3 Kids, Full-Time Job, $2M Portfolio: This Single Mom Did It in 6 Years!

Henry:A single mom with three kids builds a multimillion dollar rental portfolio while working a full-time job. You have to hear this one. Six years ago, Rachel Duck was freshly divorced, a single parent of three kids. She needed a safe, low money down strategy to start building wealth. The answer, a method that 99% of people will never try, but they should. Rachel used 5% down owner-occupied loans to build a portfolio of 10 properties. She fixed them up, she rented them out and made huge equity along the way. Did we mention that she worked a nine to five while doing this? Now she’s grown her net worth to over two million making her financially free. Rachel is breaking down her buy box, including the exact property she targets, the loans she uses to fund them, and the uncomfortable truth that made her a self-made millionaire. She had three kids and a full-time job, so why can’t you do this too?What’s going on everybody? I’m Henry Washington, co-host of the BiggerPockets Podcast. And today I’m bringing you the story of investor Rachel Duck from Austin, Texas. Let’s jump into the conversation. Rachel Duck, welcome to the BiggerPockets Podcast.

Rachel:Thank you so much. Thanks for having

Henry:Me. Awesome. We are glad to have you excited to get started. So as we do that, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background and how you first got into real estate?

Rachel:Well, so I’ve been in real estate as an investor, as a sales agent, as a consultant since 2006 really. I started buying some raw land in college and then bought my first duplex, which ended up being a house hack without knowing what a house hack was and then just kind of kept going from there. Now I have a portfolio of mostly long-term rentals. I’ve got a short-term rental, which I’m in right now, but that’s been how I’ve grown over the years.

Henry:That’s cool. And what part of the country are you in?

Rachel:I’m in central Texas, so the doomed Austin market.

Henry:Awesome. So you said in college you bought a duplex?

Rachel:Well, so in college I bought some raw land. Raw land. Okay. And then right after grad school, I graduated from A&M. There’s a master of real estate finance. I wanted to be a developer, but I graduated in 2009.And there wasn’t a lot being developed for someone wanting to be a developer. So my program director’s like, “Maybe you think of some other options.” But I got into property tax work because that was something that was going on in the Austin market in 2009. And I also bought my first duplex. So in 2009, things were pretty cheap. I was just out of college and I bought a massive fixer upper outside of Austin that I just did myself, jumped into it, learned a lot, learned a lot of lessons, mistakes, but it ended up being great.

Henry:So your first deal deal was a live-in flip house hack all rolled into one?

Rachel:All into one. Okay.

Henry:Okay. That’s pretty cool.

Rachel:And this was before I knew all those terms. I started listening to BiggerPockets, I think 2017, 2018 and started hearing people talk about that. I’m like, “Oh, I did that. ” But I had no idea what I was doing at the time, but it worked out okay. Mainly I had good timing. I got lucky with the market and then just learned how to do all the flip renovations and how to get tenants. This was when I was 2023, that was my first big one.

Henry:Okay. And it seems like that live-in flip strategy kind of struck a chord with you because it seems like you’ve done it multiple times in your investing career.

Rachel:Yeah. So I had the live and flip the first one. Took a litle bit of a break from a lot of real estate investing. I got married, had three kids. My husband at the time wasn’t crazy about it because we were doing a lot of the work ourselves and we had little babies and it was a lot. So took a break. In 2018, we moved into another home and then in 2020 I got divorced and decided, you know what? Just going to go all in on this that I know how to do. So from 2020 to now we’ve moved, I was counting last night nine times.

Henry:Oh, you and three kids? There’s

Rachel:Been a lot of moving. Currently actually we’re moving. So I’m in that season, but it’s helped me grow my portfolio in those six years to 10 pretty good properties. So that’s been my strategy.

Henry:Why this particular strategy? Why this one property at a time live in it for a year and then either disposition it or rent it out? Why did you decide to go this route to build a portfolio?

