| Name | Neil Whitney |
| Location | Picayune, Mississippi |
| Work | HVAC business owner and real estate investor |
| Goods | 23 apartments (2 fourplexes, 6 duplexes, 3 single-family homes) |
| Investment strategy | Long Term Employment |
| Financing | Conventional loans and HELOCs |
At the age of 47, Neil Whitney ran an HVAC company in Slidell, Louisiana, and worked every hour he had. He and his wife were not struggling in any significant way. They have been stuck on a living wage, with no cushion and no retirement plan.
Then one On a rainy weekend, his wife pulled him into the back room to watch a Lifetime movie. A man gets hit by a garbage truck, loses his job, and ends up living in a minivan under a bridge with his family. It scared Neil, and he felt like he was in terrible danger of being like that boy.
The following Monday, his manager gave him a copy Rich Dad, Poor Dad. After reading, he told his wife that they needed to get into real estate. He said okay, but on one condition: He couldn’t touch their bank account. So he signed up for Uber, and after 18 months, he had $16,000 saved and bought his first rental property.
Less than a decade later, Neil owns 23 doors and pulls in $8,000 a month in revenue. Here’s how he did it.
You had no savings and couldn’t touch your bank account. How did you pay your down payment?
I drove Uber every free moment I had: Friday night, Saturday, Sunday. I had a place next to a swamp tour that came in every day at 11, and I caught that airport coming into town every other week.
After about 18 months, I had saved enough money to buy a small 900 square foot, two bedroom house in Pearl River, Louisiana, for $70,000. I put $14,000 down on a conventional mortgage. The previous owner had already fixed it up with new tile, crown molding, and new paint, so we were able to rent it for about $800 a month and put about $100 down after the mortgage. It wasn’t life-changing money, but we were in the game.
How did you go from one single family home to 23 doors?
The second agreement changed everything. I found out how much equity I had built up in my primary home and took out a HELOC to buy an MLS-listed fourplex for $312,000. Put 25% down using that line of credit, keep renters already in the $650 per unit area, and renovate each unit as people move out with new cabinets, tables, and vanities.
Our rents range from $650 to $1,000 per unit. The fourplex now brings in $4,000 a month. We paid off the HELOC well immediately and stored repeating the same formula: Find out deal on the market, buy it in normal currency, fix it later, raise the rent, repeat.
What do you tell someone who thinks they are too old or too broken to start?
Make a decision. Not “I’ll try.” Just make a real decision.
At 47, I had nothing. I called an Uber in the middle of the night to collect my down payment. Nobody gave me anything. But I decided I wasn’t going to be that guy in the movie, and I never looked back.
If I can do this, anyone can. The basics really work. You buy properties, put them into cash flow, treat your tenants like the best customers you’ve ever had, and never sell.
It’s not rocket science. It’s just boring basics done consistently for a long time the time.
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