How to Invest in Real Estate with an AVERAGE Salary (Under $75K) in 2025

Real Estate Rookie

BiggerPockets

How To, Education, Business, Investing, Entrepreneurship

4.8 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you want to know how to invest in real estate in 2025, even if you earn an average salary, you’re in the right place. In this episode, we’re going to break down the exact steps YOU can take to buy your first or next rental property—yes, even in today’s tough housing market! Welcome back to the Real Estate Rookie podcast! Today, Ashley, Tony, and investor Luke Carl are going to share how they would invest in real estate in 2025 if they were starting from scratch. We’ll look at today’s housing market from the perspective of someone who earns an average salary of $75,000 or less and share our favorite strategies, property types, and loans for a beginner. Stay tuned to learn why Ashley recommends forming a partnership for your first real estate deal, why Tony loves the NACA mortgage, and why Luke likes to target properties that need a little love. We’ll also share our top tips for new investors—from getting a mentor and building rapport with lenders to avoiding “shiny object syndrome” and fast-tracking your savings for a bigger down payment! In This Episode We Cover: How to invest in today’s market with an average salary ($75,000 or less) Creative ways to put low (or no) money down on an investment property The best real estate investing strategies for a new investor Whether you should pay off debt before investing in real estate Managing your own rentals versus hiring a property management company And So Much More! Links from the Show Ashley's BiggerPockets Profile Tony's BiggerPockets Profile Join BiggerPockets for FREE Real Estate Rookie Facebook Group Real Estate Rookie YouTube Follow Real Estate Rookie on Instagram Ask Your Question for a Future Rookie Reply “Like” Real Estate Rookie on Facebook NACA Luke’s Website Maximize Your Real Estate Investing with a Self-Directed IRA from Equity Trust Grab the Book “Smarter Short-Term Rentals” Sign Up for the Real Estate Rookie Newsletter Find Investor-Friendly Lenders Real Estate Investing for Beginners: How to Get Started Connect with Luke (00:00) Intro (00:57) First Steps for Rookies (07:44) Building a Financial Foundation (11:40) Getting Preapproved (16:35) Best Property Types (23:04) Finding the Deal (29:38) Paying Off Debt vs. Investing (33:29) Advice for New Investors (36:16) Connect with Luke! Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/rookie-531 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	Hey, everyone. I'm Ashley Care. And I'm Tony J. Robinson. And welcome to the Real Estate Rookie
0:05.5	podcast. Today, we're looking into how we would invest in today's real estate market
0:14.8	if we were completely starting over from scratch right now. So we're breaking down a plan on how to invest from a
0:21.8	Rookie's perspective. Given all the challenges right now in the real estate market, we'll give
0:25.6	you our best ideas on what we would do if we had to start our real estate journey over today.
0:30.2	And we have an awesome guest to give a fresh third party perspective who's invested in all
0:36.0	types of asset classes and knows what it's like
0:39.2	to invest starting from scratch. So welcome to the podcast, Luke, thank you for having me.
0:45.3	Luke, thank you so much for joining us today. Oh, it's my pleasure. Huge fan, huge fan.
0:50.6	Met you guys. Tony, many times and I met you at a couple bigger pockets conferences,
0:54.8	and it's just an absolute honor to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, we're excited
0:58.5	to have the rookie listeners get some insight from you. So let's kind of start off with the
1:05.1	scenario we're going to talk about today. So we really want to talk about if you've never had a
1:09.8	property, or maybe you're trying to
1:12.0	get your next property, this will be really relatable. But here's the breakdown of the scenario we're
1:16.5	going to set the table with. So somebody with an average $66,000 salary in a hybrid role, and there's
1:24.7	really no opportunity for overtime. They pay rent of $600 a month,
1:30.5	lives in a two-bedroom with a roommate or a partner and they have no kids. They live in a market
1:36.6	outside of a major metro. They've saved $20,000 and there is no debt except for a car payment. And in their market, it's a U.S.
1:47.2	median home price of $300,000. We'll have Tony go first. So Tony, with this scenario,
1:54.0	you're in the situation. What would be the first thing that you would do? Yeah, so 66,
1:59.4	almost $70,000 in salary, $1,600 in rent, no kids, mid-sized kind of third,
	...

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