Turning a $25,000 Rental Property into a $5,000/Month Rental Portfolio

This investor bought his first property for only 25 grand right in his hometown. Now his cash flow from real estate averages $5,000 every single month. He was able to accumulate 20 units in seven years, all while working a day job by maximizing his own strengths, understanding his local area, and adapting as the real estate market has changed. If you want to repeat his journey, keep watching to find out.

Hey everyone, I'm Dave Meyer, head of real estate investing at BiggerPockets. And on this show we teach you how to achieve financial freedom through real estate. Our guest on the show today is investor Dustin Cardenas from western Illinois. Dustin didn't start in real estate with any sort of built in advantages. He calls himself an everyman and has worked a series of very regular jobs including bug exterminator and car salesman. But Dustin also saw an opportunity right in his backyard. Low priced homes that could be worth much more if someone just took the time to fix them up and maximize their value. So he thought, why not me? And bought his first property for only 25 grand. That was seven years ago and today Dustin has a cash flowing portfolio that's allowed him to cut back his hours at work and dream of a retirement that otherwise might not be possible. Let's bring on Dustin and hear about this amazing investor journey. Dustin, welcome to the BiggerPockets podcast. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me. Huge fan of the show.

Oh, that's great to hear. We love to hear that. What was your background like? How long ago did you get into real estate and what had you been doing prior to that?

It's funny you asked that, cause I just had to think about the age that I started investing in real estate and I actually wrote it down. So I was actually 35 years old when I started investing in real estate and I'm currently 42. Before real estate I had my W2, which I still have at this point. I'm a car salesman here at the local dealership in town and I've been here for nine years. Previously to that I was a pest control manager for about four years and previous to that I was a juvenile detention officer for almost six years. Wow. And my wife is currently a nurse practitioner here at a hospital in town.

Nice. Wow. You've done a little bit of everything. It sounds very varied career. Yeah. So why did you decide to get into real estate at 35?

There was a handful of investors around here in town and one guy I went to school with and he was kind of born into it and I was at a local establishment One night. And he told me, he said, you know, you could do this. There's. There's room for everybody in this field. And he said, hey, I know you got a good job. I know your wife has a great job. You guys have good credit. So there's more than enough to get around. And what he said to me stuck with me and lit the fire right there. And, you know, I still. I never forgot it. What he said was, you know, what I want to do with my life? I want to do whatever I want to do whenever I want to do it, and I want to get paid for it. And real estate does that for me. So right then, at that moment, I just started reading every sort of book material I could get my hands on. And, you know, it was on. It was on and going from there.

Oh, that's super cool. I love that story. And I love the mentality of this guy you met or friend or mentor, if you will. What was your instinct at that point? Like, where did you want to go with your investing career? And how did you find. Start thinking about doing your first deal?

But the first deal I hunted down, it was a great deal with my realtor, and she's still my realtor to this day. I was selling a vehicle, and I had to take the vehicle back to the real estate office. So I went in and had a conversation with her, and she was probably eight years younger than me, but she actually broke everything down to me and said, you can do this. So, you know, just to piggyback on the helping each other. Yeah, she said, you can do this. And so we instantly started looking at houses then, and I had a lot of different realtors kind of shy away from me because I was looking for the smaller deals. I wasn't looking for 100,000, $200,000 houses, anything like that. I was in the range of 20 to $40,000 houses. So the first deal that we found it was they had a list at $41,000, and it was a move in ready house in this area, right place, right time, that people had moved to California and the house had already been redone. Move in ready. I ended up low balling them, and I got the house for $25,000.

Oh, my God.

And I still own that house to this day. And that house right now with equity is probably worth 70,000 because I bought it in 2018. But that first deal was the one that sparked it, that I said, okay, I can do this. And after that deal, then, you know, the snowball happens, and you just start Going from there.