Rachel:At the time and when I was starting over again in 2020, I didn’t have massive amounts of money to just go buy and it felt safer than getting a lot of partners or getting a lot of other people’s money. That felt scarier to me at the time. So I knew I could just go in with five, 10% down, do a lot of work myself and then we live there a year, move out, rent it out. The numbers worked so it felt familiar. It wasn’t easy, but the numbers in my head, it didn’t feel as risky as some of the other strategies. And as a single mom of three, I didn’t want a lot of risk, but I wanted to start growing my portfolio.

Henry:Here’s why I like this strategy for the people who are interested. First and foremost is you get 30 year fixed rate debt on your properties, right? So I’m assuming you used probably a combination of FHAs and conventional loans. Have you used more than one FHA or are you just doing conventionals?

Rachel:They’re all conventional for me, yes. Okay.

Henry:So 5% down typically if you’re going to live in it on a conventional. So that’s good. The low down payment is also a draw because 5% is a whole lot easier to scrounge up than 20 to 25% if it’s just a pure investment property. But you get 30 year fixed rate debt. And so that is obviously a benefit, lowers your risk, keeps your payment lower because you’re spreading it out over 30 years. One of the things to consider when you’re doing this strategy is you said that some of these properties needed work, but these loans don’t come with renovation

Rachel:Money.

Henry:So I’m assuming you were funding the renovations out of your pocket.

Rachel:Correct. Yes. So I had to put less down, but then that renovation money was something that I had to fund. And it’s kind of a trade off, especially in the Austin market. All of my now are single family rentals, so your cashflow is pretty low, but my goal was equity growth more than cashflow just to kind of grow the portfolio over time. So that has been positive, but you’re not getting a ton of money off each property each month.

Henry:So I’m assuming you’re still working your job. Kind of explain what you’re doing in, because it’s in the real estate space and you help people with taxes.

Rachel:Yes. So in Texas in particular, well across the country, but in Texas, property taxes are a very large part of your expense. I know that as an investor and as a consultant. So it’s a great business as a consultant because we help fight property taxes for property owners. We primarily work in the commercial sphere, but obviously I already also do residential. But we go to county appraisal districts throughout the state and just say, “Hey, you say the value’s here. We say it’s here,” and try to get a value that works for our clients. So I do it for my own. Obviously, I think every person who’s an investor should fight papers. Everyone

Henry:Should do

Rachel:This.

Henry:People don’t even know you can do this sometimes,

Rachel:But you can contest

Henry:Your taxes, your property taxes. And I’d say the good majority of the time they’ll lower them.

Rachel:You’ll get something usually. I mean, not always, but especially if you’re doing it yourself, it’s not that challenging and it’s a huge expense so it’s worth it.

Henry:Absolutely. And the reason I brought that up is because I’m sure there are people that are interested in this as a strategy, but the caveats here are you’ve got to fund the renovations yourself if you’re going to buy value add. Also, your strategy wasn’t one for lots of cashflow upfront. And so typically what I tell people is define your goals first. If your goals are a function typically of how much money are you needing to make and in what timeframe are you needing to make it? Sounds like your goals were more long-term focused, right? And that allows you to have an investment strategy that will produce the income you’re looking to make in a longer time horizon. Whereas some people need more cash now, that might lead you to a different strategy. And I think where people stumble is they pick an exit strategy first

Rachel:Before

Henry:They have their goals to find and then you end up doing things that aren’t really helping you get to where you want to go.

Rachel:That was part of the keep your job if this is your strategy, one, because it’s a lot harder to get conventional financing if you don’t have a job and you need the money to keep it going. And that strategy might switch for me at some point if I’ve got equity built up, should I put that into something else that has a higher return? And I’m kind of looking at that now, but it’s worked so far.

Henry:And how were you locating the properties that you bought for your portfolio?

Rachel:So all of mine are in the greater Austin area, but that’s within kind of a two-hour radius from north to south. So I looked for good school districts, my target box, which I went outside of and regretted it on a couple was three or four bedrooms, two bath within a 1500 to 2,500 rental range because I felt like I could get really good tenants pretty easily in that group.

