How I Turned Rental Properties Into a Salary-Replacing Machine in Just 4 Years — and Why You Can Too

Henry:
Kent Long bought his first rental property at 46 years old, just two years ago in 2024. By the time he’s 50, he’ll have a real estate portfolio that will retire him early. He did all this while working a nine to five, on the road three to four days per week, and without a ton of his own savings. Kent began looking for passive income streams, but all the internet gurus and guides turned out to be selling a fantasy. After hitting a breaking point, Kent saw a house on the market with enough square footage to convert it into two units. This would turn into the beginning of an investing career Kent never imagined. With just $14,000 down, Kent turned one down payment into four properties, making him $5,500 a month in cash flow. And he did it all in just two years. Now he’s close to fully replacing his salary with rentals, allowing him to retire from his job at age 50, 15 years before traditional retirement age.
He did it all starting in 2024. So if you think you are late to real estate, this is your sign to get in the game. What’s going on everybody? I am Henry Washington, co-host of the BiggerPockets Podcast, and today we’re bringing you an investor story with Kent Long from Altoona, Pennsylvania. Let’s bring him on. Kent Long, welcome to the BiggerPockets Podcast.

Kent:
Henry, I’m honored to be here. Honestly, BiggerPockets has been a huge part of my real estate journey.

Henry:
Well, why don’t you start there? Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into real estate in the first place.

Kent:
Starting off, I was always looking for passive income. So unfortunately, just life costs so much money. So to live normally, you have to have extra income coming in. So my initial thought process was I read Tim Ferriss, four-hour work week, and I started an Amazon business. So I made two products on Amazon and I had two different manufacturers in China that would send stuff directly to Amazon. So ideally it makes sense, then that’s totally passive. You watch all the YouTubers and they say how easy it is and you can make extra thousand bucks per unit that you’re selling. The kicker is it costs so much money to advertise on Amazon that you don’t make any money. So then after that, I stumbled on BiggerPockets and started listening to just real estate. I’ve always been like Mr. Fix It at home and can fix things. And my dad’s a union carpenter, so I’ve always had a background of building and fixing things.
And then about two years ago when I was going through a bad divorce, I had an option and I could either rent because my wife was keeping the house, or I could look at either flipping a house, live in flip, or buy a property that I could fix up and then pull some equity out. So that’s my initial dive into it.

Henry:
About when did you start researching real estate? And then about when was it when you bought your first real estate deal?

Kent:
My job, my nine to five, I travel a lot. So I’m in the car between two and four hours, three to four days a week. So it would just be podcast after podcast, whether it was entrepreneurship, and then eventually about three years ago to two and a half years ago, really just diving into BiggerPockets and just constantly listening to it in the car. So in July of 2024, I was looking at my first property. My real estate agent at the time had a property that used to be a duplex and it was converted to a single family, but all I literally had to do was put a door on it. So you walk in, the first floor would’ve been one apartment and then there was another door that went upstairs for the second apartment. So literally just putting a door on it would make it a duplex.

Henry:
What city was this?

Kent:
In Altoona, PA.

Henry:
Altoona, Pennsylvania. And how much did you pay for this large single family home that was a duplex, turned into a single that you wanted to turn back into a duplex?

Kent:
But I actually turned it into a try.

Henry:
We’ll

Kent:
Get to that. So purchase price is $70,000.

Henry:
70 grand? Was it just sticks? Was it livable?

Kent:
All new LVP in the first and second floor and the third floor, all LVP already done. And everything was freshly painted.

Henry:
Is this just prices in this market? How’d you find this deal? Was it on the market? Was it off-market deal?

Kent:
It was on the market for a while. So that house fell through a couple times. They sold it twice maybe, and the loan didn’t go through right or something happened. So then the seller just needed it kind of off his plate. But at most, it was on the market for 80 or 90.

Henry:
Wow. I just didn’t realize the price points were that low.

