How I Got Paid $125,000 to Buy a 4-Unit Rental With $0 Down

Ever wonder how ordinary people create extraordinary wealth through real estate? The answer might be simpler than you think.

Imagine purchasing a multi-unit property, living there at a fraction of market rent, and walking away with a six-figure profit – all without spending a dime from your savings. This isn't some get-rich-quick scheme; it's a legitimate strategy I used to generate $125,000 in profit while drastically reducing my living expenses.

As both an airline pilot and part-time real estate investor, I discovered a powerful combination of tactics that allowed me to purchase a four-unit property using my VA loan (though FHA loans work similarly for non-veterans). The magic happened when I represented myself as my own agent, effectively getting paid over $10,000 at closing just to buy the property. With zero money down and no PMI, I moved into one unit while renting out the others.

The numbers tell the story: while most people in my area were paying $2,000 monthly in rent, my effective housing cost dropped to just $400-500 per month because tenant income covered nearly all expenses. For almost three years, I benefited from tax advantages, equity building, and debt reduction – all while living comfortably at minimal cost.

When it came time to sell, having lived there for the required period, I avoided capital gains tax and pocketed $115,000 in profit. Combined with my initial commission, the total benefit reached approximately $125,000 – from a property I never put a single dollar into purchasing.

The beauty of this approach is its accessibility. You don't need specialized knowledge or expensive courses – just willingness to temporarily live differently than most. In today's economy with inflation outpacing wage growth, this strategy offers a practical solution to the housing affordability crisis facing many Americans.

Ready to transform your financial future? Consider how house hacking a multi-unit property might be your first step toward building lasting wealth. Share your thoughts or questions in the comments – I'd love to hear about your real estate journey or help you start one.

Transcript

Introduction and Real Estate Hack

Speaker 0 0:00

Hey everybody , my name's Cole . I'm a part-time real estate investor , full-time legacy airline pilot and a part-time military instructor pilot . Today I'm gonna make a video simply about how I use a very easy hack to get myself a four unit and I end up getting paid over $10,000 to do it . Here's how it went down . I ended up representing myself as my own agent , so I already had my real estate license In the offer% commission that I want to get paid to represent myself . And because he was listing it off market , he didn't have to pay another agent , so he's more receptive to it . So he actually went for it and he said , okay , sounds good . So I ended up buying it . Throughout the whole loan process it was actually pretty straightforward . No one really cared if I was representing myself or not .

Speaker 0 0:36

Long story short , at the closing table I brought $0 down on the property because it was a VA loan , so it requires no money down . There's no PMI . There's a lot of benefits to the VA loan , but not everybody has a VA loan available to them . So if you're watching this and you're like , well , that'd be great , but I'm not a veteran , no big deal . There's FHA loans . There's other loan programs that usually can get you in the 1% to 3% down range .

Speaker 0 0:54

If you're a first-time homebuyer and you're going to live in the property , go buy yourself a duplex , a three unit , a four unit . It's not the most glamorous living , but in this day and age , in 2025 , where things are so expensive , inflation's through the roof and things are really hard to pull off on a normal income , you can actually use this to reduce your monthly expenses , and I know a lot of people say that their house is their biggest asset , but in most cases it's their biggest liability every month . So if you can reduce that number down in my case I was facing about $2,000 a month for rent and I actually was able to live in this property for about $400 or $500 a month If you can implement that in your own life , especially when you're starting out in a career maybe you just changed jobs , you just had a kid . Whatever the case may be , whatever financial stressors you might have

Buying Process and VA Loan Advantages

Speaker 0 1:37

, you can actually offset it by doing this . You don't have to be your own agent , you don't have to represent yourself like I did , but you still could buy a property for relatively cheap and then end up living in it for cheap because the tenants are gonna be paying your mortgage and usually your expenses . In my case , I think I was bringing in about $3,000 a month in income from all the rental units and it ended up actually covering basically exactly what I needed to own the building . Like I said , it was $370,000 purchase price . It was at 2.875 interest , obviously a far cry from the interest rate of today , but the same concept can still apply and you may not be able to live there for free . It may not be exactly breaking even , but you might be able to just feed it a couple hundred dollars a month , maybe five $600 a month , and that's still a far cry from what most people are going to have to pay to rent somewhere . So back to the deal .

