How I Used BRRRR to Retire Early With Rental Properties

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In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Micah Johnson speaks with David Nino, a seasoned real estate investor who has been active since 2008. David shares his journey from buying his first home at 20 to transitioning into full-time real estate investing. He discusses the importance of mentorship, the lessons learned through various challenges, and creative solutions he has implemented in his real estate ventures. David emphasizes the significance of staying focused, trusting the process, and the value of taking action in real estate investing.

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David Nino (00:00)
I bought my first house when I was 20 I ended up buying another house that I liked and I didn’t want to sell my first house. It was around the time of the crash. I was like, eh, let’s, let’s try renting it out. It worked out. think I was profiting, uh, you know, two or $300 a month. So I was like, wow, this is kind of cool.

Um, so that’s where it kind of clicked for me. Cause I’m like, if I had 10 of these, it’s two or $3,000 a month. So I started reading up on it. just kind of exploring different avenues of, know, talking to realtors, talking to banks and, um, fortunately that, you know, with the crash, all the prices dropped. So there was a lot of good deals.

And so the birth strategy, know, if anyone doesn’t know it’s buy rehab, ⁓ rent and refinance. So I did that over and over again. And I focused on distressed properties just because they were so much cheaper. And, was finding houses between 25, 35,000.

and they’d appraise that 100.

I was still at my W2

Micah Johnson (00:56)
Okay.

David Nino (00:56)
my goal from the very beginning was always retire early and get out of the rat race.

Micah Johnson (02:34)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Micah Johnson. And today I’m speaking with David, who’s been making some serious moves in real estate now since 2008. David, welcome in, man. Glad to have you.

David Nino (02:45)
Hey, thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.

Micah Johnson (02:47)
Absolutely. Absolutely. I’m excited for our talk today, man. Our pre-recording discussion. You’ve managed to do something with real estate that a lot of people aspire to do. And I just love talking with folks who have actually done it. So we’re going to dig in on that experience. So for our listeners and viewers who aren’t familiar with you yet, let them know what’s your main focus right now and what markets you’re operating in.

David Nino (02:50)
Yeah, me too.

Well, right now I’m doing a little bit of everything, but I mean, it’s mainly long-term rentals. I dabbled in Airbnb. I’ve done a couple flips. And the market that I’m in, it’s kind of unique. We’re right on the Mississippi River. It’s called the Quad Cities. So it’s a couple of Illinois cities and a couple of Iowa cities. So I’m back and forth, which is very unique in the real estate market just because there’s, you you got two different kinds of communities and you can be there within minutes.

Yeah.

Micah Johnson (03:38)
Right. Yeah. It’s hard for a lot of folks get out of their backyard, but your backyard’s like four different places. That is handy.

David Nino (03:43)
Yeah, the

Midwest is ⁓ great to invest in. It’s more stable than the coast markets. So that’s another thing I like about this area.

Micah Johnson (03:49)
Right, right, no.

A lot of folks I know are looking in that area. You know, I’m from Florida. I know a lot of coastal investors and that’s kind of been the shift the past couple of years is where the prices and the returns that you can still do well on and Midwest has been for that. Well, take us back a little bit, man. What got you into real estate? What led you where you are today?

David Nino (04:06)
Absolutely.

Uh, well, I mean, I bought my first house when I was 20 and I lived there for about seven or eight years. I ended up buying another house that I liked and I didn’t want to sell my first house. It was around the time of the crash. I was like, eh, let’s, let’s try renting it out. You know, I thought about it and let’s try it. So I did that. It worked out. think I was profiting, uh, you know, two or $300 a month. So I was like, wow, this is kind of cool.

Um, so that’s where it kind of clicked for me. Cause I’m like, if I had 10 of these, it’s two or $3,000 a month. So I’m like, all right, let’s, uh, let’s look into this a little bit. So I started reading up on it. Um, and just, just kind of exploring different avenues of, know, talking to realtors, talking to banks and, um, fortunately that, you know, with the crash, all the prices dropped. So there was a lot of good deals. Um, but in the beginning I didn’t have, uh, you know, really a lot of the funding. So I’d use the burst strategy a lot.