Kent:
Well, the price points will get better and you’re going to be. So that’s in the high end of what I paid.

Henry:
Okay. All right. All right. So you paid 70. It was a single that used to be a duplex. You ended up converting it back to a multifamily. How much did it cost you to renovate this property to get it turned into, I guess you said, a triplex now?

Kent:
$10,000.

Henry:
Okay. Did it cost 10 grand because you have the skills to do all the work yourself or did it cost 10 grand just because it was in pristine condition and you didn’t have to do much?

Kent:
So I didn’t have to do a lot, but I do all of the work. So the idea is I have a background of redoing kitchens and redoing bathrooms and I can do flooring and painting and everything else, but that’s all that I had to put into it to convert it into a try. I had a little bit of cabinets I had to add into the kitchen, and then there were some cabinets up on that second floor that I used in the third unit, which was in the back.

Henry:
Can you estimate what you think the renovation would’ve cost had you had to hire a contractor?

Kent:
I mean, I always double it. So it’s 20 to 30, 20 to 30 grand. That’s

Henry:
Fair. That’s fair. Okay, cool. That paints a good picture of about the level of work that needed to be involved with this property. And so then you converted it to a triplex. I know I’m probably getting ahead of myself, but I’m so curious because of that price point. What are the rents for the individual units?

Kent:
So they basically added a business off the back side of this house. That unit, I furnished it, and then there’s a makeshift kitchen back there too, and I get 850 for that little unit, and it’s as big as a whatever, hotel room.

Henry:
Okay. So you’re cash flowing off one unit. Allright, what else you got?

Kent:
Right. So then on the first floor, one bedroom, I get right around 900 a month for that.

Henry:
And the third unit?

Kent:
1250.

Henry:
What?

Kent:
Because it’s three bedroom, and this is off of a $70,000 home. Holy

Henry:
Crap. $70,000 single family, $10,000 renovation, which includes sweat equity, which is fine. And you’re able to bring in 850, 900, and 1250 for a total of $3,000 a month in rent on an $80,000 all-in purchase? Right. That’s a good stinking deal. Wow. Congratulations on that. That’s impressive.

Kent:
Thank you. Thank you. We always want to hit that home run in the first one.

Henry:
All right. So how did you structure the financing for this? Did you pay out of your pocket? Is it a conventional loan?

Kent:
It was a 30-year conventional loan.

Henry:
So you put down 20%, 25%? Yeah,

Kent:
14 to $20,000.

Henry:
What’s your debt service? So what are you paying the mortgage on that property? It’s

Kent:
So

Henry:
Low, he doesn’t even know, guys. He was like, “I don’t know. 50 bucks eyes.”

Kent:
All of my loans are between four and $600.

Henry:
$600 a month mortgage, bringing in $3,000 a month. Even you put $14,000 down after a few months, you got your money back.

Kent:
Oh, yeah.

Henry:
What a deal. What a deal. Now, I’m very curious now as to what the numbers look like on this second deal, and we’re going to dive into that after this quick break. All right, we are back on the BiggerPockets podcast. I am speaking with investor Kent Long, who has just shared his very first real estate deal with us, and it was a banger. So Kent, tell me about this next one.

Kent:
So first property, fix it up, basically added two units because it was a single family, turned it into a try. Because I turned it in a try, I got to be able to pull, I mean, it’s 80% of the appraised value, so then I was able to pull out a $78,000 HELOC.

Henry:
Well, I want to caveat one thing though, because I just want to make sure that we’re clear on the terms. I love this strategy, by the way. So you essentially did a burr, except I call it a modified BRRR. It’s a BRR. Instead of a refinance at the end, it’s a HELOC at the end. And so you actually didn’t pull money out, you just got access to a line of credit. I like this strategy more than the BRRR. And the reason I do is because when you refinance, you’re getting a new loan at a higher amount, which then lessens your cash flow. But because you just pulled a line of credit, you gave yourself access to the equity, but you didn’t get a new loan at a higher amount. Your loan stays the same and you only pay more when you borrow the money against the HELOC.
So he was saying he pulled money out. He didn’t necessarily pull it out. He got access to it. I think it’s a fantastic strategy. I’m glad you went that route. So you’ve now got access to this $70,000 line of credit, and so that gives you buying power, right? So what did you do with that?

