177: Using Fixer-Upper Rentals (BRRRR) to Achieve Financial Independence with Ben Walhood
When you hear the acronym “BRRRR,” what comes to mind? Winter? Well, today on the BiggerPockets Podcast, we’re going to talk about BRRRR — and, no, we’re not talking about the temperature! On this powerful episode, we dive deep into one of the most popular and exciting strategies for real estate investors today — the BRRRR strategy (Buy-Rehab-Rent-Refinance-Repeat). We talk with Ben Walhood, a real estate investor from the Chicago suburbs who has found tremendous success buying properties in several states using BRRRR, as well as several other strategies. You’ll learn why it took Ben nearly ten years to “take off” as an investor, as well as the best tips he has for finding success today. Grab a notebook and pencil — because this is one show you’ll want to take some notes!
In This Episode We Cover:
- Tips for switching from the linear path of a sales person to a real estate investor
- What a “no doc loan” is
- How Ben bought his first house in college to house hack
- How he learns each market he gets into
- The story of how he failed horribly on his second deal
- What to do when you get calls from tenants in the middle of the night
- Why every strategy could work
- How he got better with his type of properties over time
- The best deal he’s had
- Why you have to fail to succeed
- Tips on the BRRRR strategy
- How many properties Ben has
- What you should know about CapEx
- Tips for using insurance companies
- How to perform a walkthrough of a typical BRRRR deal
- The downsides to this strategy
- Tips for short-term financing through crowdfunding
- Where is Ben going with his investing
- How we was able to quit his job through investing
- And SO much more!
Links from the Show
- BiggerPockets Calculators (includes BRRR Calculator)
- RealtyShares
- BP Podcast 151: Finding Your “Freedom Number” with Clayton Morris
- BiggerPockets Forums
Books Mentioned in this Show
- Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
- The Book on Rental Property Investing by Brandon Turner
- Investing in Real Estate by Gary Eldred
- Rich Dad’s CASHFLOW Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki
- Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy
Tweetable Topics:
- “I just hated the idea of throwing away money on rent every month.” (Tweet This!)
- “Find people that choose to rent and not ones that need to rent.” (Tweet This!)
- “I had to try and fail before I could figure out what success looked like.” (Tweet This!)
- “It’s all about putting in the right people and putting some terms in your lease.” (Tweet This!)
Connect with Ben
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Available Results
Generated results are saved to your library for reuse and search.
Choose Template
Pick the result you want. You can review provider and model before generating.
A concise first-pass summary for understanding the episode quickly.
A comprehensive, source-grounded extraction of the reusable knowledge in an episode.
A comprehensive extraction focused on opportunities, strategy, markets, and company building.
Explicit actions, next steps, habits, recommendations, and things to avoid.
Repeatable methods, frameworks, mental models, processes, and systems.
A dedicated inventory of concrete resources named in the episode.
A concise first-pass summary for understanding the episode quickly.
A detailed readable summary organized by chapter or topic.
A navigable map of subjects, topic flow, and suggested chapters.
A comprehensive, source-grounded extraction of the reusable knowledge in an episode.
Reusable atomic knowledge units extracted from the episode.
A comprehensive extraction focused on health practices, protocols, claims, and safety caveats.
A comprehensive extraction focused on opportunities, strategy, markets, and company building.
Explicit actions, next steps, habits, recommendations, and things to avoid.
A dedicated inventory of concrete resources named in the episode.
A dedicated analysis of warnings, limitations, trade-offs, weak evidence, and uncertainty.
A concise first-pass summary for understanding the episode quickly.
A detailed readable summary organized by chapter or topic.
A navigable map of subjects, topic flow, and suggested chapters.
A comprehensive, source-grounded extraction of the reusable knowledge in an episode.
Reusable atomic knowledge units extracted from the episode.
A comprehensive extraction focused on health practices, protocols, claims, and safety caveats.
A comprehensive extraction focused on opportunities, strategy, markets, and company building.
Scientific findings, mechanisms, studies, hypotheses, and the limits of the evidence discussed.
Technologies, AI models, technical methods, capabilities, limitations, and adoption implications.
Investment theses, assets, catalysts, valuation reasoning, time horizons, and risks.
Chronologies, actors, causes, consequences, turning points, and competing historical interpretations.
Policies, proposals, stakeholders, arguments, implementation constraints, and predicted effects.
Career paths, skills, hiring signals, workplace decisions, transitions, and limitations of the advice.
Behavioral mechanisms, biases, motivation, habits, emotions, interventions, and evidence limitations.
Economic mechanisms, incentives, indicators, market structure, forecasts, and uncertainty.
Leadership principles, team systems, organizational design, culture, feedback, and failure modes.
Audience, positioning, messaging, acquisition, retention, experiments, metrics, and failed approaches.
Teaching methods, learning strategies, practice, feedback, assessment, and effectiveness evidence.
Theses, premises, arguments, objections, values, thought experiments, and unresolved questions.
Communication patterns, conflict, boundaries, expectations, repair methods, and contextual limitations.
Books, papers, authors, courses, and other learning resources mentioned in the episode.
Repeatable methods, frameworks, mental models, processes, and systems.
Explicit actions, next steps, habits, recommendations, and things to avoid.
Memorable statements and important claims with attribution and source context.
A dedicated inventory of concrete resources named in the episode.
A dedicated analysis of warnings, limitations, trade-offs, weak evidence, and uncertainty.