From Making $28,000/Year to Replacing Her W2 in Just 5 Years Thanks to Rentals

Real Estate Rookie

BiggerPockets

How To, Education, Business, Investing, Entrepreneurship

4.8 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Could rentals give YOU financial freedom? Today’s guest took a giant leap of faith to invest in real estate, and it allowed her to quit her low-paying W2 job in just five years. If you’ve yet to take the first step in your investing journey, this rags-to-riches story will inspire you to get off the sidelines and into the game! Welcome back to the Real Estate Rookie podcast! Earning just $28,000 a year as a lab tech and struggling to pay rent on a property she didn’t even own, Deandra McDonald was determined to buy a house and enjoy the long-term benefits of owning real estate. But when her lender told her she couldn’t qualify for a mortgage, Deandra did what so many aspiring investors are unwilling to do—she cut out ALL unnecessary spending to pay off her debts, rebuild her credit, and save for a down payment. In just 18 months, she was able to buy her first house—all while working the same low-paying job! And that’s just the beginning of Deandra’s story. After realizing that renting out a room in her new home could cover her mortgage payment, she caught the multifamily investing bug. Fast forward to today, and Deandra has built a multimillion-dollar real estate portfolio. Tune in to find out exactly how she did it and how you can copy her success! In This Episode We Cover The investing strategy that helped Deandra to quit her W2 job in just five years How Deandra bought her first property while making just $28,000 a year Fast-tracking your down payment by cutting unnecessary expenses Leveraging your current properties to grow your real estate portfolio The secrets to self-managing your properties (and keeping tenants happy!) How to seamlessly pivot from single-family homes to multifamily investments And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/rookie-546 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Starting with just one property and a dream. Our guest today turned her passion for real estate
0:05.9	into a multi-million dollar portfolio. You've ever wondered how to go from your first deal to
0:11.8	financial freedom. You won't want to miss this episode. That's right. Our guest today is an investor
0:16.5	who left her teaching career behind and scaled up to multifamily success in just five years.
0:21.8	Now, her journey wasn't always easy.
0:23.3	And today, she's sharing the hard lessons and the big ones that got there.
0:31.8	This is the Real Estate Rookie Podcast, and I'm Ashley Care.
0:35.5	And I'm Tony J. Robinson.
0:36.5	And give a warm, warm welcome to DeAndra.
0:39.7	Welcome to the show.
0:40.4	Super excited to have you.
0:41.6	Oh, my God.
0:42.0	Thank you so much.
0:42.8	As soon as you started the introduction, I was like, who are we talking about?
0:45.3	Who's going?
0:47.4	That's you.
0:48.3	You're amazing.
0:49.6	Oh, my God.
0:50.3	It's me.
0:51.5	How fun.
0:52.6	How exciting. DeAndre, let's start off with what first got you
0:56.4	interested in real estate investing. Ah, the first thing that got me interested in real estate investing
	...

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