How We Built a 50+ Rental Portfolio with Creative Financing and No Marketing Budget

In this special episode, we were honored to be guests on Andrew Lucas’s Deal Finders podcast—and it quickly became one of our favorite interviews ever. We opened up about how we got started in real estate over 20 years ago, what gave us the initial push (hint: it started with just one rental), and the real reason we stuck with it even after losing everything. If you’re wondering how to get into real estate investing without a ton of cash—or you’re just feeling stuck—this episode is full of real talk and actionable inspiration.

We also share how we creatively financed our first properties, how we’ve scaled to over 50 rentals, and the one strategy we STILL use today to find off-market deals (and it doesn’t cost a dime). Whether you’re a new investor or looking to reignite your momentum, you’re going to get massive value from this conversation.

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Episode Highlights

[0:00] How we turned our personal home into our first rental
[3:00] Facing our fears and realizing real estate was simpler than we thought
[5:10] Renting to family and lessons learned from managing our first tenants
[7:45] The screening mistakes we made early on and how we fixed them
[10:05] Why waiting for perfection will kill your momentum
[12:34] The books and resources that helped us find creative financing strategies
[14:52] The one question we still use to unlock seller finance deals
[18:00] How networking brought us three investment properties
[20:07] Building a portfolio with zero marketing dollars
[22:00] What our business looks like today with 50+ rentals and a full team
[24:30] From bartending and video stores to short-term rentals and coaching
[26:30] Our biggest tips for getting started right now
[27:34] How we screen tenants today to protect our investments
[28:00] What to do when your family doesn’t support your investing dreams

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Key Takeaways
1. Creative financing isn’t just theory—it’s a tool we used to build a real business without relying on banks.
2. Your network is your first and most powerful deal-finding strategy—use it early and often.
3. You don’t need to know everything to get started. Just take the first step and keep learning as you go.

If this episode brought you value, we’d love it if you could rate, review, follow, and share it with someone who could use a little real estate motivation today.