Henry:And then are you just looking on the MLS for these deals or are you sourcing them some other way?

Rachel:All of mine have been on the MLS. I’m an agent as well and it’s worked out okay, but yeah, I know there’s some other strategies out there.

Henry:All right, this is really cool. I don’t think I’ve talked to somebody in a while that has built a portfolio by using strictly owner occupied loans. And I know you’ve got a few that you didn’t live in, but for the most part, the majority of your portfolio has been a live-in flip of some kind or a live-in move out rental of some kind, which is pretty cool. But you did mention that you ventured outside of your comfort zone/buy box to do a couple of deals and it didn’t go like you would have hoped. And I want to talk about that right after the break.All right are back on the BiggerPockets podcast with Rachel Duck and she has built a rental portfolio by using the live-in flip strategy, low down payment, 30-year fixed rate loans, move in, live there for a year and then move out and keep it as a rental, or you can move out and sell it. This is a strategy that I don’t think enough people consider as a true growth strategy. I think a lot of people see this strategy and do it for maybe one or two deals, but people, they kind of get the jitterbug once they get once they do a real estate deal and they want to scale, they want to scale quickly. And this doesn’t necessarily lend itself to scaling quickly, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t lend itself to scaling at all because you are proof that you can scale this. Before the break, you had mentioned that you went outside of your buy box in a couple of deals and you ended up regretting it.I wanted to talk about that because just seems like every time I bend my own rules, I regret it. Misery loves company. Tell me about these deals that were outside of your comfort zone.

Rachel:Yeah. I mean, it’s great looking back and I regret it too. So I got pretty overly confident during a bad time to get overly confident in the Austin market. So it was 2020, great time to buy, 21, 22, 23, getting a little risky there. So at the end of 22, I had bought a decent amount of properties in that time and great interest rates and the interest rates started going up and I thought, I want to do a bigger deal. And so I found a property that was in prety bad condition, but it was in an excellent neighborhood. I grew up in the area and that was kind of like the neighborhood that, man, if I could live there one day, it’s great, right? It’s gated golf community. And this property was an estate property. The owners had passed away and the heirs wanted to get rid of it.So I thought I got it at a great deal. It was an inflated market. So looking back, not that great of a deal for the purchase price, that was problem number one, but it seemed good at the time. The second problem was the massive amount of renovation. So it had a pool. It had a … So you know, I had never dealt with a pool before in a renovation. I had never touched that. It had a roof that needed repair, but you could only do ceramic tile or metal roofs, which are extremely expensive. Expensive. It was 3,400 square feet and just so many things wrong, more than I anticipated. The repair budget just went sky high, went to sell it, that wasn’t happening, price kept dropping. When I look back, I should have just dropped the price more and just eaten the cost at that point, but I thought the market would turn.So I rented it at a massive loss for two years, just a lot of money each month. And it wasn’t just the mortgage. The mortgage was at a bad interest rate. It was also that community had a lot of fees, a lot of club dues and all these different fees that went in, the pool, all that stuff. So I recently a couple months ago ended up selling it to the tenants barely more than I bought it. I mean, it was bad. Wow. But it was all outside of if I had just stuck with the three two and the rental rates that I knew and I think I could have avoided it, but I got ambitious and now I know.

Henry:Well, first and foremost, thank you for the transparency and the honesty. And so what would you say is the on big lesson you took away from that deal?

Rachel:I think I maybe overestimated my expertise in a renovation sphere that I didn’t know. And so that really messed me up. I think maybe having someone come in alongside me that knew more about that at the start would’ve been helpful because I was estimating things that I was really unaware of. So if I had an expert say, “What you’re saying is a hundred grand is really, let’s call it three or four times that. ” I would’ve not bought it. I think I don’t want to tell people or myself never to go outside your little box because I want to grow and do new things as well, but yeah, just have somebody who knows what they’re doing help you.