Kent:
I bought another single family right around 1700 square feet, and I was going to turn it into a duplex, but I bought it for $30,000. So

Henry:
You paid cash from your line of credit. So you pulled out 35,000. Again, why I like this strategy? Because he didn’t refinance, he didn’t get a new loan. He was able to use $35,000 of the 70,000 he had access to. So you’re actually only paying interest only payments on 35,000 versus having, if you did on a refinance, you’re essentially paying for all the money at once. So you pull out 35,000, you pay cash for a house that you want to convert from a single to a multi. Now, were you specifically targeting single families that had the potential to be multis or was this just coincidence?

Kent:
Ideally, I wanted duplexes or tries. They’re the easiest to renovate. I mean, the whole BRR process is easier for. The whole idea of duplexes and tries is I like one renter to pay the mortgage and one renter to pay me. So when you look at multifamilies, it’s just a cash flow and that ideally has always been my goal.

Henry:
So 35,000, how much did it cost you to renovate this one?

Kent:
20,000 all in.

Henry:
What are you getting in rents on those units?

Kent:
A thousand for the two bedroom on the upstairs and then 900 for the one bedroom.

Henry:
So $30,000 purchase, $20,000 rehab, all in for 50, bringing in $1,900 a month. Again, that is a fantastic cash flowing deal. Did you finance this one the same way or did you do it a little different?

Kent:
So when I went to get that refinanced, that’s when I went the commercial loan route, which I really, I love it. It’s just so much simpler, so much quicker. So then it got reappraised at 110. So I pulled an $85,000 loan out on that and was able to pay off $20,000 of credit card debt and pay down that $30,000 that I initial investment.

Henry:
Okay, because you paid cash and you probably funded the renovation out of your own pocket. So you’re all in 50, but it’s 50 cash. So then you went and you got a loan on the property itself for 80. That gives you some cash in your pocket to pay off your debts. And an $80,000 loan bringing in $1,900 a month is still phenomenal cash flow. Plus you were able to pay off credit card debt, which essentially increases cash flow too, because now you’re not paying those credit card bills. That’s awesome, man. And I know a lot of people are listening and they’re thinking, “Man, well, I can’t buy $30,000 houses.” Well, A, you can because you can invest out of state if you want to. And B, there’s markets like this all over the country. So don’t just believe the lie of if you’re paying less than $100,000 that you’re getting some piece of crap that is going to cost you more to fix it up than it is to sell it.
There are plenty of markets where the price points are lower. There’s obviously risk to those things. Usually markets with lower price points like this don’t have a ton of appreciation. So I’m curious, is that what it’s like in your market? Do these properties appreciate with the national average or do they kind of just sit flat? It

Kent:
Would sit flat. I mean, when it comes to risk, I like to think of it as lower risk than anything else because – It is low risk. The money that I’m putting into it, the amount of money that I would invest into a $30,000 house compared to a $300,000 house, I’m just mitigating risk just in the initial price point.