And so the birth strategy, know, if anyone doesn’t know it’s buy rehab, ⁓ rent and refinance. So I did that over and over again. And yeah, it was. I focused on distressed properties just because they were so much cheaper. And, you know, I loved working on houses. I enjoy the construction. ⁓ so, I mean, it was over and over. was finding houses between 25, 35,000.

putting five to 7,000 into them and they’d appraise that 100. And I just kept doing that over and over. But like I said, this was the time 2008, nine, 10, 11, you know, so the deals were all over the place. So then, yeah, in 2010, I bought 10 units that year and then it kind of just took off. so every year I was buying one or two and just, I was just doing the same process and they kept working all while still working at John Deere.

Micah Johnson (05:35)
Wow.

Hey.

David Nino (05:58)
I was still at my W2 all this time. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I was going to work during the day and then working on properties at night and just trying to get to a point to where I could leave my W2. know, my goal from the very beginning was always retire early and get out of the rat race.

Micah Johnson (05:59)
Okay. So you’re doing all this full time.

David Nino (06:17)
you know, so yeah, that was always the plan. And ⁓ yeah, it just, it’s been an amazing journey. Like I said, done more stuff than I’ve ever thought I would be able to do.

So yeah.

Micah Johnson (06:27)
You pulled

that off, right? You’ve been able to go full time into real estate, haven’t you?

David Nino (07:19)
Yeah, yeah, so I left my W2, it was December of 2024. So yeah, yeah, that was interesting. And like I said, I had been at that point, I’ve already had been investing for 10, 12 years, ⁓ maybe longer. And so I mean, it was, I knew I could do it at numbers wise, it was just a psychological thing, you know, because we’re a society, we’re conditioned to work 40 hours a week.

40 years, you know, so it was more of a psychological thing. But once I got past that, and like I said, it’s been over a year that I’ve been retired early and it’s been great. It’s allowed me more time, you know, my vacancies, I can get them turned over right away, you know, because I have the time to jump right on them. So yeah, it’s been great.

Micah Johnson (08:03)
What would you say, what’s been that biggest difference, the game changer, by being able to be full time for this past whole year?

David Nino (08:09)
⁓ biggest game changer in my real estate would probably just be the attention I can give to it now. You know, I’m not burned out. ⁓ I can jump on something right away. If there’s a deal I can go in the middle of the day. You know, I don’t have to wait. You know, I kind have to wait till I get off work.

Micah Johnson (08:19)
Right.

David Nino (08:26)
But just, yeah, just focusing more and the time. Like I’m rested. can, I can focus. Cause even though I, you know, I got all the properties, I, ⁓ you know, I still do have a lot of free time, you know? So I can go to the gym in the middle of the day. can, ⁓ you know, go out on the boat and the river, you know, when the weather’s nice, you know, I can still, I’m more relaxed. ⁓ so yeah, that’s, that’s probably been the biggest thing is just all the free time is just, I feel better. You know, I’m not running myself ragged.

Micah Johnson (08:55)
Yeah, exactly, man. What I love about it is how intentional it was, right? it’s, you know, a lot of folks get into real estate, want things go fast, but the Santa get rich fast scheme, it’s a, it’s almost a get rich slow guaranteed. If you’re willing to take the time to do it, which is, know, if you’re starting in 2008 and you’re building these units over time. from eight now to 2024, you took the amount of time necessary to make sure that when you made that transition, you’re ready for it. And I want to applaud that.

One of the coaches I work with, calls it stable planet, right? When you’re going to bring a dream to life, you don’t want to do it from a place that’s of instability. Cause that adds stress onto the, what you’re trying to do. That’s unnecessary where you’re like the exact model of what he talks about was you had this stable world. You use that world to create a new stable world and then you can switch. And now you don’t have to participate in the old one, which is man, bravo way to go. love that.

David Nino (09:50)
Thank you, thank you. Yeah, it was always the plan from the beginning. Once I discovered, like I said, that first house, I’m thinking, okay, I’m profiting $200 a month. I’m making long-term, okay, I think eventually I can stop working. So it was always the plan. So when I did finally retire, some people were surprised, especially my job, but people who really knew me and knew what I was doing all these years, they kind of expected it, because they knew, I was always talking, it was always the goal.

Yeah, I’m glad I’m glad I was able to able to do that. Some. Yeah. That was great.

Micah Johnson (10:19)
For someone that’s

in that part of that journey still in their own life, what encouragement would you give them? Let’s listen to review it in right now.

