

I'm John Crutchfield. Grew up in Tallahassee, Florida. I'm a Florida boy.

Time came to go to college. It was like, okay, where are you going? Well, I don't want to go too far. So, you know, Florida state was right down the street. Fast forward a little bit. You know, got my first job as a teacher because, you know, teachers get summers off. They get all the holidays. Somebody said, well, if you go back to school, you're such a good teacher, I bet you could be a good principal. And I was like, yeah, you know what? That's right. So I went back and got a master's degree, became a principal, realized that as a principal, you know, you do get paid a little bit more, but you have to be there all the time. So somebody then said, hey, you like to talk and you seem kind of smart.

Maybe you want to be a college professor. Like that's the next level, right? All of these, by the way, you got to go back to school, pay more money so that you can get a better job. And so I just kind of followed that track, ended up as a professor at Ole Miss. That probably was my dream job. Got to help people who wanted to become teachers become teachers. So very fulfilling work. But every time I kind of got these increased roles, I ended up seeing lifestyle creep happen, right? So more money coming in the personal account meant, okay, better furniture or a bigger house, more spending, right? Because, hey, you got to have a better car because you're making more money, right? That's the thought. And so ended up at the end of the month, no matter what job I had, not having enough money or having to wait till the next month. So then I started Googling stuff like passive income and stumbled on like real estate investing. There was this podcast at the time called the BiggerPockets Podcast. So it's funny.

Henry Washington (3:18)

Never heard of it.

John Crutchfield (3:20)

Yeah. And I stumbled on their forums, getting tons of quality answers from the community, but just started kind of feeding that bug of getting financial education.

Henry Washington (3:29)

How old were you at the time when you found this real estate bug?

John Crutchfield (3:33)

Oh, probably 26, 25, 26

Henry Washington (3:37)

How long did it take you to go from that learning to doing? And what were those steps?

John Crutchfield (3:41)

I ended up meeting a guy at church who had about 30 properties, and this was his retirement plan. And he, as we're having a conversation, says, you should kind of like sit with me so I can show you what I'm doing. And that mentorship became very valuable to me because we struck up a relationship, started having multiple conversations. He sat down with me and he told me, like, just look at your life in your W2 world.

If you can run a school, you can run a business. And that was kind of my moment.

Yeah. Because before he said that, I had never in my life considered actually owning a business. That's how ingrained it was for me that you go to school, you get good grades, you go to college, you get a good job. Like I was that guy.