Wow, that's. I mean hearing those numbers about the price of house is crazy to just imagine that you can buy a house for 25 grand where most people would be probably pretty happy to find a house for 10 times that amount. Like if you could find something for 250. But what, what is your market like? Is it rural?

Our market, our town is currently about 35,000 people. So we're in a perfect, we're in a perfect area. We're right in the middle of 2, 2 higher volume areas. 45 minutes north of us is, it's called the Quad Cities and it is probably about 100, 120,000. And 45 minutes east to us is called Peoria, Illinois, which is also about 1001500 20,000 people. So we're right in the middle, which is a great area. I love listening to the podcast all the time too because you guys talk about the Midwest and it's by far. I don't want to give all our secrets away, but it's by far the top spot to invest in the whole country.

That's what I'm saying, man.

I agree and that's true and I have the numbers to prove it.

Yeah, it sounds really cool. When you buy a house for $25,000. You said it was move in ready. What can you rent that for?

Originally I rent that house now for $700 a month. And that is a two bedroom house. It's two and a half bedroom, maybe a little small office. It's non conforming because there's no closet. It also has two bathrooms in it. So I rent that house for 700 currently. I was renting it for 650, but with time, you know, it just goes up. And I have long term renters there that, you know, they, they take care of the home.

That's great.

You know, they love the home. And not only that, the lot is huge. So it's a great house.

And that's unreal.

It is completely unreal. I figured you guys would be somewhat shocked with these numbers that I tell you here.

I, I am. I mean people are saying you can't get the 1% rule. You have nearly 3% rule right now.

On multiple properties, Dave. So.

Wow, that's awesome. Well, just for everyone who knows, like there's this thing called the 1% rule that got really popular maybe like 10 years ago. And basically the idea is that if you can find a property where your monthly rent is 1% of the purchase price, you're probably going to have pretty strong Cash flow. And in the last couple of years, it's been harder and harder to find that, especially outside of the Midwest. But you know, you find deals that are 0.7, 0.8, which you could still cash flow, but a 1% is like a solid deal. But people rightfully are saying it's hard to find those. But apparently Dustin's finding 2 and 3% roll deals, which is pretty incredible. I could see why this has snowballed for you because that's an incredible first deal. Congratulations on figuring that out. Once you did that, were you just ready to go for the next one immediately?

So 2018, that was August of 2018 is when I bought the first one. So I let that roll for a couple months. Then November came back around and I found another home, which I still own to this day. Two bedroom, two bath. Once again, the same scenario. People were moving out of it. I ended up getting that house for $30,000. So I bought and it's moving ready. The same tenant still lives there to this day. Going on to the third one. I bought a third one. Three houses in 2018. The third one was in November. Same exact scenario. I ended up buying that house for $18,000 and that was also semi move in ready. But I had to do very, very few cosmetic stuff to it. And I added central air to the home. But the scenario behind that one, an elderly gentleman had moved to a nursing home. I was driving by one day and his brother was mowing the yard. And I just stopped and talked to him. He showed me the house immediately and he said, hey, we're getting ready to list it for 28,000. And I said, okay. And I said, well, would you guys take 18,000? He took my information and within one week I had the. I had it rolling to purchase that home.

Oh, my gosh.

On the third deal, just to kind of back up on that, on the third deal, the financer, the bank was, said, hey, you know, we usually like to wait about a year or so before we give you any more money, you know, because we want to see how it works. And I kind of just was direct and forward. I said, hey, I have this business plan and it's going to work. I said, me and my wife both have the finances to back this up, but I'm going to start this business and put it in an llc and either you guys are going to give me the money or I'm going to go down the street to another bank and they're going to finance us immediately. Once I put the business plan out there, they accepted it. They knew that it was going to work because I had everything in play. And from then on out, now I have a business line of credit through them. I don't even have to, you know, go through there. I don't have to run credit.

Do you think this is a strategy or approach that is repeatable by the average investor? Like, if you live in a small town, like, do you think this is just something that anyone can do?

