On The Market - Podcast Rankings and reviews

I started listening to On The Market and other BP podcasts in 2019, when I was fortunate enough to become an "accidental landlord" through an inheritance of property in California. As a New York City resident with no real estate background, I had no idea what I was doing initially. Through many BP podcasts I got up to speed on topics like property management, pros and cons of LLCs, building in-market teams of professionals and more.

In 2024 I started putting several learnings I picked up from BP into action:
1) After a long-term tenant moved out in June, I decided on selling the single family home I inherited in Norwalk, CA. I ran several scenarios on how much to upgrade the home (or not) and ultimately decided to put in close to $100k in work to go for top dollar in a fairly low-supply market. As a result, I quickly had 9 offers after listing in September, including 5 over list price and the winning offer almost $50k over list. The return on my $100k of renovations was around $150k over what an as-is sale to a flipper would have yielded. (50% return on ~2.5 months of being out of pocket).
2) Trying to fund the renovations above wasn't straightforward, since I didn't have $100k of cash just sitting around. After looking at various funding options, I realized that the best option would be to borrow cash from a couple life insurance policies I have had for decades. I was able to tap about $75k at rates from 5.3-5.7% relatively quickly, and fund the rest of the work out of savings. For the ~2.5 months or so of renovations my lending costs were a few $1000s, easily covered by the higher sale price. I repaid all of my policy loans after closing, so can tap these funds again in future if needed. Thank you for constantly plugging "just run the numbers" to your audience.
3) I wanted to keep my equity in real estate, but closer to home instead of in CA, so also took advantage of the BP market analysis tools, as well as suggestions for setting up a team in a new market. After looking at NYC and other markets, I decided to reinvest in Rochester, NY, which is performing fairly well and is much more affordable than NYC. BP's deal analysis tools helped me quickly evaluate several deals and start making offers quickly. I was pretty conservative in underwriting so didn't win out on my first offers, but in November I purchased a duplex near downtown in a highly walkable / travel friendly part of town. Rents are in the range of $3k/month on a $325k purchase, so not quite hitting the "1% rule" m, but close enough for me to be comfortable getting into the market.

Thank you to everyone on the BP team for covering a wide range of topics - many of those were valuable for me in 2024 and I hope to make more progress on my investing in 2025!

Hi guys, Love your podcast , market trends etc, but the panel in the show are real estate sellers, they POV focused on selling real estate. I wanted view from buy and hold investors, real investors but not from short term flippers boasting how they made success. In the recent episode they were all encouraging each other don’t worry we will find a buyer ( meaning someone buy and hold) and somehow make the deal work for sellers. I strongly suggest to add a buy and long term hold investor in the panel

Love the show, and the panel. My biggest complaint is the length in ads. The most recent show had 19 minutes of content and 8 minutes of ads. It’s hard to get into the flow of a topic when an add jumps in so often. I find myself listening to housing wire instead as a result of this.

Love this podcast and the diversity of hosts! I always learn something new and look forward to new podcast episodes!

One of the biggest disappointments in the podcast world is the demise of Bigger Pockets content. It has devolved from hearing actual industry professionals sharing strategies, tactics and lessons; to a reactionary daily diatribe about what today’s political news means for interest rates (with a 5 minute side bar about bond investing and how it actually controls mortgage rates…)and thus the real estate market. I have no doubt Dave Meyer is a good guy, and even an effective investor in his personal style. However his lack of hands on expertise and active participation in real estate means his lessons for listeners ended after 3 podcasts. His breakdown of macro economics is certainly important - but important to study one a quarter or when something actually noteworthy pops up. It is extremely difficult to even distinguish one episode from the next at this point because it is a pointless rehashing of the same talking points. Where are the actual operators like Henry Washington and James Dainerd? At least the Rookie podcast still actually addresses real operators. Obviously losing Brandon Turner and David Greene is unfortunate, but there are so many better sources of information than Dave Meyer. Bring him in as a guest once a month and call it good, he can give us his political take “regardless of how we view Trump’s policies”. I have talked with others and know my opinion is widely held, do better Bigger Pockets.