Henry:That’s a phenomenal point. We have to try different things to learn and evolve as investors. And yes, you should have a buy box and you should have a comfort zone and your superpower should live somewhere in that comfort zone, right? But sometimes we are going to go outside of that. So yes, do things that are new, but when you do, make sure that if it is something new that you are doing it with an experts. So either you have a mentor or somebody that’s an expert that’s going to guide you or you’re partnering with somebody that’s an expert in this new strategy so that you’ve got someone who’s seen some of the things that you couldn’t see with your new BIs in that particular strategy or the deal has to be so ridiculously good that it’s dumb not to do it.

Rachel:So

Henry:I bought my mobile home park. I don’t own mobile homes, but I bought this mobile home park because I got it for $100,000 owner financed at 3%. If

Rachel:One

Henry:Person pays lot rent, I’m covered. And so I took that as my opportunity to learn how to invest in mobile home parks because I had pretty much a can’t lose deal. So don’t be afraid to try new things, just try new things with caution. Make sure you have someone on your side, either on your team or partnering with that can guide you through. And you’re right, even going from a basic flip to a higher end flip is still something new. Things are different at higher price points. So awesome. Thank you for sharing that and thank you for being transparent.

Rachel:Yes, thank you.

Henry:All right. I wanted to pivot and talk about the couple of deals that you did that you didn’t force your children to move and live in.

Rachel:Those are their favorite.

Henry:Okay. So what went into the thought process behind those? You had done the live-in flips. It was working for you, but you did buy a few that you didn’t live in. So were these different types of properties, what made you choose a different strategy for

Rachel:Those

Henry:Particular properties?

Rachel:So the ones that were not live-in flips were in slightly less expensive markets, so that was part of it too. So the first one, well, actually the first one I bought, I did buy with a friend. So we did fifty fifty and that’s one of my best properties to the state. Maybe it was luck on timing. It was in 2020, we bought it at a good price and a good interest rate. It’s in a market just south of Austin, a three bedroom, two bath, the right price point right under $2,000 a month for that market. So that one’s been great. The couple others that I bought were about the same. One did have a tenant in place when I purchased it, which I know people have different opinions on that, but it has been fantastic. He stayed the whole time. He’s a plumber, he fixes things.It’s just been great. So I think I got a litle lucky there that could go the other way, but about the same price point pricing. So the ones I moved into were slightly higher pricing and that helped with the financing too. These other ones were typically around 200 to $300,000 and then the rental rates were 1,500 to just over 2,000 for most of them.

Henry:All right, Rachel, you have done several strategies that I often hear people complain about, right? People complain about house hacking, not that it’s not lucrative or profitable, but because they have to share walls. People complain about living flips, not because it’s not profitable, but because they don’t want to live in a construction zone. And my general theory is no wealth is built in your comfort zone. All wealth is built just outside of your comfort zone and someone who’s lived and breathed house hacking and lived and breathed renovating a house while you’re living in it with three children. Talk to me about how inconvenient or not inconvenient these strategies have been on your life. Have they been a drag? Have they been positive?

Rachel:Yeah. I mean, I guess kind of what you’re saying, it’s how bad do you want it? So I have a lot of friends, a lot of people that are like, “Well, I want to do it, but I just can’t.” Well, you’re choosing your cant and that’s fine. You’re choosing what you want to do and that’s fine, but it tells me that at least this approach is not something that is a huge priority to you because you could do it. I mean, this was not convenient at all. I have booked so many U-Hauls. I should have bought stock in them. You should have just bought one. I know. Yes, I should have. You should have bought a truck

