Fast-Tracking Financial Freedom (in Her 30s!) with JUST 5 Rentals

Five rental properties are all you need to change your life.Buy five properties and you can live for free in retirement. This investor set that exact goal a few years ago and is well on her way to achieving financial freedom and the option to retire early from a demanding career with only five units in her current portfolio. And the cool thing is that she’s not spending tons of cash. She’s not employing some time consuming marketing strategies. She’s doing strategies that you can start doing right now. What’s up everyone? I’m Dave Meyer, head of real estate investing at BiggerPockets. I myself have been buying rental properties for 15 years and this podcast is here to teach you how to achieve financial freedom through real estate investing. Today we have a great investor story for you with someone named Jessica K Cruel. She lives and invests in Newark, New Jersey. And Jessica, on top of being a real estate investor, has a very impressive, interesting career in the media industry, but that demanding full-time career that she has has motivated her to also find a path to financial freedom.So in between fashion events and board meetings, she’s dealing with tenants and toilets. She’s looking for deals just like the rest of us. Jessica bought her first property when she was making well under a hundred grand. And even today she only has a modest goal of buying five properties, trying to get to about 10 units by age 40 so she can cover her housing costs in early retirement. Today she has five of those units already locked up and she already has seemingly hundreds of stories about overcoming property management issues and inching closer to her goals one day at a time because as we all know, that’s what it takes. This is a super fun conversation and it really just shows how almost everyone can benefit from real estate investing no matter where you’re coming from. Let’s get into it. Jessica, welcome to the BiggerPockets podcast. Thank you for being here.Thanks so much for having me. As I say, longtime listener, first time caller.It is cool that you are a longtime listener in the media industry. Maybe we’ll start there. You have a pretty cool job. Tell us what you do full time.So I am the editor in chief of Allure and Self Publications, which are two different magazines that cover beauty for allure and fitness and wellness for self.So why are you listening to BiggerPockets then?Well, of course because I’m into real estate and everybody has to have a side hustle, so I started listening in about 20 18, 20 19, right before I bought my first property. I was trying to learn everything I could about real estate before I took that leap and bought my first investment property.Very cool. So in 2018 where you bought an investment property or primary residence is the first thing you bought?So I bought a primary residence in 2019. I started doing my research in 2018, but I house hacked. So it was both is the answer, see all of the above. I lived there and also had tenants.And why did you start thinking about investing instead of just buying a primary residence? Was there someone or something that got you hooked onto the idea that real estate and your primary residence obviously can improve your own quality of life, but could also be the sort of side hustle that you were looking for?Yeah, it was actually an ex-boyfriend and I hope he’s listening. I’m just kidding.We’ll send it to him after this.My real estate portfolio is bigger than yours. So I was with a partner and while we were together, he bought his first property. It was an investment property, it was a free family. And watching him do it all, I began to understand the power of real estate and what real estate investing could do for your future and all I need to do. I’m a very smart person, all I need is one good example and I’m like, okay, I think I can do that as well. So when we broke up from that moment on, I was like, okay, I’m going to buy a property. And then that’s when I started doing my research and learning about things like house hacking and multifamily real estate and that is what I had my eyes on. I literally was like, I’m going to get a property where I could have tenants and live there as well. And so sometimes I call it my revenge rental because it was giving anything you can do, I can do better.It’s funny, I actually got started somewhat similarly. It wasn’t with a partner, it was with a friend of mine. I moved to Colorado and I would go skiing with this guy, great skier, good friend, not the brightest bulb, and he was making so much money in real estate and I was like, if this dude could do it, I can definitely do it. And it actually worked out.And that’s the same thing. And I remember when the first week he brought his property, a big disaster happened and I was like, oh my gosh, this can be done better. But then of course I bought my first property and a big disaster happened the first week too. And I was like, okay, so this is just real estate,This is just how it happens,This is how itGoes. I think there’s something you mentioned that is super important here, which is that you who have a impressive, and I assume time consuming full-time career.Yes.You still chose to house hack, which I think a lot of people who hear this concept, they