I really do, and I definitely think 100% of it is the demographic. I really do believe that anybody can do this, But I think there's just a fear around investing in real estate. A lot of people are pessimistic about it instead of being optimistic about it. Me, personally, I think that you're doing yourself a disfavor if you're not investing in real estate. That's just my opinion, because the bank needs people like us. They need us to pay our interest rate. They want to give us money so they can loan our money out to different people for, you know, different houses, cars, whatever it may be. But I definitely believe that it is easily possible, especially in the Midwest.

Yeah, for sure. And, yeah, I mean, I think in the Midwest, it's definitely something that is. That is more achievable, especially from the affordability standpoint. But I think, you know, we talk a lot about markets on this show and in bigger pockets in general, and there are some great markets across the US all sorts. But I think your story is just, you know, reinforcing the idea that, like, you really can make almost any kind of market work if you have the right approach and the right strategy. And it sounds like what you're doing, Dustin, is just working with what, you know, like, you know this market really well. You know who wants to live there, you know who's selling properties, you know what the tenant base is going to be like, and you're using that very effectively to your advantage. That's awesome. I love that. Well, this is a very cool story, and I want to hear more about how your investing career has progressed, but we do have to take a quick break. We'll be right back. I've had my home security system for quite some time now, and the best part, half the time, I forget it's even there. It's just quietly doing its job, keeping my place safe while I get on with life. If you're wondering what I use, it's Simplisafe. And it has been solid from day one. What makes it different is how proactive it is. Most systems only react after someone breaks in. That's like opening an umbrella after the rain stops. Simplisafe helps stop trouble before it starts. Its AI cameras can spot a potential threat outside, and real live agents jump in, talking through the camera, letting the person know they're on video, that the police are on the way, or even flipping on a siren or spotlight if needed. It's protection that actually prevents problems instead of cleaning up after them. That's why I've stuck with it all these years. It just works quietly and confidently, like the world's most polite bodyguard. And right now is a great time to get started. 50% off any new system. For a limited time, go to simplisafe.com host again, that's simplisafe.com host because there's no safe like Simplisafe.

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I'm very glad that you asked that question because Covid for me 2020 was kind of a breakout year. So even, Even in my W2, we, the car industry was great. We sold a lot of cars.

Yeah.

And I bought a lot of houses. I actually bought five units, one duplex and the rest were single family homes. In 2020, one of them was a duplex in a less desirable neighborhood. But it's all about finding those deals too. I listen to Henry Washington a lot, you know, it's all about finding those deals. So I ended up finding the duplex on a less than stellar side of town behind a liquor store. I know it sounds cliche, but it's actually true. And it actually was just placed on Facebook Marketplace. And my sister messaged me and well, she tagged me in the post and so my wife actually went and looked at it first and I got off of work and I remember to this day I walk upstairs and she's sitting on the couch just glaring at me and she says I want it. And it was a very nice house. It might have looked kind of like crap. It still looks like crap on the outside with old shingles. But the it was actually owned by a maintenance man. Upstairs and downstairs duplex, separate utilities, furnace, separate furnace, separate water heaters locked down like a fortress. And I bought that house for $24,000 and I still own that house to this day. So. And I have long term tenants there as well. So that was a beautiful home. And I so I had absolutely no problem in Covid.

What are the condition of these properties? Because I'm trying to just wrap my head around what a $7500 or $10,000 property looks like. I mean I paid more to resurface my driveway than that property.

Yeah, the $10,000 house I have, that was. It was pretty nice. It wasn't bad. I rented it for approximately two or three years. Couple different tenants, and then the floor started sagging. So I ended up going in there just to make a quick repair. But of course, when we got into it, I ended up rehabbing the whole house. So I rehabbed that whole house for about 11 grand. I wanted to spend 5,000, but it's such a small square footage.

I just don't even understand. How does that happen? How do you, like. Do you do a new kitchen?

I did everything in that house. It was such a.