Henry:Or a franchise

Rachel:For real because I have driven so many 26-foot U-Haul. I’ve done it all and none of it is what I want to do with my afternoon. I would much rather be sitting around doing nothing on the beach. But if you want your goal, and I knew what my goal was, was to grow a portfolio that was growing equity over time, how can you make it happen? I didn’t come into this with tons of cash, that would be great. That would have been a better option if someone just gave me a bunch of cash and said invest, but that’s not my reality and that’s not a lot of people’s reality, I assume. So how can you make it happen? And for me, it was worth the uncomfort because now I have a portfolio of 10 properties that have grown in equity significantly that is creating a legacy for my children.But I do want to kind of shift my strategy a little bit now that I’ve got that stable base, but I had to find it somehow. And to me that getting to 10 equity growth properties was kind of the stability of my wealth and it was worth it. And no, it was not convenient, but it was kind of fun in a way for someone who has a weird way of defining fun, I guess. But I was coming out of a divorce. This is something I could control. This is something I could do. This is something that could move the needle forward for my kids and I. And so that part of it was a positive. And for them to see it, they can see this isn’t easy, but it’s doable. Look, my mom’s doing it. We’re doing it. It’s not the end of the world.I think a lot of people can. It’s just, do you want it? Do you want to do it?

Henry:Thanks for sharing that because I think people who have never done these strategies just hear these things about these strategies and then they take on those pain points as their own. They say, “I don’t want to live in a construction zone. You’ve never done a renovation. You have no idea if it’s something you can or can’t do. You’ve never had to share a wall. You don’t know if you can or can’t do it, but they also don’t see the upside. So what has taking on these inconveniences allowed you to do? How many properties are you up to? What’s the value of that portfolio?

Rachel:Yeah, so I have 10 total rental properties plus our primary that we just bought. Total value on the rentals is about four million, about half of that’s equity, half is debt. And so yeah, that would’ve not been possible if I hadn’t taken this approach because I started with very little in 2020 and this allowed it to grow and that wouldn’t have been possible without that. I would’ve had to wait a lot longer to get money or I guess go in with other investors, which is another strategy I suppose.

Henry:So $2 million of equity in a portfolio, essentially becoming a net worth millionaire. So for those of you saying,” I can’t do this or it would be too hard to do this, “wouldn’t it be worth it though if you could put yourself in a position to be a millionaire on paper by owning assets is just a testament to like, yes, wealth is built outside of your comfort zone. You get to decide how uncomfortable you want to be, but trust me, it’s all uncomfortable for me.

Rachel:If it’s not, then yeah, that’s what you’re paid for, right? Taking that uncomfort on yourself.

Henry:All right. Thank you so much for sharing that information. I have a few more questions for you about how someone could make this proces of a live-in flip a little easier if they decide that’s what they want to do and we’ll talk about that right after the break. All right. We are back on the BiggerPockets podcast with Rachel Duck talking about her investment portfolio, how she’s done live-in flips to build up her portfolio and has now acquired 10 properties at a value of $4 million with about half of that in equity. That’s fantastic. So for people who are listening who are like, ” I think I could take on something like this. I could do a live-in flip. “Are there any tips or tricks you want to share or strategies that make this a little more convenient than not when you’re having to renovate a property while you’re living in it with your children?

Rachel:Yes, I’ve learned some throughout the process. I’ve tried, if you can all make it happen, to have floors and paint done before you move in because that is a little trickier once you have your furniture in and you’re trying to move things around. So I’ve tried and that’s part of the reason we’ve moved more times is I’ve moved into a short-term rental waiting on getting a couple of those items done. So floors, paint, the rest of it is a little easier to do while you’re there. The other thing is have a good inspector. I have an inspector that I’ve used on almost all of these. I trust him. He is wonderful and you just use that as kind of a punch list. You want somebody who notes every little thing that is kind of a little overwhelming like, ” Oh my gosh, really? Did you have to note the door handle’s loose, but you want every little thing.“You use the

Henry:Wrong type of screw

Rachel:In this

Henry:Particular

Rachel:Scenario. He does. Yep. I’m like, ” Is that important? “But it helps you just check, go down and particularly the things that you need to have looked at by a professional, because I am certainly not a professional. I can lay floors and do paint if I want to, but run wires and electric, that’s not something that I want to mess with or should legally. So you want to get those things done and you’ll have an idea of what’s important on there. So yeah, I think just if you can get floors paint in, then a lot of the other stuff you can do while you’re there.