Henry:
It’s a sliding scale, right? It’s a seesaw. Typically, if you’re in a market where you’re getting tons of appreciation, cash flow is none, negative, hard to find. Inversely, when you’re in a market where you can get phenomenal cash flow, I mean, we’re talking a debt service of 600 bucks, bringing in $3,000. That is phenomenal cash flow, but you’re not going to get a ton of appreciation. That’s just how real estate tends to work. So you need to figure out, if you’re listening to the show, to figure out what your strategy is, you have to set your own goals and then buy properties in a market that allow you to meet those goals, right? There’s going to be ups and there’s going to be downs, there’s going to be risks, and you want to be rewarded for the risk. I think that this is a decent strategy if you’re trying to build up cashflow, heavy cashflow market.
Before we move on to this next deal, Kent mentioned that he used a HELOC on his first house to fund his second property. And if you’re a BiggerPockets Pro member, we have a new perk with our HELOC partner, Avan, that can get you a $400 statement credit. So go and check that out if you’re a BiggerPockets Pro member. All right, Kent, I love these deals. I think this is a good strategy in what seems to be a very highly cashflow heavy market. You’re from the market, you live in the market, so you understand that market. I think that that’s a smart investment plan. Paint us a picture here in terms of time. The first deal was 2024 in July. How long was it between that one and this deal?

Kent:
I got this deal done in February of 2025.

Henry:
So about seven months later you did this next deal. Okay. That’s a reasonable timeframe. You did one deal, you learned some lessons, you go and do another deal. That’s great. Okay. And how long did it take you from deal two to deal three?

Kent:
It took a little bit longer because that’s when I got my son involved into this real estate journey. First one was a home run. The second one was going really well, and I knew that it was going to work out because I already had the cash. And another duplex while I was working on my second property, another duplex came up for $44,000.

Henry:
Okay. This was on the market listed?

Kent:
This is on the market listed for 44,000. All

Henry:
Right.

Kent:
I had to get there immediately because I knew when duplexes come up in Altoona, they go quickly.

Henry:
How old was your son at the time?

Kent:
19.

Henry:
Okay. Okay. Awesome.

Kent:
So he’s a 19-year-old. He was in college, but over the summer, he was going to fix a duplex up, basically do the same thing, pull equity out of it, and then do one property a year for the next four years while he was in college. So I got the house for $44,000. So I put 15, $16,000 down on it.

Henry:
Okay. Did you use the HELOC to put the money down or did you?

Kent:
Yeah.

Henry:
Yeah, at a boy.

Kent:
I did a commercial loan on this as well because I’m working with a local bank. So again, I think it’s benefits to be working with your local banks because they know the area. They know how to make things work.

Henry:
So typical structure of a loan for a local community bank, if you’re doing a fix and flip or some sort of construction loan, it’s 85% of purchase, 100% of rehab. So you got to put 15% down. So that was your 15% down payment you were talking about. You borrowed that from your line of credit on deal one. How much did the renovation of this duplex cost

Kent:
You? I think we took a $15,000 renovation loan with this commercial loan. So as you’re doing the work, they’ll pay you back, but we really needed about 25,000. So it was, again, a big property and the flooring is what we didn’t figure it out right. And then the caveat to all this, we’re lucky as in my dad as a union carpenter and would come down two to three days a week and help him fix this property up.

Henry:
So you got the whole family involved, grandpa, dad and son all working on this property. That’s super cool. So total budget was about $25,000, it sounds like, on the renovation of this duplex. You paid 44, you’ve got 25 in it, so you’re all in for just under $70,000. And what are you renting those units for?

Kent:
1,200 and 1,200.

Henry:
That is awesome.

Kent:
Yeah, it was fantastic. And then we refinanced this and he was able to pull out $72,000 out of his first property.

Henry:
As a 19-year-old.

Kent:
Yeah. Wow. Wow. He turned 20 till he refinanced it. But at 20 years old, we went to a lawyer and they wrote him a check for $72,000.

Henry:
How scared did that make you?

Kent:
No, he’s the most frugal kid you’ll ever meet. I knew he won’t spend a dime of it.

Henry:
Oh, I can’t imagine getting a $70,000 check at 19. I

Kent:
Was

Henry:
Not that responsible.

Kent:
No, he does great with his money. So he did pay me back. So I put the initial investment in and had to fund some of the flooring and some of the kitchen renovation. So he was able to pay me back $18,000. But then he’s still sitting in the bank with over $50,000.

Henry:
So what made you want to pull your son into this deal? What brought that about?