understand the financial benefits but then think, I don’t want to live with tenants or I don’t have time to manage a property on top of what I’m doing full time. So how did you make the time and mental energy to go after a house hack, even when you have this pretty all consuming full-time career?Look, I’m a long-term plan person. I have a five-year plan, I have a 10 year plan. I live in New Jersey, I’m in the New York City area, so everything here is very expensive and for me it was a matter of looking at the mass. I could keep having my one bedroom apartment in New Jersey and pay $2,100 a month, or I could own a whole house and eventually pay $0 and make money. And I don’t care how you split that, it’s worth any amount of time. I was like, I’ll work it out, pay no rent. And by the way, I go around telling people, oh, I don’t pay rent. Talk to me. Nice. I don’t, don’t pay rent.That’s amazing. Yeah,I think it is hard. It has been a tough time, but actually I think living in my first property, it made all the difference. And I personally take a very slow approach to real estate, soLove that.When I bought the house, it had tenants in it. So from day one I was making rental income and then I renovated the other apartment, then I got tenants in that apartment. Then the tenant that was there when I bought the house, they moved out. I renovated that apartment that took me two years. It was like maybe two years before I was fully running at the level that it could do income wise. I think if I would’ve tried to do everything quickly, it would’ve overwhelmed me. But I just take a slow approach because I do have a great job. I’m able to pay the mortgage. If I have to pay the mortgage, I’d rather pay the mortgage and take my time to do things, get the right tenants in there, especially since we all live together and they are all on top of me. So I think those are things that I just felt were really important. So slow and steady and then take a break and be like, I’m not touching the house for two weeks and then come back.Yeah, I absolutely love the slow and steady approach and I’m curious if you’re able to do that. I think mentally it makes sense, a lot of people, but then you get in the property and you want to go, perhaps you listen to the show and you hear people who buy 10 units or 50 units and it’s very appealing to do those things as well. But you mentioned earlier you’re a long-term plan person, so do you have a long-term plan for your real estate and did you have that even when you first began buying your first property?Yeah, when I bought my first property, I think the goal was, let’s see how this goes. Let’s just see if I can do it because I’m a single woman, I’m by myself, so working with contractors, working with tenants, I just wanted to feel it out first and see how it went and see if I was going to make money. Because also listening to this podcast, sometimes it doesn’t work out. And so I thought I would just see what would happen. And living in this New Jersey, New York area, it was the only way I could buy a house. To have other people’s rent to help pay the mortgage was really the only way I could afford. And so after I bought the first one and I was in it for a couple years, I was like, I can do this again. And that is the thing that gets you, okay, first of all, I called my house as my children. It’s just like having kids. It’s like you have that first sweet kid and you’re like, oh my god, I want five kids. And then you have that second kid and you’re like, oh my gosh, I don’t want any more kids. So I think once I had the first one and I was like, it worked, my point was proven, the math was matting,That’s when I was like, you know what? I do have a plan. I want more of these. Here’s how I’m going to build my portfolio. My goal is to have 10 doors, five properties by 40, which is in five years. Oh,That’s amazing.Having that level of specificity is probably the best thing you can do as a real estate investor. And very, very few people do it. I’ve come up with them and then I deviate from my own plan. So I’m not perfect on this either, but just having that thing to aim for is so important because 10 units, five properties, that is feasible. That feels doable even with the other demands on your time and mind share and all of that. And I think so many times people listen to this podcast and you just think, I got to keep growing. And it seems like this ever building exponential thing where you always have to be in growth mode and figuring out new ways to find deals and finance stuff and maybe you don’t. If you want to grow to be huge and to be a tycoon, you do need to do that. But if you have a more modest, normal goal, I would say maybe you don’t need to do that. Right?Well, even if I only have two properties, I have more real estate than the average person. So I think for me, I have backtracked towards how much income do I need at the end of the day. I know these properties are part of my retirement plan. So it wasn’t like I was like, oh, I want to own 5 million in a real estate portfolio. No, it was more like, I want to get to a point where I have $5,000 coming from these properties.So I build based on that. I build saying, this is the way I’m going to get to 5,000. Everything is taken care of, electricity, rent, mortgage, insurance, everything. And