Henry:Another thing that’s interesting about your story specifically with this strategy is that you have three children. And so how has you investing in this way maybe positively impacted your children? Have you been successful at getting them to help you do any of this work? Has it helped to develop their character any?

Rachel:I think so. So when we started in 2020, when I really started, I have twins that were six at the time and my little guy was four. So they would help paint. They didn’t really help, but I wanted them to feel like they helped. And so they would be a part of the process now. They’re 12 and 10, so they’re able to actually help, especially with the moving and the getting things packed up. And I really think that that character is important, that hard work. It’s, okay, this is what we’re building together guys. So they’re learning how to do things technically, which is great, but also that work ethic, which I really, to me, that’s the most important thing. Like you’re not a victim, you can figure things out. How can you figure them out? And now that they’re older, there’s also a tax strategy if you have a LLC, which I think you guys talked about where you can pay them for their help and that they’re at a 0% tax bracket.So that can then go into their IRAs or their college funds or whatever. So that’s fun too because they get to see the benefit of that. Whether or not my kids get into real estate or run from it or go, I feel like that entrepreneurial spirit is what I want them to have and hopefully that’s what they’re learning.

Henry:I’m sure they are. Well, you should be super proud of what you’ve accomplished as an investor, proud of what you’ve accomplished as a mother. Just think of all the cool, unique experiences that your children will have had living through these projects that other people just don’t get to experience. It’s a pretty cool thing. You should be very proud. So what does the future look like for you? Are you going to continue to use this strategy? You said you found a place that you might stay in for a while. So does that mean you’re looking at maybe investing in a different asset class or are you going to do more of the same?

Rachel:My goals right now are kind of, one, to optimize the portfolio I have now. So I was trying to get rid of some of the bad properties, which I did this year. I’ve got one more I want to sell, trying to pay down some of them, getting that portfolio just as strong as it can be. And then I want to focus on something that is more cash flowing for the second sphere. So I don’t ideally want to do more live-in flips at this point. Again, that could change, but just looking at RV parks, mobile home parks, businesses is kind of where my mind’s going, but those are things that I haven’t done before so I would need to walk along someone to make sure I don’t make some mistakes there, but that’s kind of where I’m headed next. And then just developing, I’ve got a coaching business I’m developing too.So all of those pieces I think are my next steps at this point.

Henry:That’s amazing. And what about from a lifestyle perspective? Has reaching this goal allowed you to live your life differently than before or has it allowed you to live your life the way you envisioned living it once you hit this goal?

Rachel:I think so. I love my job. I’m still employed at my W2 job. I like that my investments in my portfolio allow me what I consider financial freedom from the perspective of I have options. I don’t feel like every month I need that paycheck to come in, I want it to come in, but I feel like some security and I feel like I’m growing a legacy for my kids to then kind of grow off of that. And so it allows us to have the freedom to do that.

Henry:Rachel, thank you so much for sharing this. Thank you for your honesty and transparency, both about how you’ve grown your portfolio, about the mistakes you’ve made and about how it’s positively impacted your life and your children’s lives. It’s been a pleasure talking to you.

Rachel:Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. It’s been an honor.

Henry:Hopefully everybody got some great value from listening to Rachel’s story. If this is a strategy you are considering, I urge you to actually pursue it and don’t just assume some of these inconveniences are truly going to be a problem. Talk to some people who have actually lived through doing projects like this, who have actually lived through living in a house hack or lived through a live-in flip so that you can understand if it truly is going to be a problem for you and your lifestyle, but don’t just assume it will be because this is a wonderful way to build a portfolio without having to use a ton of your own capital to get great fixed rate debt and to build equity. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast. As always, we’ll see you on the next episode.