Kent:
Just financial security. It’s financial future. It’s making, one, giving him the opportunity to be successful later in life. I mean, he’s going to have this property for the next 30 years, just cash flowing 1,500 to $2,000. He can pay it down. He could sell it.You’ve always talked about having multiple exit strategies, and that’s what you have when you buy these properties. As long as you think about different ways of, do you want the cash flow? Do you want the HELOC? Do you need more cash? Are you going to do another deal? So we kind of talked through all that, but because I was so fortunate on my first two deals and because the price points are so low, we’re kind of mitigazing that risk, which is great.

Henry:
What was it like working on this property with your dad and your son, seeing something go from what it was when you purchased it to this investment property that’s producing income?

Kent:
It’s fantastic. I mean, it’s nice word of my son and then my dad comes out and helps out. I mean, we just have a good time. My nephews would come down and do some painting. So almost have a party and just hang out and then we just feed everybody and get free labor. It’s fantastic.

Henry:
All right, Kent, thanks for sharing that story. That’s super cool, getting your family involved and still pulling off another amazingly well cash flowing deal. I’m assuming there’s some more and we’ll dive into those deals right after the break. All right, we are back on the BiggerPockets Podcast. I’m speaking with investor Kent Long, who has pulled off some pretty amazing cash flowing deals. Now we’re onto what looks like deal four-ish, if you want to count deal three. It was your son’s deal technically, but you helped him with that. So deal three and a half. So what’d you do with deal three and a half?

Kent:
Found a duplex, I believe it was on the market for 65 and I got it for 55 in pretty good shape. The kicker was there was tenants on the first floor already, so ideally I’m going to keep them. And then I actually, you’re not going to love this, I paid a contractor to do the work.

Henry:
No, I love that. I think you should absolutely do that.

Kent:
So I got a $25,000 renovation loan with my commercial loan. The $25,000 paid for the second floor renovation, so painting, putting in a kitchen and flooring.

Henry:
Did you leave the tenants on the first floor at market rents or did you have to raise rents?

Kent:
So their rent was $450 a month.

Henry:
Okay.

Kent:
So I came in and was like, again, I took this from one of your previous podcasts is not just jump them up to market rate. So I just slow rolled them, I’ll increase you a hundred bucks a month for multiple months and I need you to eventually get to 750. 750 is still a little below market, but they’re paying all utilities. And while that renovation was going on, they were covering the mortgage

Henry:
Because

Kent:
It’s a $55 loan.

Henry:
Tenants aren’t stupid. They understand that you have a mortgage and taxes and insurance. Now they may not want to pay more rent, but they understand. And I have always found that if I just sit down and am honest with people, share the plan and give them a say in how we get there, they’re so much happier. Market rents are X. That’s the first thing, right? It’s to show them. If you move, you’re going to be paying 850 a month for the same property, or I can let you stay here for 750. That’s where I got to get you to. Can you help me come up with a plan to get you there? If I’ve got to tweak your rent every month, how much can we afford to go up every month? And when I give them a say in it, they don’t feel like I just did something to them.
They feel like they got to work with me to keep them in their home, which is always a better strategy. So purchase price, 55. Renovation, 25. So you’re all in for $80,000 and you got the one tenant on the first floor up to 750 a month in rent. And what were you able to get in the second floor?

Kent:
$1,000 for the second floor, two bedroom.

Henry:
All right. So 1750 gross rents on $80,000 of debt. This is a recent deal that you found in an affordable market that produces a ton of cash flow. There are markets like this all over the country. I love that you’re using strategies like lines of credit and community banks to grow your business. That is exactly how I grew my business. And I like the pace at which you’re doing these deals because it seems like you’re doing about a deal every six months or so. Is this your only job or are you working some other job at the same time?

Kent:
So my nine to five as a regional manager, as an occupational therapist, I oversee 18 skilled nursing facility therapy departments.