then I will have $5,000 left to just take home to me. And I think that is how I’ve built my plan. It’s not about how much property can I have, it’s about I just want enough enough to have $5,000 a month. And for me that math is five properties, maybe less depending on what I do. And when I get that, I might stop and I’d be like, actually, I’m good. That’s that.I absolutely love that you are speaking my language. I think that knowing what is enough is so important. And honestly it’s not that hard. You just came up with a number, right? $5,000. I imagine you spent some time thinking about what number that should be. ButYeah, that’s a lot easier than just thinking, oh, I 89 units. Why? You could have 89 terrible units, you could have 10 amazing units and get the same thing and one’s a heck of a lot easier. So it’s so much better to build your portfolio working backwards from your eventual goal. And so Jessica, I very inspired by this. I think it’s so important for everyone to be thinking about these kinds of things. Alright everyone, we do need to take a quick break, but we’ll have more with investor Jessica Cruel right after this. They say real estate investing is passive, but if you’ve spent a Sunday night buried in spreadsheets, you probably know better. We hear it from investors all the time, spending hours every month sorting through receipts and bank transactions, trying to guess if you’re making any money. And when tax season hits, it’s like trying to solve a Rubik’s cube blindfolded. That’s where Base Lane comes in. BiggerPockets official banking platform. It tags every rent, payment and expense to the right property and schedule E category as you bank. So you get tax ready financial reports in real time, not at the end of the year. You can instantly see how each unit is performing, where you’re making money and losing money and make changes while it’s still counts. Head over to base lane.com/biggerpockets to start protecting your profits and right now you can get a special $100 bonus when you sign up. Thanks again to our sponsor base lane.Welcome back to the BiggerPockets podcast. Let’s get back into this week’s investor conversation with Jessica. K Cruel. So you did a house hack at first. What were the details? It was in New Jersey, I assume, but tell us a little bit more about the deal.Yeah, so after getting rejected many, many a time for my offers, I found a duplex, but it has an above ground kind of garage level situation that was already redone as kind of a second space or a third space rather. So I could live in the bottom of the property and still have two people with their own separate apartments, but it’s a separate entrance in all of that. So three kitchens, the top two apartments are three bedroom, two bath, and then mine is a one one.Oh, nice.Bought it in 2019 for 4 25, I put 5% down, which is a little bit more than I had to because I could use first time home buyer benefits, but I decided to go ahead and put 5% down because I had the cash and at that time it did need renovation, so I redid kitchens and floors. It was just cosmetic stuff that I spent way too much money on. I like nice things. And that was before I was in the mindset of this is for tenants, it doesn’t have to be nice, but redid quartz countertops, res sanded, the floors put down new vinyl flooring where needed, that kind of thing. And it had tenant when I bought it, so a tenant was there who was on government assistance. So that was a nice steady check. That’s where I learned about, I spent a lot of time at the government office learning about that. And so that was my first property, but pretty soon after I bought it, I had my firstDisaster. You have to cut your teeth somehow.Yeah,It happens to everyone. So how soon afterIt was so quick?Oh really?Yeah, about a mid-July. By the end of the July I had my first disaster. Two weeks.What was it?So I got an architect to look at the house and just tell me what I needed in order to upgrade it to an official three family. And so we’re doing the tour, he’s like, listen, I take him to the backyard. And then I looked down and I was like, I’m sorry, I’m going to stop you. There used to be two HVAC units right there that are no longer there.What a condenser for airCondition or something. Two huge HVAC condensers or like, ohMy god,Gone. Copper wire gone. So luckily you buy a house, you have insurance, and insurance definitely covers HVAC units getting stolen. SoI’m sorry you had to learn that, but I know that’s good to know.So we got those replaced and all of that, but it was my first lesson. Day one, when you move in, first thing you do is get security cameras all around the place. So it is just little things that I learned along the way, but live and you learnIn my experience, you know how the people say celebrities die in three. I feel like just real estate failures happen in three. It’sJustEvery time it’s like you get the HVAC stone and you’re like, what’s next? There’s going to be something. And then you’ll be like, six months you’ll be chill, you’ll be fine. And you’re just waiting for the shoe to drop and then you’ll get hit three times, something like that. It just always comes in waves.I believe that. So keenly, my second house was even more an adventure, lemme tell you. And I was on eggshells for months being