How do you do a kitchen for 11 grand? The. The.

The bedrooms were fine. It was two bedrooms on one side of the house and a bathroom in the middle. On the other side of the house is. Is an open living room that goes into your kitchen that is separated by an island.

Okay.

So I tore it down to the rafters, completed all brand new wood rafters, all the wood, everything. And then I bought a lot of. I bought stainless steel appliances, but I buy a lot of stuff secondhand.

Yeah. Okay.

So. And then, you know, I have a plumbing and heating company that went in there, and they. They redid the whole house for about $700 for plumbing. But you got to think about. The square footage was so minimal. There's not a huge area that they're going.

That's fair.

Yeah, but it was. It was very, very cost efficient.

And if you were to go and sell that property today, how much do you think you could get for it?

My realtor has already offered me about 30 for it, I think. I think if I put that house on the market, I could probably sell it. 35,000, 40,000, I think I could get out of it.

Okay, so you put 15 grand into this thing. You could probably double that. And what. What would it rent for?

I rent that house for $500 a month.

All right. Still a good deal. I want to hear how your portfolio looks today, what you're buying, what your goals are. But we do have to take one more quick break. We'll be right back. I've had my home security system for quite some time now. And the best part, half the time I forget it's even there. It's just quietly doing its job, keeping my place safe while I get on with life. If you're wondering what I use, it's Simplisafe. And it has been solid from day one. What makes it different is how proactive it is. Most systems only react after someone breaks in. That's like opening an umbrella after the rain stops, Simplisafe helps stop trouble before it starts. Its AI Cameras can spot a potential threat outside, and real live agents jump in, talking through the camera, letting the person know they're on video, that the police are on the way, or even flipping on a siren or spotlight if needed. It's protection that actually prevents problems instead of cleaning up after them. That's why I've stuck with it all these years. It just works quietly and confidently, like the world's most polite bodyguard. And right now is a great time to get started. 50% off any new system For a limited time, go to simplisafe.com host again, that's simplisafe.com host because there's no safe.

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Welcome back to the Biggerpockets podcast. Me and Dustin are going over his incredible portfolio that he's building. Honestly, I didn't even know that houses at this price point even exists anymore. But it seems like Dustin, you are making a career out of this. So let's fast forward to now where we sit in 2025. What does your portfolio look like today?

Currently in 2025 I own 20 units, five duplexes and the rest are single family homes. And one of my favorite homes that I bought too. And I ventured out into a different field in real estate. I bought a house in Peoria, Illinois, once again a private deal through a friend who was a realtor. The same family owned this house since the 70s and their daughter lived there. They lived there. Central town, a central part of town. I ended up buying a house for $30,000. They wanted it for, they wanted 45,000 for it. I ended up getting it for 30 and they left everything in there. Move in ready house. So I took, I sold all of the possessions in there and then I just basically gave the house a facelift. All new paint, of course, all cosmetic, nothing. I put a new water heater in it. But that current house, I tried Airbnb for a while and Airbnb was not for me. It was not for me just because I was 45 minutes away. The high turnover rate, the cleaning. So I switched from that to furnish finder, which has been absolutely phenomenal. There I get long term tenants and there's two hospitals located there. So that home I currently can rent for almost $2,000 a month. And that's absolutely everything included of course. But my power, water, insurance, everything like that is very minuscule compared to the profit margin that I make off of that home. And I'll tell you, travel a furnish finder is an amazing thing because all Nurses really care about is cleanliness, a place to sleep, wi fi and air conditioning and a nice comfortable bed. And we provide all of that. And I'm more than happy to do it.

Awesome. So right now you own 20 units. Are you still self managing them all?

