#8: Leveraging His Experience as an Appraiser to Build a Portfolio Using The BRRRR Strategy with Josiah Smelser

Jun 30, 2020

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Great episode today with Josiah Smelser - we discuss his background as an appraiser and how it has helped him successfully execute the BRRRR strategy over the last couple of years. We discuss how he is finding deals, financing deals, and numerous tips and tricks related to working with appraisers during purchases and refinances.

Josiah Smelser is a licensed appraiser, licensed broker, and former college finance professor. He has built a $4M portfolio of 1-4 unit properties over the last two years, is a host of the Daily Real Estate Investor podcast, and is the author of Dream It and Build It: How to Crush Your Real Estate Investing Goals.

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Time Stamps:

3:08 Josiah talks about his background in accounting and how he left the corporate world and shifted to the appraisal business.

7:56 Josiah shares how he used his experience as an appraiser to follow the BRRRR method and buy $4M of real estate in 24 months.

10:07 We learn firsthand from Josiah what helps increase the After Repair Value using data, educating appraisers on your business model, providing helpful documentation, and more.

15:04 Josiah discusses his first deal, a house hack, and how that grew his interest in real estate.

19:55 Josiah shares how he partnered with a friend to build a $4M portfolio consisting of 20+ units in just two years.

25:28 We discuss how he finds deals through wholesalers, off-market deals, and the MLS. We also discuss how to work with wholesalers to find larger multifamily opportunities.

39:05 We learn that the better the market, the harder it is to invest in BRRRR deals. We also discuss how to gauge the success of BRRRR deals (leaving money in a deal isn’t the end of the world)!

41:22 Josiah shares advice to prospective investors with 20-30k on how they should find a 2-4 unit and house hack, move out, and repeat the process.

44:05 We learn that finding private and hard money can be beneficial but personal reserves are essential to staying safe and minimizing risk when building a portfolio.

46:24 Josiah shares his plans of investing in 20+ unit deals and what some of his short-term business goals are.

48:12 Josiah shares what he wishes he did earlier in his real estate career, such as being more intentional in finding deals.