Henry:
So you’re doing this part-time with a full-time gig where you’re traveling a ton. How much time you’re putting in on a weekly or monthly basis into your real estate business?

Kent:
I wouldn’t even say an hour or two a week. If I do three or four a month maybe.

Henry:
Yeah. I like this. I like the story because most real estate investors are mom and pop folks just like you and just like me to some level where you do a few deals here and there, you get them stabilized, and then you move on to the next one. You do it in your spare time. It’s not something that you’re taking all of your focus and you’re able to still produce good income and cash flow when things are done the right way. I love that you’re leveraging the community banks. I love that you’re leveraging HELOCs and lines of credit, but this is just basic real estate investment strategy. This isn’t new. This is literally things that have been around for decades. Anyone can do this kind of strategy. So your goal getting into this was to buy assets, produce passive income. Where do you feel like you are on that roadmap?
Because you’re still self-managing, so there’s some work involved there. You’re doing some of the renovations here and there, so there’s some work involved there, but you’re also producing a good amount of income. So how many more deals do you think you need to do before you can really start to remove yourself from some of those things?

Kent:
My initial goal was to do 10 in five years, and I think I’m going to get eight done in probably maybe three and a half years.

Henry:
Before we get out of here, let’s kind of give everybody a recap of your portfolio. So how many deals have you done? How many doors do you have? How much cash flow is it producing?

Kent:
I have four properties, two duplexes, two triplexes, and then they’re cash flowing $5,500 a month currently right now. And that’s in a two-year timeframe.

Henry:
That’s pretty cool. And that includes your fourth deal, which looks like you bought a duplex for around 90 grand and you turned that one into a triplex?

Kent:
Correct. That one was the biggest renovation and then the biggest workload for me for sure. The duplex was already done. There was new floors, some carpeting. Both of those rentals were ready to go when I bought the property. I put two renters in there immediately, and then I’m getting 950 each for both of those. And then the first floor was an old corner store and it was a disaster. It was dirty. There was an old deli fridge still sitting in there that I had to use a sledgehammer to get out of there because it was so big. And then I took about two dumpster fulls of garbage to even get that first floor cleaned up, and I converted into a three bedroom, one bath on that downstairs unit.

Henry:
And what was the budget for that renovation?

Kent:
About $30,000 I put into

Henry:
This. So you’re all in for 120 and you rented that back unit for how much?

Kent:
1200.

Henry:
So that puts you at total gross rents of about $3,100. $3,100 on $120,000 of debt is phenomenal cash flow. And so this one was an on the market duplex again as well.

Kent:
Correct. Yep. I just got it refinanced and I’m able to pull 83,000 out of it, and then I’m paying my HELOC down to zero with that. Oh boy.

Henry:
Yeah.

Kent:
And you start all over again.

Henry:
So after all of these deals, what’s the goal going forward? Are you going to try to get to 10 in your timeframe or are you going to evaluate yourself after this eight?

Kent:
Ideally, I would love to get four more in the next year and a half.

Henry:
Okay.

Kent:
And when I turn 50, a year and a half from now, just kind of be done and then retire my nine to five

Henry:
Job. All right, Kent, thank you so much for sharing this story. This is such a cool story. What amazing deals. I love that you’ve done this in a recent timeframe. I love that you’re buying the properties on the market and I love that they’re producing cash flow that is getting you to your goals, seems like ahead of time to where you can actually leave your nine to five. I love that you were able to bring in your son and your dad and have everybody work together to build wealth because that’s truly the dream. Those bonds and those memories last forever, and it’s pretty cool to be able to share that with your family. So thank you for sharing that story.

Kent:
Yeah, I appreciate the time. Thank you so much, Henry.

Henry:
Thank you very much. And thank you guys for listening to this episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast. Again, if you have a story you would like to share on the podcast, then you can go to biggerpockets.com/guest and you can apply to share your story with us right here on the BiggerPockets Podcast. As always, thank you for listening and we’ll see you on the next episode.