One guy, me. So I self manage every single one. I listen to you guys every single week when I mow yards. So I mow about 10 to 15 yards and I'll add that into the rent too, which I've listened to your podcast about, listen to your podcast about five years. And I know what role I fall into. I'm definitely an active landlord. So you know, I like to keep my eyes on the property. I have no problem mowing the yards. I actually educate myself while I'm mowing these yards. And I hear, you know, your podcast every single week, which is definitely interesting. I've learned so much off of it, but I completely manage every single thing. All Google sheets. And that all came with, that all came with time because when I first started, I'm writing stuff down on a piece of paper, I'm doing this, I'm doing that before I'm actually, I was actually paying a lot of money into taxes before I learned about tax write off and tax code and everything like that. So I have everything on Google sheets, everything backed up. And I absolutely love it at this point. Think I want to continue to self manage. But then I also hear you guys, as I told my buddy today, I said, man, now I know what they mean by you get a lot of units and you self managing it and it does wear on you. It really does.

Yeah, it takes time and you're still working full time.

I work part time. So I was gonna leave the auto, I was gonna leave the auto industry altogether after I bought my maybe, maybe 18th house. I just said, hey, you know, thanks for the opportunity. I work for a phenomenal place. I've only worked at one dealership my whole entire career. And I said, you know, I really appreciate the opportunity, but it's time for me to move on. I just can't be here 50, 60 hours a week. And they gave me a great opportunity. They said, hey, will you stay on part time and we'd like to keep you here and you can travel, do as you please, go as you please and work your customer base. And even when I started investing, they were nothing but supportive. They said, oh hey, he's gonna start buying houses, you should do that. I mean, so I couldn't ask for a better place to work. And I honestly don't plan on going anywhere unless they fire me. So.

That's awesome. I mean, it sounds like the best of both worlds, right? It's like, I think so many people focus on retiring, but I mean, if you have a little bit of each, have some income coming in from the, the car dealership, more money for you to invest, right? Like more things that you can use to pay your lifestyle and hopefully scale your portfolio.

You are absolutely correct. You hit it right on the, right on the button.

Your portfolio level today, like how much cash flow, if you don't mind me asking, is it thrown?

Sure, I'll break the numbers down to you exactly.

Yeah, let's do it.

Well, first of all, I do not live beyond my means, so.

Good for you.

I'm very frugal, if that, that makes sense. But every single month I bring in $13,700 in rent.

That's. Is that rent?

Okay, that is what I bring in on rent. So the yearly gross is $164,000. $164,400. Now the monthly mortgage I pay is 30 $600. That's what I pay for 20 units. Is total. Total $3,600. $3,605 to be. To be exact.

Yes. I, Well, I have some payments less than that, but man, that is wild. For your entire portfolio.

Now, of course, that does not include, as we both know, it does not include my property taxes and it does not include my insurance. So with my insurance and taxes, I pay $41,340 a year just for insurance and taxes.

Yep. Okay, so you're still at what, 123 before repairs and maintenance and vacancy and all that.

So total yearly net121,140 take home every month, everything broken down, everything paid for, excluding maintenance, of course, because it's not, if it's when it's going to happen, is $6650 take home after all the bills are paid every single month.

Wow, that's awesome. And do you know, do you have like an average of repair that you, you know, that kind of expense?

This year has been the hardest so far. And I was speaking with my buddy, though, and I'm like, man, this has been my most expensive year. And he said, well, this is also the year that you have the most properties.

Well, that's true too. Yeah.

As of this year, I'm currently about 25,000 to $27,000 with maintenance fees this year.

Okay, so you're still making, I mean, you know, net. Net, you're still making four or five grand a month easily. That's awesome. That's incredible. And is that enough to support your lifestyle?

Oh, 100%. As mentioned, I don't live beyond my means. So the average door, broken down from Google sheets, of course, and everything. And the average door I make $332.50 is the average price on if I was to break them down by 20. But as far as living my lifestyle, I'm also a big credit guy. So I do all the. I travel for free. I don't spend money on hotels, I don't spend money on traveling. Airplanes are free. Rental cars are free. And I do all of that by playing the credit card game.