like, it’s coming, something’s coming because these two terrible things have happened.One more and then I’ll be done. It sounds awful. And it is what it happens. It’s not fun. But also every time it happens, you get a little bit better at dealing with it. It always hurts financially that it stinks, but I think the first time, honestly, emotionally it’s the hardest. You’re like, oh my God, I just put so much money into this big important investment now I need to put more money into it and things aren’t going well and it can sort of feel like things are getting out of control in time. You really do learn to just be like, okay, I can figure this out. I’ve done this before and it stinks and it’s not fun. But you start to see it just as part of doing business and it’s not this catastrophe that is going to upend your entire investment or your entire portfolio or your strategy or your retirement. It’s just part of being a real estate investor, just like every business unfortunately has its ups and downs. The part of owning rental properties, the towns are pretty far down and they’re frustrating, but it also is in service of this much, much bigger thing.I think also, as you said, everything honestly comes back to that first time. Every time I think about that feeling of being in that yard and seeing those HVAC units missing,Oh my God,I’m like, if I can get through that, everything else is like a piece of cake because I was dumb. And I truly tell people what made you get into real estate? It’s like you have to be naive in order to buy your first property. There’s no other way you would do it if you knew all the trouble it could cause you would be like, so wait, I’m going to buy this thing for a hundreds of thousand dollars and then I’m going to have to spend more money every few months and then people are going to wreck it and then why would I buy it?But aren’t you happy you did it,But I’m so happy I did. Right, exactly. And I laugh and cry all the way to the bank.Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It is definitely worth it. But you’re going to take some lumps along the way, unfortunately. But I think it just also makes you a better investor because you also learn when you’re going to look at a property, you’re like, okay, that fridge is looking a little oldAccount three grand that I’m going to need to put in, or I don’t see the security system. I don’t see the jail around my ace rack units. Now I need to account for that so that it’s not a surprise in the future. There’s still going to be surprises, don’t get me wrong, but you can reduce the amount of surprises that come up because every time you learn, you learn how to protect yourself, how to find great tenants, to find great contractors, and it does really get easier. Each subsequential property that you go on to go buy.And I know what to ask. I think the first property, you just don’t know what you don’t know. And then once you learn things, now you go into a house and you know what questions to ask, how old’s the roof, how old is the HVAC to ask those things and it makes you a better, like you said, a better investor overall.If you do this for a year, two years, three years, you’re going to learn a lot. You’re going to be in a very good position. If you start now two, three years from now, you’re going to know a heck of a lot more than you do about rental property investing and it takes a lot of the mystery out of it. Before we take a break, everyone just a heads up that BiggerPockets is hosting a really cool fun new deal analysis challenge this week only from June 16th to June 23rd. Here’s the deal. If you analyze seven properties using BiggerPockets calculators during that time, you could be entered into a random drawing to win a BiggerPockets Pro membership, a free general admission ticket to BP Con 2025 in Las Vegas, and a $100 gift card to the BiggerPockets bookstore. Head to biggerpockets.com/seven deals for all the info on how to enter. All right, we got to take a quick break, but we’ll be right back. Welcome back, everyone. Let’s jump back in with Jessica. So let’s talk about how you sort of moved on and evolved as an investor. You did this house hack, you said it took you maybe two years to fully stabilize. You felt like it was in the place you wanted it to be. Then what did you do from there?After two years, I just started building my cash up because it was stable and I was finally making money. I was fully booked with tenants, and so I was finally able to start to save for my next property. So that’s what I did because also knowing the way that I do things, I was going to have to put a lot more down on the second property because I was going to have to put 20% down. So I just saved my money, had my tenants, things got calm. So the pandemic happened, and then finally when we got out of the pandemic, I bought my second property in 2023.Same location,Five minutes from the other house, really right down the street. It was a three family. And so I bought that house and I said to myself, I don’t want to do Reno. That was my one thing. I said, it’s like I’m not doing Reno this time because by that time I was editor-in-chief and I knew what I had time for and what I didn’t have time for, and I did not have time to be fluent with contractors. So I found this amazing property that