63 Units While Working a Full-Time Job
For today’s episode, I’m pleased to welcome Bo Kim, who is a real estate investor and popular podcaster. Bo is a buy-and-hold investor who works in the accounting industry in Southern California and also hosts the Bigger Cash Flow Podcast, where he shares the tips and tricks to making it big in the real estate sector. Owning an impressive sixty-three rental units in markets of Kansas City, Indianapolis, and Little Rock, Bo has a wealth of experience in the industry to learn from.
Bo talks about his early life and living in rented houses for most of his childhood. He shares how he was intrigued by their landlord owning four rentals and making a considerable amount of money with those alone. He saved everything he made while in college and was able to start investing soon after graduating. While still less informed about house hacking and the process of renting out an apartment, he managed to rent the extra bedroom of his house to his sister-in-law, after he moved into the newly-bought house with his wife.
Excited at the new passive income source he’d managed to build, he dove into this business for the incredible cash flow it could provide. Bo also shares how losing $10,000 on his first real estate deal helped him learn a great deal about the industry and its functioning. He discusses how starting off, he’d initially made a list of twenty metro cities he liked and went about calling all the turnkey providers, contractors, and agents until he found some people he was excited to work with.
Bo also shares his approach of going about determining which markets are good for him. He considers cash flow, a favorable rent-to-price ratio, population growth, a diverse economy, and suitability for landlords as the prime deciding factors. Bo says that over half of the rentals he owns are single-family properties.
Bo has a business degree in accounting and works currently in the accounting industry. His podcast aims at helping newbie real estate investors take back control of their finances. Bo is also an avid writer on his blog, where he shares tips and tricks on achieving freedom with time, location, and money.
Bo also discusses how he manages all of his units every day. He suggests starting off by having the picture of the end in mind. Bo’s professional goals go beyond just making money, and he chooses to always have in mind the kind of lifestyle he wants to keep and invests in his choices accordingly. He shares how much he targets per door for single and multi-family rentals. Bo explains how he chose his investing strategy and why he invests in rentals and not full-time flipping of houses. He shares that he enjoys his present job and would consider doing other things if he gets tired of doing his job at any time. His aim is to have cash flow without investing a lot of time and energy into the process.
Bo discusses how it was not a seamless process to manage his rentals while working full-time simultaneously. He put in a lot of work, often waking up at 5:00 am to manage calls and working on the weekends to get everything finished. He also talks about finding the perfect balance between work, personal life, and a healthy lifestyle. Bo explains that not having kids helped him find more time for his business and get things running efficiently. We also discuss how the pandemic has affected people today. Bo shares how he did flipping for the first time this year and made $15,000 out of the first deal. He says he’d like to continue testing and finding the right waters to start something new.
Don’t miss out on this episode of the Just Start Real Estate podcast that is filled with huge take-aways from my powerful conversation with Bo Kim!
Notable quotes:
“You have to really start with the end in mind.”
- Bo Kim
“If you don't have the end goal in mind, you're just gonna pick up any random properties and these could be other investors' problem children that you are buying by mistake.”
- Bo Kim
“So for me, the number of units is never the goal. It's making sure that whatever I buy and invest in really correlates with the lifestyle that I want in the future. ”
- Bo Kim
“It goes back to educating yourself because you don't know what you don't know.”
- Bo Kim
“If you do what everybody else is doing, you're gonna get what everybody else gets.”
- Bo Kim
“I like to call it the work-life blend. You just have to find what's important to you and incorporate it into your day-to-day.”
- Bo Kim
“I think balance is tough. And everyone's different. You don't have kids, maybe someone who's listening does and they can't do it the same. “
- Mike Simmons
“Don't use that as an excuse, get out there and do the work and learn as much as you need to be dangerous. “
- Mike Simmons
Links:
Level Jumping: How I Grew My Business to Over $1 Million in Profits in 12 Months
