Free Houses: How to Build a $1 Million Real Estate Portfolio on the Side

Austin Miller built a $1.2 million real estate portfolio at 31 years old — for free.

He’s a side hustling real estate investor specializing in “creative” financing deals — houses he can buy without using his own money.

His basic strategy is this:

Find a killer deal on a house that needs some work.
Buy it with the creative financing methods Austin talks about in this episode.
Either do the work yourself or hire contractors.
Put a paying tenant in the newly rehabbed home.
Refinance the home with a traditional bank loan and pay back the original funding source.

The end game is positive monthly cash flow from rental income, plus building a long-term wealth through tenants paying off the mortgage.

Austin has developed some unique and interesting ways to hard money and private money to fund his property purchases.

The best part – it’s truly a side hustle that can be done in a few hours a week the end result is passive income from rental revenue.

Tune in to hear how Austin finds killer deals, buys the houses without risking his own capital, and then rehabs them to get ready to rent.

Related: Want to get into real estate without the work? Check out the popular Roofstock marketplace for turnkey rental properties nationwide.

Table of Contents show

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How Austin got his start in the real estate market with none of his own capital.
How he finds great real estate deals and calculates the potential profit.
His creative acquisition strategies to buy houses without his own money.
How he limits his liability and does his due diligence before buying a property.
How he bought a house on his credit card with a 0% loan. (Check out my free course Credit Card Rewards 101!)
Austin’s #1 tip for Side Hustle Nation.

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Join the free Side Hustle Nation Community. The free Facebook group is the best place to connect with other side hustlers and get your questions answered.
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Russ

July 19, 2018 at 3:40 pm

I haven’t listened to the episode yet but I own a few rental properties (<5) and cash flow more than $3k monthly and my portfolio is not even close to $1M. Seems low – am I missing something that I'll catch by listening?
- Nick Loper
  
  July 21, 2018 at 2:32 pm
  
  Austin didn’t give me an exact cash flow figure, just that he aimed for at least $200 a door per month.
Don S

July 20, 2018 at 9:12 am

Without a lot of experience backing you, no hard money lender will fund 100%, they are usually around 70-75% LTV so you still need money up-front, unless you get additional private money or something to fill the gap. Just wanted to clarify so that people don’t think the hard money lenders will give you 100% of the purchase and rehab. You may still need some money up front, but once it is done and you can refi, you should then be able to get all borrowed money back. Unless you were off on your calculations. But yes, creative financing is the name of the game. You can possibly access retirement funds if your plan allows you to borrow. I borrowed from my 401k to purchase a great cash flowing property. No penalty, I pay it back to my 401k with interest that goes back to me as well.
Jagriti Singh

July 4, 2019 at 11:38 pm

Not surprisingly, property prices have stagnated or fallen in many cities, especially where investment demand was a big driver of the real estate market.