had been fully renovated. It’s an old house, 1920s, but it’s been fully gutted and the HVACs came in jail. So I was like, wonderful. Everything is brand new. Everything is new. I almost didn’t buy the house or I put my offer in and I tried to get out of this house. I was like, oh no, I don’t want this house anymore. Because we went on the inspection and as you go on inspection, you go top to bottom and everything’s looking great. My inspector’s like, oh, this is a nice house. This rental is well done. We get down to the basement and we were standing in an inch water.Oh no.That’s when I was telling my real estate agent. I was like, I don’t want this house anymore. Get me out of this deal.What was it?So the drain that went to the sewer was made of terracotta pipe and it had gotten cracked, and so dirt and roots were getting into the line, which was backing everything up. So we had to do a scope and we had to do all of that. They had to fix that. I was like, that’s not my issue. And then I moved into the house. So that was my first adventure with property number two.So you said something about time, which I think is so important and overlooked here. You said you were looking for something that wasn’t going to be renovated, which I personally have done a lot over the course of my career because I work full time, I’m pretty busy and I choose to find properties that just work with my lifestyle. Was that a hard decision? And I think for our audience, did you have to give up some of the financial benefit? Do you feel like you had to take something that maybe wasn’t going to earn you as much because it fit into your lifestyle?Yes, for sure. The numbers as good as on my first property. Sweat equity is something that I don’t have, and I look at these things as long-term investments. So the math works for me. It’s more about does it cover itself? Right? As long as I don’t have to pay mortgage, then I’m good. Also, you have to realize that now I have two properties, so they work together, all these doors together, pay for everything, and I make money still. So I do think that I looked at them more together as a grouping. Then this one property doesn’t work or does work, it’s tight. It works, but it’s tight. But I really couldn’t do that reno to force equity. And also it was supposed to be turnkey. It was not. That’s another thing,It’s notA thing. Turnkey is not a thing, but I’m glad that I did because I’m not a big fan of mortgage lenders saying marry the house date the rate. I don’t really love that.Oh, IHate that You cannot predict the rates. But what I say to myself is this property is going to increase in value over a long period of time. Rents are going to increase over a long period of time and maybe not a hundred percent, but maybe I’ll be able to refinance. So all those factors, if I’m close enough on the math, will be like, you know what? We’re close enough. This is a 30 year investment over 30 years, I’m going to get my money’s worth. So I think of it that way instead of being like, oh, I’m not going to be a thousand dollars off this one house a month. I’m not about that kind of math.First and foremost, I love the idea of thinking about it holistically as a whole portfolio. And you can only do that because you have your long-term plan.If you’re just buying one-off deals and evaluating them individually, which you need to do, you need to buy good deals. Don’t get me wrong. You cannot just add things to your portfolio just for the sake of it. But if you have this long-term plan for your portfolio, then your criteria for what a good deal is might shift. It no longer needs to be, how do I maximize every single dollar today for Jessica, it sounds like within five years, so going back, this was two years ago, so you were thinking at that point, within seven years, I need to be producing $5,000 a month.And it sounds like even though you might not be maximizing every dollar today, that’s in service of that long-term goal number one. And number two, perhaps even more importantly, it’s what you have time for while still working your job, which is the other sort of totally essential part of your plan for the next seven years. You still need that job. So you can’t say, I’m going to do a renovation that’s going to take time away from my job when I still plan to work for the next seven years. And so it’s just a perfect example of why having these goals allows you to just work backwards in a much more efficient way. And honestly, at least for me, I’ve found it to take a lot of pressure offTo not think like, oh my God, is this deal going to be amazing next year? I don’t know. Is it going to be amazing 10 years from now? Pretty sure it will be. That part is pretty easy to predict. So I just want to commend you for having I think a very mature look at how to build a real estate portfolio constantly bombarded with buy more, buy more. It has to hit these rules and those rules don’t work for everyone. And instead you found a way and you found deals that work for you and your own personal goals.And also I think when we talk about some of the things that happen that cost a lot of money, if something happens and I’m dropping $10,000, I say to myself, this is what I have a job for. I have a job for this exact reason, and two, it’s $10,000 now, but I’m going to have this house