David Nino (10:25)
Just stay focused, know, trust the process. You know, you’re going to run into hiccups and days when things ain’t going that great, know, especially if you’re hands-on like I was. You know, you’re going to go through evictions, maybe, you know, money problems, something like that, but just trust the process and just keep going. And find someone who can go on that journey with you or someone who’s done it like a mentor.

I think that having a mentor is very valuable. So if you can find someone who’s been where you are, maybe they’re a couple of years ahead of you, that information is very valuable. You might be running through a problem, you talk to them. That’s what I like about real estate meetings because you can bounce ideas and situations off of other investors and you can kind of get their take on it. And then it doesn’t seem so bad. But yeah, I’d say just trust the process and just keep going.

Absolutely.

Micah Johnson (11:53)
And you nailed it on the mentor thing. This is what we’re all trying to do has been done before. Somebody’s done it successfully. And they’ve walked through a lot of the problems that we have to walk through or don’t have to if you have them around, man. that’s a, this is a lifelong learning experience. And you’ve noticed it now since 2008. Like it’s always moving always the real estate market is in cycles where sometimes you get to just absolutely capitalize like you did from 2009, 2011.

The beauty is, is you’re still in the game. That’s how you make sure you, you, you be successful in real estate is mentors help you not make that mistake that takes you out of the game, right? That’s the one you’re trying to avoid. And it usually comes with a bunch of risks. didn’t even realize you were taken up front simply because you didn’t know you didn’t know. And I hate that story for folks where like you were just talking about meetings and different things.

David Nino (12:32)
Right.

Right.

Micah Johnson (12:45)
Go to those first, if you’re listening or viewing, right? Like I’m all about action taking. The first action is educate yourself. Don’t get stuck here, but go at least understand the process. Go around movers and shakers that are doing it because that’ll get you out of the analysis paralysis. Because if you’re just doing it by yourself, it’s hard to pull the trigger. It really is. Like it’s unique personalities. Usually it’s really deep entrepreneurs that are just going to do it anyways. But getting that information,

David Nino (13:11)
Yeah, absolutely.

Micah Johnson (13:13)
It just gives you all the confidence you need.

David Nino (13:14)
Absolutely, just surrounding yourself with those types of people. I have a childhood friend that started ⁓ investing with me at the same time. And so we was always bouncing ideas off each other. Hey, do know somebody good who can drywall texture or stuff like that? Or hey, I got a tenant that’s saying this. Having a mentor is very valuable. And I’m open to mentoring other people too. So I mean.

I’ve had a few people contact me around here just through meetings and stuff, ask questions. I’m more than,

I’m more than grateful and open to offering anything I’ve learned. I want to help people out. Yeah.

Micah Johnson (13:55)
And it’s one of

my favorite things about successful real estate investors. The majority of them are just like that. Like you, you go, you, you earn your place at the table. Nobody’s where they are because of luck, right? You’ve, you’ve walked through the evictions. You’ve walked through the hard parts. You’ve walked through the good parts. And there’s something about it that teaches you one empathy for people and the ability to be like, okay, yeah, I’ll show you what’s up. I’ve walked through it. I’ll gladly show you how to do this. Cause if you can avoid this, you’ll get years.

David Nino (14:06)
Right, right, right.

Mm-hmm.

Micah Johnson (14:23)
taking off your journey. can get yourself further, which that’s that beauty of working with people. The higher you get in real estate, the more on an island it’s easier to feel because we’re super niche down. In our world, real estate investing is super popular, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that popular to most of the world. So once you get that more more niche, like you’re talking about, having that friend that you can call and say, hey man, what are you doing here? It’s liberating.

David Nino (14:32)
you

Micah Johnson (14:50)
because it gets you off of that island. You don’t feel stuck. Because other than that, you’re kind of just hoping. That’s your strategy. And hope ain’t really a good strategy to use in most of real estate. You want to know what you’ve got tied down there.

David Nino (15:03)
Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ like I said, meetings and stuff that we would go to, you know, we would always have the earlier investors and the older investors. It was like a nice range. whatever situation you’ve been through, like somebody else has been through it. mean, I’ve been through evictions, problem tenants, bedbugs, roaches, fire.

