We’ve heard it said that the first million is the toughest to make. Well, owning rentals is much like that first million dollars, in that getting the first one is the challenge. If you’re ready to scale then you’ve probably already conquered the biggest challenge.

To scale your rental holdings requires a growth mindset and a willingness to improve.

For me, increasing my real estate holdings is about two things—current cash flow and future value. I wanted my family to have the freedom of time and the excitement of life. And increasing my real estate holdings has allowed me to crack the code. Instead of working at a 9 to 5 job, making money for someone else, I am making money for my family, without working. The checks come in without me having to submit my hours or producing a product. Instead of hoping and praying for a raise, I can add value to my tenants so they will pay more rent. Every property we buy is one that I can leave my kids. The best part is that I have broken the cycle, as Jeff says, of buying liabilities, and now I can think about only buying assets. Gotta love Real Estate!

To scale our real estate holdings, my wife and I quickly learned that traditional banks make it more and more difficult to borrow from when buying rentals. Each time there were more hoops, restrictions and limits that left us wondering how we could continue to scale if we didn’t use banks to fund our growing rental empire. Well, one of my mentors introduced us to “Creative Financing,” aka seller financing or owner carry. Basically, we had a new way to grow our assets. We got a significant number of properties with no money down.  But wait, there’s more; we also learned how to leverage our current properties in order to acquire even more rentals. We also were able to trade up our properties to give us better cash flow and increased appreciation potential. There really is nothing like real estate.