{"id":188510,"date":"2026-07-07T13:12:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T19:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/?p=188510"},"modified":"2026-07-07T13:13:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T19:13:38","slug":"deal-diary-remington-lyman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/deal-diary-remington-lyman","title":{"rendered":"Deal Diary: The $80K Deal That Turned Into a 24-Unit Building"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

Name<\/span><\/p>\n<\/th>\n

\n

Remington Lyman<\/span><\/p>\n<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n

Location<\/span><\/td>\nColumbus, Ohio<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Occupation<\/span><\/td>\nReal estate investor & brokerage owner<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Assets<\/span><\/td>\n~100 residential units and four commercial deals, including a 24-unit apartment building and a 24,000-square-foot warehouse<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Investment strategy<\/span><\/td>\nHouse hacking, BRRRR, partnership structuring, commercial (triple net lease, opportunity zone), medium-term rentals<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Financing<\/span><\/td>\nConventional house hack financing, cash purchases with delayed financing\/refinancing, JV equity splits, 1031 exchange<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Remington Lyman was a Division I rifle athlete turned finance analyst at J.P. Morgan, and by every conventional measure, he was doing everything right. Then his boss handed him a 2% raise at review time and called it excellent work.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Remington did the math and realized that <\/span>number<\/span> didn’t even keep pace with inflation.<\/span><\/em> Rather than wait for the next review cycle, he and his roommate skipped paying a landlord and bought a duplex instead. Three months later, he bought a fourplex.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Two years after that, JP Morgan laid him off, and what could have been a crisis turned into the pivot that let him go all-in on real estate.<\/span><\/em> He now owns roughly 100 residential units, four commercial properties, and 50% of a 45-agent brokerage.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Here’s how he built it.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

You started with almost nothing and a roommate splitting rent. How did that turn into your first deal?<\/span><\/h2>\n

My roommate and I were living in a rundown apartment in Columbus, splitting $600 a month, so $300 each. <\/span>We used <\/span>that<\/span> savings to put<\/span> a <\/span>down <\/span>payment<\/span> on our first duplex, which cost about $330,000 back in 2017.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We did every bit of the renovation ourselves: leasing, mowing the grass, all of it. Once we leased up the other side and found a third roommate to fill our unit, we were living almost rent-free and clearing about $50 a month on top <\/span>of it<\/span>. That’s what got us hooked.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Three months later, we bought a fourplex the same way. <\/span>To move faster, we stopped being roommates on every deal and started taking turns: I’d <\/span>house hack<\/span><\/a> one property, he’d <\/span>house hack<\/span> the next, so we weren’t stuck waiting <\/span>six<\/span> months to a year between purchases.<\/span> We got to three properties and 10 units in about a year and a half doing it that way.<\/span><\/p>\n

The deal that really scaled your portfolio was a four-unit you bought for $80,000. Walk us through that one.<\/span><\/h2>\n

I’d been cold-calling property owners off the county auditor’s list every morning before work. I found a four-unit in an up-and-coming neighborhood called Franklinton.<\/span><\/p>\n

The owner wanted $80,000, but it needed a full eviction and about $150,000 in renovations. I had $75,000 saved from getting laid off, so I borrowed another $10,000 from my mom and bought it in cash. Then I brought it to a mentor I’d met through cold calling, and he agreed to fund the entire $150,000 renovation for 50% of the deal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We put in about $230,000 total between purchase and rehab, renovated it, and got it appraised at $400,000 to $450,000. <\/span>We <\/span>refinanced<\/span><\/a> after the standard <\/span>six-month<\/span> seasoning period and pulled out all <\/span>of<\/span> our money, plus extra.<\/span> Later, we <\/span>1031-exchanged<\/span><\/a> that same four-unit property for a 24-unit apartment building we still own today.<\/span><\/p>\n

How did you actually find that mentor, and how did you structure the partnership so it was fair to both sides?<\/span><\/h2>\n

I met him through the same cold calling I was doing for deals. I’d call property owners off a list, and one older owner who didn’t want to sell referred me to his agent instead.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I started meeting that agent for a beer once a month after work, and that relationship became my first real mentorship. When I brought him the Franklinton deal, we drafted a simple operating agreement: I contributed the property, which I already owned in cash, plus a bit of extra capital to match his contribution, and he funded the renovation. Once we refinanced, we split the proceeds 50-50.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There was no complicated waterfall or preferred return\u2014just a clean equal split tied to what each of us actually put in.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rates went up in 2022, and you’d already hit 80 units. What made you shift into commercial deals like the warehouse?<\/span><\/h2>\n

At that point, I was self-managing 80 units, and it was a lot; plus, I’d just bought a house with my wife, so <\/span>the house-hack strategy was done<\/span>. I wanted something that scaled without multiplying my management burden, so I bought a 24,000-square-foot warehouse with a business partner for about $600,000, invested roughly half a million in renovations, and signed a 10-year triple-net lease with a tenant.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In a <\/span>triple net<\/span> lease, the tenant covers taxes, repairs, and <\/span>every<\/span> other <\/span>cost<\/span> an owner would normally absorb, so it’s predictable income with almost no surprises on my end.<\/span> The building also sits in an opportunity zone, which means if we hold it for the full 10 years, we won’t owe capital gains tax when we sell.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That single deal is now <\/span>cash-flowing<\/span><\/a> a few thousand dollars a month and sets up a tax-free exit down the road.<\/span><\/p>\n

What’s working for you right now in a higher-rate environment, and what are you building toward?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Medium-term rentals<\/span><\/a> have been the biggest lever lately. <\/span>I convert some residential units to month-to-month or <\/span>up to<\/span> year-long leases for traveling nurses, contractors, and students, and I collect 50% to 100% more than I would on a standard long-term lease, with far less turnover and management than a short-term rental.<\/span> A property manager runs about 10 of those units for me and only takes 15%.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Longer term, I want to keep adding commercial assets, keep growing the brokerage since every successful agent I bring on creates more deal flow for me too, and I just had my first daughter, so a big part of this is building something that can support a large family long-term.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Name Remington Lyman Location Columbus, Ohio Occupation Real estate investor & brokerage owner Assets ~100 residential units and four commercial deals, including a 24-unit apartment building and a 24,000-square-foot warehouse […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":613755,"featured_media":169910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4252],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-deal-analysis"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/613755"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}