Oh, I play the credit card game so hard, man. I love it. It's the best. I'm so addicted.

I don't remember the last time I paid for a hotel or flight or anything like that.

Honestly, if you buy rental properties, it's such a good game to get into. If you can pay off your. I'm not saying, you know, put things on your credit card that you can't pay off, but if you're going to buy stuff, buy it on a credit card. Especially if you have an LLC for every one of your properties, which is something that I personally do. You open a new business card in every single name and they're always giving you these like 100,000 point bonuses or whatever if you spend three grand in the first six months. And as a rental property investor, usually you spend three grand in the first six months. And so you're just. It's like a thousand, fifteen hundred bucks worth of travel credit if you're just gonna buy it anyway. It's the. It's the best game. Yeah.

So why would you not.

Yeah, exactly. I love it.

I was listening to your podcast the other day, and I was actually in the middle of doing what exactly what you and Henry said. I was like, well, okay, I'm gonna rehab this house. So I'm gonna use this Amex card that's gonna give me $20,000 interest free for a year. So I'm gonna go ahead and I just gave it to my contractor. I said, here, just take this card. Buy what you got to buy. You know what I like. You know, I'm always on a budget. You know, I'm cheap. You know, I know that you find great bargains. Here's his credit card. Let me know when you're done if.

You could do that. If you trust your contractor, I love that. But just so everyone knows that if you didn't listen to that episode, Henry and I were saying that you can do this if you have the money to pay off the credit card immediately. Like if you're going to buy it anyway, you might as well put it on the credit card because that's an interest free loan. If you do it on a new credit card that has an interest free period. Or you could just do it to get the credit card points which can offer you anywhere between 1 to 3% discount essentially or cash back essentially on of these things. You got to use credit cards responsibly. You can't let your credit card debt rack up. Having that interest sit there can be a huge financial trap. Do not do that. What we were just saying is like if you had 20 grand in your bank account and you needed to go spend 20 grand on a property, you might as well put it on the credit card, get the points, get some interest free period, and then just use the 20 grand to pay it off later. I know it might not sound like a lot, but if you do this over a long enough period of time, it really does add up to like a lot of credit card points and you know, money saved over, over a long period of time.

How else I use utilize credit cards too is I'll pay the utilities for my houses. So I'll include it with the rent or I just. They'll pay me back, but nonetheless I will pay $3,000 in utilities every month on a credit card and then immediately pay it off after collecting rent.

Yep, exactly. That makes a lot of sense. Well, Dustin, this is super exciting. Congratulations on, on your success. This incredible, very cool, unique portfolio you're building there. What's next for you? Do you have any goals that you're pursuing right now?

Currently in the middle of a flip right now. I'm almost done with it and.

I'm.

Hoping to make a substantial amount of money with this home just to put it and reinvest into another home. As far as the rental properties, I'm not actively looking, but if something comes along that I can't pass up, then I will buy it. But 20 units right now I'm doing okay. It's rolling great tenants, I'm just gonna stick with that. But the next step I want to go into flipping. But also as we mentioned earlier, I'm not opposed to finding another furnace finder house because I think you get the most bang for your buck off of the short term rentals. You really do. It really pays off if you can do it right.

Well Dustin, thank you so much for joining us. Congratulations to you and your wife and working really hard to be able to achieve such an impressive portfolio in just about seven years. It's really cool story that you got there. We really appreciate you being here.

I appreciate being here and you know anyone out there listening. It's possible especially listen to podcasts like this. You got to start somewhere. I started with one single family home and I remember people doubted me. But you know when they doubt you, you're the one that's out there doing the work. It's not them. It is possible and especially with a good group of support, it's possible to get in the door of real estate.

Awesome. Well I love that message and couldn't agree more. That is absolutely possible. Just work on getting your foot in the door and you can find success just like Dustin has. So thank you all so much for listening to this episode of the Bigger Pockets podcast. We appreciate you being here and we'll see you next time.

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