for 30 years, a $10,000 on something I don’t pay the mortgage for on a monthly basis, my tenants do. So it’s like in the grand scheme of things, that’s not a bad investment.Yeah, I am actually thinking about this. So I have this property I’ve owned for 10 ish years now. It’s done great. It’s great property. I am hearing from my property manager, I probably have to replumb the whole house. It’s like a 5,000 square foot triplex. So this probably could cost me 30, 40 grand. And if you look at it on paper, I’m not making money this year. Maybe it’s going to eat into next year, but in a good year, in a normal year, this thing’s making me 40 or 50 grand easy. And this is my retirement. I could hold onto this thing. It could probably single handedly pay for my retirement if I just hold onto it for another 10 years and say, you got to do it. Am we going to have a good cash and cash return this year? Nope. Is it going to stink? Yes. But it’s just sort of having that long-term view and knowing what role this property plays in my portfolio. I don’t know if you know Chad Carson. He wrote some books for BiggerPockets.He’s on the show a lot, but he was on the other day and he was saying he has a job description for every property in his P portfolio. And I love that idea. So I’m like, this is my retirement and it’s job is to be there when I want to retire 10 or 15 years from now. And so I’m going to invest in this plumbing that’s going to make it great for the next 30 or 40 years. And similar to you, it’s like this triplex has its own job and it’s like be there to put off 1500 bucks a month in seven years. Its job is not to be perfectly optimized for the year that I buy it.Exactly. And I think with that long-term view, it just makes it all so much more rewarding because I think about I’m playing the long game, I’m not playing the short game. And also that’s what taxes are for. Write it off. It’s going to be a write off for sure. That was another reason why I bought the house is because it was around 2023 when my taxes started to look a little differentBecauseYou can carry over and all that stuff. And when I got my tax bill in 2022, I was like, wait, because I don’t like paying Uncle Sam money.That’s the part that gets a little addicting when you’re like, okay, I have this plan to buy five, but what if I keep doing it and I never pay taxes?Oh my goodness. That would be wonderful.So where are you at now? So you bought your duplex and you bought a three unit in 2023. What’s happened since then?So I am actively looking for my third property. So kind of like you said about retirement, the way that my houses are planned, it’s like four and a possible really. But I want to buy a house in Savannah, Georgia. I am from Georgia originally. I love Georgia. And so the house I’m looking for in Savannah is my retirement home. Who knows when I’ll actually get down there and live in it, but it’ll be a rental until I move into it. So it’s my first single family. But the goal is to buy something that has a carriage house or the possibility of a carriage house so that I could live in the main house eventually myself, and then have a student or a nurse or someone live in the carriage house. So it would still make income. So that would be door seven and eight. So that’s what I’m looking for now. But it’s a little bit different. It’s a little bit harder actually to buy because now I’m looking at something like, would I want to live here? When you’re buying a rental property, you’re like, does this work for tenants? Fine. Is this IkeaKitchen? Who cares? But I think part of being a real estate investor is to see the potential in anything and to know the math around that potential, you have to be able to say, okay, this is a garage right now, but it’s got electricity and it’s got hot water, which means it can be a carriage house.Right, exactly.And so you look at things a little bit different. So that’s what I’m looking for currently.AndI’m really excited because a single family in Georgia sounds so much easier than these mostly families in New Jersey. We’ll see what I find, another option is to find a place that has a short-term rental license so that I could dip my toe into Airbnb, but I would definitely have a management company.IThink that’s been the biggest debate lately is like, okay, the more properties you get, the more doors you get, the more tenants you get. Do I need a management company? And so that’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, but I’m addicted to the money.Oh yeah, it is. The stuff that you’re close by to it is kind of easy, but if you’re buying in Savannah, you’re going to need a property management company either way, if you do long-term or short-term.Yeah,I guess if you do a single family and it’s a long-term tenant, you can maybe make it work.Yeah, long-term family with kids, I’d be like, look, handle with your own stuff. Pretend I’m not here. Y’all live here.Do you know people in the area? If you reallyNeeded someone to getThere. Yeah. Okay.That would help. I know people in the area.I also think something people don’t think about is their real estate agents. So I recently signed on a new real estate agent to help me find a place in Savannah, and my real estate agent here in New Jersey and my one in Savannah are both investors themselves. And so