I found one of my tenants dead once. you know, I’ve been through just about everything. So what seems like a crisis at that time to a new investor, if you can talk to somebody, hey, this is what’s going on. can, okay, well, it’s not that bad. You know, he did this, he got through it and stuff like that. So yeah, I think a mentorship is huge. I mean, that’s a huge benefit that if you’re going to go into this, don’t forget about that. That’s going to help you. It’s going to save you a lot of headaches.

Micah Johnson (15:51)
on. right.

Right on. Well, give us a couple of your, what’s a couple lessons right off the top that you have for folks out there? Like what are some things that they can take into mind to be cognizant of to have some success?

David Nino (16:45)
like I said, I think we touched on it earlier with, ⁓ you know, the analysis paralysis. I mean, you can read books and books about real estate investing and watch podcasts and YouTube videos, but you just got to jump in and do that first deal. Cause you’re going to learn so much and it’s not going to go perfect. So when things go wrong, you know, don’t freak out. Just, just, just do it. You’re going to learn so much from that first deal than you would from reading the thousand books, you know, such huge difference. Like I said,

Micah Johnson (17:12)
Right.

David Nino (17:14)
you know, find a mentor and there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Everything we’ve doing has been done before somebody’s done it. You’re not doing anything new. So there is a solution, you know, just, ⁓ yeah, just find those options and just keep going. Yeah. If this is truly what you want. Yeah, absolutely.

Micah Johnson (17:33)
can

do mentality and like you were saying earlier, you you use real estate to change your life. You’re one of the folks that like you’ve changed your family line forever from what it was through this game. That’s why I think your opinion super valuable because you can see it from a lens that not everybody gets to see it from and then be able to share from there, right? That that’s a incredible way and you know, you’ve got kids and I think one’s even grown but even to be able to just say I’ve changed this I’ve actually

David Nino (17:39)
Absolutely.

⁓ Right.

Micah Johnson (18:02)
accomplish this use in real estate and that reality of action and then when problem hits so what now? This doesn’t stop me I just need to solve it and so often we don’t want stuff to be hard I get it I love it when things go simple but hard doesn’t equal bad and that throws a lot of people off up front where you start to feel just how hard it is to do what we do day in and out it gets simpler over time but it’s it’s not necessary

I want say it’s not easy because it is quote unquote easy, but there are hard times. There are things that are not going to feel good as you’re laying there at night thinking about, my financing going to come through? Is this going to do that? Is that going to do that? Like those are the moments where just that presence knowing, okay, I’m going to solve this. It doesn’t, I don’t need to let this just make my mind flush. I need to, okay, deep breath. I’ll figure it out. know, worrying about it now ain’t going to be helpful. And that’s one of the things I’ve found most helpful in my own journey is when you hit that hard times,

David Nino (18:33)
me.

Micah Johnson (18:58)
Don’t be surprised by how hard heart is and it gets us every time. As soon as you get that deep breath, slow everything down. All right. What is the actual issue? What can I actually take care of? What is that real next step? Obviously, I just don’t want the issue and I want it all solved, but that’s not how we solve things. It doesn’t just go away. You have to walk through these different steps, like even your eviction tenant, even the dead tenant.

David Nino (19:17)
Mm.

Micah Johnson (19:22)
Right? What was that like? All right. So let’s talk about that story for a second. You find a dead tenant in your property, then what?

David Nino (19:25)
You

Well, I mean, it was I had been getting calls from this guy, this guy’s daughter and just saying, hey, I haven’t heard from my dad. Do think you could go and check on it? And the guy, he was kind of a drinker. So I just figured I didn’t think too much of it. And but I did make it over there to the apartment building that day ⁓ and knocked on the door. No answer. Open the door with a master key. And he’s face down on the ground. It was sad. He was a nice guy. ⁓

I, yeah, so I, you know, call the authorities and let them know. And, um, yeah, it’s just one of them things that happened, man. I mean, it’s, uh, too bad, but.

Micah Johnson (20:07)
And how long was

the process? like from not to be like crass about it, but from when you found him, like, what are all the things you had to see? You called the authorities, they come remove them. And then what, how quick can you start working on the property again?

David Nino (20:16)
Yep.

Well, uh, so that, after they, after they, they came and moved them, they notified his family, his family notified me, they wanted to get his stuff out. So, um, I gave him a few weeks. I was, it was no, no rush. I was like, Hey, you know, just let me know when you guys are coming in town. Um, so within that month, that was probably two or three weeks they came and they removed all this stuff. They cleaned it out the apartment, you know, they, they got the apartment looking fine. Um, and.