Speaker 0 2:19

Like I said , represented myself , got to the closing table , didn't put any money down , moved into the property and here's the catch I lived there for almost three years as an owner , occupant and then I ended up renting it out and when I eventually went to sell the building now I'm no longer exposed to capital gains , which is a big drawback for selling a property the whole time I lived there , over the course of almost three years , the tenants were covering my expenses . I was paying down the mortgage . I had the tax benefit of having the mortgage , interest paid , depreciation all these other things working in my favor to help me . So I was hitting it from all different angles and at the end I ended up paying down the mortgage a bunch . When I went to sell the property , I had a pretty big delta between what it was worth and what I paid for it . In only three years I ended up selling it and making about $115,000 . At closing I got paid over $10,000 to buy the property . Then I paid down the loan . Over a couple of years I was no longer exposed to capital gains tax and I sold it for $115,000 profit . So I literally never put a single dime into the deal and I ended up clearing about $125,000 .

Speaker 0 3:17

There's nowhere

Living in the Property and Benefits

Speaker 0 3:18

else you could do that , and this is available to any first-time home buyer . You don't need to buy a course . You don't need to become somebody's mentee to learn how to do this . It's really as simple as go find a deal that you think will at least maybe break even or get close to it and then go use one of these owner-occupied programs to get your foot in the door for a relatively low amount down . That's really important these days , because people are getting squeezed like never before . Inflation is killing people because their wages are not keeping up with it , not even close and so if you need to find a hack to try to get yourself on the right track , no matter where you are in life , I think this one is massively overlooked by people Everyone's chasing , you know , keeping up with the Joneses . They want to be , they want to show people that they've made it and everything . But if you're willing to take a couple of years step back , it can really propel you into a totally different financial future than you might've had otherwise . I know it's not sexy . I know it's not cool .

Speaker 0 4:03

I'm living in a rental right now . I have dozens of rental properties and I rent myself , so I totally get it . I'm still living that way , but if you can just take the moment to try to learn about this , I think it's a really powerful tool and it's something that I've used multiple times between FHA loans and VA loans to get myself properties and get in and out of them with a relatively low amount down . Now you can still buy a bad If you do some due diligence , you do some time reading and researching and trying to understand deals from the inside out . I think you can make an educated decision to go buy yourself a solid property and , worst case scenario , you're feeding it a couple hundred dollars a month , but that's way better than what it would cost you to rent , and I know I just made a video about how I rent and how I think that's a great alternative to buying something right now .

Speaker 0 4:45

But the caveat that I would have to that is , if you're looking at a rental property and you think you can live there for free or close to free , I think it's worth looking at . And I know a lot of people are going to say , well , you should never buy anything . That's cashflow negative . But in this case it's a little bit different because if you're living there , the dynamics of it all change . It's not a pure investment property , it's also your residence , and so that's exactly what I did .

Speaker 0 5:05

Like I said , getting a real estate license is a relatively inexpensive way to get your foot in the door . It still costs money , it still costs your time , which is extremely

The Financial Outcome and Profit

Speaker 0 5:12

valuable , but I think it's worth considering because now you can represent yourself in deals and I represented myself as a selling agent . I represented myself as a buying agent for my investments , for the places I've lived in everywhere in between , and then from there I would build on top of that . Keep your day job , though . If you have a job , don't quit your job to try to do this , because you're going to need to be able to qualify for a loan . There's a lot that goes into qualifying for loans . I'm not going to get into that right now because I want to make this video quick , but the idea is to go find a place that you can live in as an owner , occupant and rent it out , live in it while it's partially rented and then either move out of it and sell it or rent it out and continue to hold property for the future . But that's a way to get your foot in the door without having to have 20% down , 25% down , these massive numbers . This is a way you can get in relatively inexpensively and really build yourself a solid foundation for the future . So I implore you to look into this .

Speaker 0 5:59

I'm not the end-all , be-all knowledge on this . I just wanted to talk about it and I thought it was important . Headed out for the airline tomorrow , headed to LA , so this will be my last nice video for at least the next day or two , I'll do some layover talks from there . If you spend any amount of time

Final Thoughts and Future Videos

Speaker 0 6:12

watching this video , and especially if you made it to this point , you could be doing anything on the internet right now and you're listening to me talk about real estate . I genuinely , genuinely appreciate your support . I'm going to continue to try to put out solid videos and if you have any suggestions , please let me know in the comments . I appreciate any comments likes .