it’s really important right now she manages properties. So when we both go into a property, we’re both looking at it like investors. And I think that makes all the difference. Having someone who does this, who manages property, who manages tenants, who has their own rental properties, makes it so much easier. So usually it’s my real estate agent that I call and I’m like, Hey, so about HVAC units getting stolenWhat I do, did they like? AhYes. She was like, call your insurance. And also here’s a guy who can put them in jail. So she definitely helps me out.Well, I want to mention something you said about buying for your own retirement. I think this is one of the coolest things you can do as a real estate investor. I had never really considered it myself. I bought a short-term rental that I use for my own personal enjoyment. So that’s kind of like this. But I’m actually, I closed today on my new primary residence. I’m very excited about it, but in the last few months I’ve been living in a midterm rental and I’ve gotten to know our landlords. They’re very nice people and that’s what they did. They’re a few years away from retirement, so they bought this really cool place. They furnished it the way they want to furnish it, and now they midterm rental it. I mean, I think we’re good tenants. We’re taking good care of the place and they look for people who are going to take care of the place.But you could see just when I met them, how excited they were and how much pride they had in this place. And it was just motivating for them, motivating for them, I’m sure in their day-to-day jobs to do what they need to do and get to that retirement. But to be good landlords and to go through some of the ups and downs that we’ve been talking about in this episode, you are willing to deal with something getting broken or needing to make some upgrades, your retirement. That’s kind of your dream. And I’m probably a little bit too far away from retiring to do it now. But I think for people who are getting close, this is a super cool way to make a strong investment and to really set yourself up for the life that you’re hoping to achieve through real estate in the first place. So that’s super cool.And I think it’s also, we play a numbers game. I see the potential in Savannah as a place, and I fell in love with it. I’m from the state and I just felt really strongly that I need to buy before the market gets too saturated with people moving downThere. And so who knows when I’ll actually move into it until then, it’ll be a rental property. And I think my original dream was that I would live there six months live in a vacation location abroad. My next number four is supposed to be a house abroad that is definitely supposed to be short-term rental. So we’ll see what happens and we’ll see what I find that I fall in love with. But I definitely wanted to have a place because then I know exactly how much money I need. If I know my mortgage is at that last house, I know exactly how much money I need these properties to make.That’s so true. Yeah. If you have fixed debt on it, it’s like there’s no mystery about it. You’re not wondering what this retirement might look like. Exactly. And you’ve probably paid off some of that mortgage too by the time that you’re moving in, so that’s evenBetter. Exactly.Well, this has been so much fun, Jessica, thank you so much for joining us here today. Do you have any last advice for our audience as they’re working their way towards financial freedom through real estate?Like we said, slow and steady is so important. And I also think that real estate doesn’t have to be 50 doors. It could be two, it could be five. And I see these properties as something that allows me to do my day job a little bit more freely. It allows me to have the creative freedom to be a risk taker at work because I know that I have this safety net of homes that I can lean back on, and that can mean the me not paying rent or mortgage. That could be, oh, I need money. I can sell one. And they’ve appreciated over time. So I just think looking at real estate as not only a retirement plan, but also a freedom gateway for your own day-to-day life, I think is really important because I just move differently in my job as editor in chief knowing that I come home to these properties and I’m able to put up with a temporary pain of all that happens. But also, I always say I’m probably the only editor in chief who lives in a basementSay it proudlyKnown to man. Yes. I’m like, but I do that because it allows me to buy more properties and to have the future that I want. And so I am just so happy that I did make the decision. I do think it’s totally worth it no matter what I’ve been through. And I hope more people, more women, more women of color, more single women get into it.Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for sharing your insights and your experience with us, Jessica. It’s been a lot of fun having you here today. If you want to learn more about Jessica’s journey, you also have an awesome Instagram account called This House Is Trying to Kill Me, which I love the name of. So if you want to learn more from Jessica, you could definitely go check that out. Thank you all so much for listening to this episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast. We’ll see you next time.