Yeah, then I rented it out again next month. So yeah, it wasn’t a long process.

Micah Johnson (20:52)
Oh yeah, I wouldn’t think about that part, his stuff. Right? So that’s even helpful. It’s like, okay, there’s things, all the things that have to leave now since he’s not taking them out. Normally people just move out and they take their stuff.

David Nino (20:54)
Yeah.

Yeah, I mean,

his family was nice enough to come and do that where they didn’t really have to, you know, because I’ve had plenty of times tenants leave and they leave a lot of stuff behind and, you know, I’ve got to go and clean it out and stuff. but yeah, that was just one of those things, you know, just like I said, you do this long enough, you’re going to go through every situation.

Micah Johnson (21:06)
Right.

Right.

All right. Hit it. Hit us with a good one then opposite side. So besides death, what’s, what’s one that ranks up there high for you? Good.

David Nino (21:26)
Bad or good?

Good? I’d say probably let’s see about see 2020 I Okay, we live here on Mississippi River and I I’m a boat guy I like being out in the river on the water and I thought okay It’d be nice if I could if I had a place on the river So, okay, so I start thinking like okay, I’d like that but I don’t want to pay for it. Can I do that? So I found this property on the river

right on the river. ⁓ It needed some work, is, you know, that’s what I like to do, you know, because you get a good deal. So I ended up ⁓ experimenting with Airbnb. So I have this property on Airbnb and I spent a few months, you know, rehabbing it, you know, getting ready. And it’s been a solid Airbnb for the last five, six years, going on six years now. And when it’s not booked, I go out there, you know, like I said, it’s right on the river. So I got my river house getaway without having to pay for it.

Micah Johnson (22:20)
One of the benefits of real estate, man, it’s literally one of the only industries that encourages insider trading. Like the more you know, the better off everything is you get. It’s just like, in there. How can you keep using it? You’re you nailed rich dad, poor dad right there with turn it into an asset and then use it. And that’s the benefit of real estate. Like you’re talking, man, I love that because that’s what’s possible. Not many people can do things where you can literally think what you just thought and then bring it to life.

David Nino (22:21)
you know, so.

Yeah.

Micah Johnson (22:49)
I want a house on the river. I don’t want to pay for it. How do I do it? Okay. Boom. Find this house, fix it here, turn it into this hospitality business. Now it’s running and paying for itself and I get to come here and use it. And it’s just like, boom, that’s it. that’s real estate’s the number one wealth generator in the world for a reason, especially the American real estate market. Cause that’s just how powerful it is.

David Nino (23:12)
And I actually

did the same thing with my office building. needed a, since I’m a hands-on guy, need a place, an office to sign leases and a warehouse to store materials and they, okay, I need a building, but I don’t want to pay for it. So I found it used to be a butcher shop and there’s apartment on the second level. So I ran out the apartment, which pays for the whole building. And then I get to use, you know, the first floor as an office. So it was for free. So it’s the same thing, you know? But yeah, it’s just changing your mindset and you’re thinking.

you know, to that way, you know, going away from the norm, thinking out of the box, just that type of stuff.

Micah Johnson (23:44)
Right.

There’s all kinds of options, man. That’s what I love about it. It’s not, can’t, it’s how do I? What are my options here? And then you can start capitalizing. Well, man, I really appreciated our talk today. I think we need more folks out there doing what you’re doing, creating a real business, pulling it off, living the life you’ve always wanted. So for those watching and listening in that are interested in following along with you, see what you have going on. What’s the best way for them to find you?

David Nino (24:08)
You can probably reach out on Instagram. That would probably be the best way. I have a website also which displays all my rentals. You can reach out there too. But yeah, I’d say those two would probably be the best way to get a hold of me.

Micah Johnson (24:20)
Excellent,

excellent. If you’re watching or listening, we’ll make sure all of David’s links are in the show notes. Again, David, thanks for being here today, man. I appreciate you. For all those that are watching, listening, thank you. If you got value out of today’s episode, please like this episode, share it with someone else that could get value out of it. As always, please don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast. We appreciate every single one of you that follows along out there with us. We got more conversations coming up with operators just like David.

out there building the real business and creating the life they want in the industry. Thanks for being with us. We’ll see you on the next episode.

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How I Used BRRRR to Retire Early With Rental Properties

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